A woman's suitcase containing her late partner's ashes was taken from a train by mistake. Laura Bayliss, 42, was travelling from Oxfordshire to Holywell Bay in Cornwall with her sister to spread the ashes of late fiancé Gavin Hatton where they used to visit together on holiday.
The train was so busy that Laura had to leave the suitcase in a luggage rack. When they got off at Par, Laura noticed her suitcase looked dirtier and lighter than before. She realised the ashes of Gavin had been mistakenly taken by another train passenger.
Social media appeal
Laura appealed on social media, which was shared 5,000 times, and a passenger who was travelling from Newcastle to Bristol Temple Meads station said they had picked up the bag by mistake. Luckily Laura got the ashes back and she was able to spread them as planned.
Laura, a financial accountant, said: "The case was too big to go with me, so I had to put it in the luggage rack. My sister picked the luggage off the rack, and then I picked it up and thought it was quite light and locked and realised 'this is not my case' and I got into a bit of a panic."
Fear of not getting it back
She added: "I was fearful I was not going to be able to get it back. Because of what they were going to find on that case, we just don't know how someone is going to react when they open it."
Gavin wanted to be scattered at Holywell Bay, where we used to go on holiday. We did a lot of walks down to that beach. It was a place filled of happy memories.
Five years to feel ready
Laura said it took her five years to feel ready to spread her fiancé's ashes after he took his own life following a struggle with living with long Covid at the age of 53. She was also carrying the ashes of their two dogs, Jed and Ralfy, which she planned to scatter in Holywell Bay.
Laura said: "We've been on a number of holidays in that area. He'd asked that I scatter his ashes there and the dogs' ashes as well.
"It was absolute relief that they managed to find me and to then arrange to get it back to me. I was reliant on someone coming forward."
Laura collected the bag on August 14 and was able to make a last-minute trip back down to Holywell Bay last weekend (August 22), where she scattered the ashes.
