Fifty-year-old crisp packet found in garden

Curtis Lancaster,BBC News

A new homeowner has found a crisp packet from nearly half a century ago in his back garden.

Cenk Albayrak-Touye was renovating his home in Poole, Dorset when he made the discovery.

He said: “I dug up the turf in the back garden and found a load of items but it was the yellow packaging that caught my eye.”

The Quavers crisp packet has the date 31 October 1975 printed on it, which links to a competition of some kind.

Quavers were first sold in 1968, originally made by Smiths in their factory on Newark Road in the Bracebridge area of Lincoln.

It is believed the name came about because the potato snack resembles the shape of the quaver musical note.

Mr Albayrak-Touye said he has found multiple items of old packaging, including an old beer bottle from Dorchester brewery “Eldridge Pope.”

He said he recently bought the home from an elderly couple and decided to renovate the garden.

He added: “It’s like a little time capsule down there.

“As cool as it is to find these things it is also pretty scary that it’s been under the ground for nearly double my lifetime and it’s just sitting there completely intact.”

The crisp packet came from a time when Labour’s Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister, Derby County won English football’s First Division and The Bay City Rollers had the best-selling single of the year with Bye Bye Baby.

Since 1997 the Quavers have been produced by Walkers.

In March a Walkers “Cheese and Owen” crisp packet from 1999, featuring former football stars Michael Owen and Gary Lineker was found during a litter pick in Oxfordshire.

Walkers is now owned by PepsiCo, and a spokesperson from the company said: “We recognise that litter is a huge problem and we want to play a role in addressing this challenge. 

“That’s why we’ve been supporting the Great British Spring Clean for the past six years, with our teams joining efforts to clean up local communities.

“We’re also continuing to invest heavily to make our packaging more easily recyclable, as well as reducing the plastic packaging we use.”