Journey to the stars

A grieving schoolboy who posted a letter to his great-grandmother in heaven received a heart-warming reply from Reading postman, Vinnie Eames.

Nine-year-old Dylan Dubber addressed the envelope ‘To Heaven’ before popping it in the postbox. A week later, a letter arrived to reassure him that his touching note to ‘great-nan Monica,’ who died last month, was on ‘a very special journey to the stars so that it reaches her today.’ It was signed by ‘Vincent Eames, Royal Mail Pearly Gates Response Unit.’

‘I have been an acting line manager at East Reading for the past few months and Dylan’s regular postman, Pete Jacob, brought the letter to me and asked me to read it,’ said Vinnie. ‘The letter brought us both to tears, so we thought it would be a good idea to respond in some way.

‘Dylan’s mum, Rachel, reached out to me via email and Facebook later that day thanking me and said it had helped cheer her son up. That really made my day as that was our intention. We just wanted to give the boy a bit of help with processing his loss.

‘I have two young children myself and they recently lost their great grandmother. My eldest, who is six, struggled with the loss. He still speaks fondly of her and often gets upset that she’s no longer with us. My wife and I were very honest and explained how death is a natural part of life.’

Rachel told The Sun: ‘It was just the nicest thing. It’s definitely helped Dylan with his grief. It was his first experience of loss and he is autistic so struggled to understand the emotion he was feeling.

‘It’s really quite special. The fact that he went out of his way to make a little boy feel better really is something. I just really appreciate what he did.’

Dylan's great-nan, Monica Dubber, 84, died on 10 July.