Sharon Longhurst Wiki
Sharon Longhurst biography
Who was Sharon Longhurst?
Sharon Longhurst, 45, and her husband Andy, 55, found the packet of Pickled Onion Tudor Crisps in Dunnikier Park, Kirkcaldy last week.
The couple, from Burntisland Fife, took home the package, which has not faded or decomposed, and washed away the dirt to reveal its price of just 2.5p along with a contest to win a free football badge, dated closing 1973. .
Mrs Longhurst, a mother of three, said she couldn’t believe she had been hiding in the park for 50 years without anyone noticing.
The pair’s discovery came when environmentalist Oly Rush, 37, found a bottle of Doby’s, believed to date from the mid-1950s, amongst seaweed in Chapman’s Pool near Swanage, Dorset.
The 1.5-pint molded container, made by Thawpit Ltd of Manchester, still bears a legible message that reads “By Royal Appointment.
Mr Rush, a plasterer from Poole
Rush, a plasterer from Poole, said it is the oldest plastic container he has found washed up and he knows of no older examples.
He said: ‘This just goes to show how long plastics last. They’re horrible for the environment and while I’ve pulled tons of that stuff off local beaches, this is the oldest thing I’ve ever found.
I’m not sure if it’s been in the water the whole time or if it’s come off a cliff, but either way it wasn’t doing any good. If we can all do a little to reduce plastic waste, the environment will slowly get better and better for all of us and for wildlife.”
Rush, a plasterer from Poole, said it is the oldest plastic container he has found washed up and he knows of no older examples.
Rush swam around the Isle of Wight in a record 15 hours last year to raise £12,000 for environmental charities.
He is swimming around Grand Cayman in May, a 65-mile route he hopes to complete in 30 hours, to raise awareness of plastic pollution.
who found the chips
Mrs. Longhurst and her husband, the bus driver, who found the chips, are considering framing the package, which is the oldest thing they’ve found picking up trash.
Mrs Longhurst, from Burntisland Fife, said: ‘We went to Dunnikier Park where we regularly collect litter and were going to clean up a well-known drinking hole.
‘When we looked towards the edge of the road and saw the ground where there were many packages sticking out. You could see the little plastic corners so we thought we should fix it.
‘We started pulling corners and packages were coming out and we couldn’t believe our eyes. It started with a 2005 pack, then a 2000 pack, then 1995, 1990 — it was like a game of Top Trumps.
‘We kept pulling them out and found a Littlewoods bag too and a pack from 1989. Then my husband Andy said ‘Oh my God, look at this’ and when we removed the dirt we saw the 2.5p on the front of the Tudor Crisps bag from pickled onion.
‘We kept trying to find the date and we were rubbing dirt off the back. It was incredible. We couldn’t believe it when we saw the date and how intact the package was. It hasn’t faded and hasn’t decomposed at all, which is pretty scary in a way.
‘Someone in the 1970s ate a packet of potato chips and here is the packet today in Dunnikier Park. The package is older than me.
Investigation
Tudor Crisps was founded in Sunderland in 1947 and moved to Newcastle in 1961 when Smiths Crisps acquired the brand.
The brand was known for its unusual choice of flavors at the time, including ketchup, hot dog and mustard, and pickled onions.
During the 1970s, sales of Tudor potato chips soared thanks to the company’s advertising campaign.
It featured a paperboy, bribed with a “Tudor sack of cunning” to deliver newspapers to a Gateshead tower.
The brand was phased out in 2003.
Ms Longhurst posted photos of the chips on Facebook after finding them last week and said she had had childhood memories of them.
She said: ‘Ever since we posted the photos, people have said ‘they were my favorites at school and I used to have them every day’.
‘Or that ”they were his favorite potato chips since childhood,” so it has brought back a lot of memories for a lot of people, which is really good.
It’s the oldest thing our group has found so far. It’s crazy to think how many people have walked past that packet of chips in the last 50 years.
‘God knows what else is in there, but that was a little gem.
