Fife litter pickers find Tudor pickled onion crisp packet from 1973 buried in Kirkcaldy park

Burntisland couple Sharon and Andy Longhurst, 55, were picking up litter in a well-known hotspot in Dunnikier Park when they noticed the crisp packets peeking out from the base of a tree.

When they started pulling them out, they were shocked to find that one of them – a pickled onion Tudor Crisps bag – dated back to the 1970s and it was priced just 2.5p!

Sharon, 45, explained: “On Tuesday we went over to Dunnikier Park where we regularly litter pick and we were just going to clean up a well-known drinking den, when we looked to the edge of the path and saw the ground where there were lots of packets sticking up.

Sharon and Andy Longhurst with the packet of Tudor Crisps from 1973 which they found this week in Dunnikier Park.

"You could see the little corners of plastic so we thought we should tidy it up. We started pulling the corners and the packets were coming out and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing!

"It started off with a packet from 2005, then one from 2000, then 1995, 1990 – it was like a game of Top Trumps!

"We kept pulling them out and we found a Littlewoods bag as well and a packet from 1989.

The Tudor Crisp packet was amazingly still intact.

"Then my husband Andy said “Look at this, oh my goodness look at this one!” and when we rubbed away the dirt, we saw the 2.5p on the front of the bag of pickled onion Tudor Crisps! We kept trying to find the date and we were rubbing the dirt off the back of it."

Sharon said they took it home, gave it a wash and saw there was a competition on the back of it where you could earn a free football badge and the closing date was June 30, 1973!

She continued: “It was unbelievable! We couldn’t believe it when we saw the date and how intact the packet was. It hasn’t faded and hasn’t decomposed at all, which is pretty scary in a way.

Sharon and Andy were shocked to discover the crisp packet dated back to June 30, 1973.

"Someone in the 1970s has eaten a packet of crisps and here is the packet today in Dunnikier Park! The packet is older than me! The other packets were KP crisps – the 1989 packet was a KP Thunderbirds packet and Frisps – they had been so incased together that it prevented them from decomposing. It was unbelievable.”

Sharon, who has been a member of litter picking group Fife Street Champions since the first lockdown, said since they have posted pictures of the packet on the group’s Facebook page, it has brought back a lot of memories for the group’s members.

She said: “Since we posted the pictures people have said: ‘Oh they were my favourite at school and I used to have them every day’ or that ‘they were their favourite crisps from childhood’, so it has brought back a lot of memories for a lot of people, which is really nice.

The packed of pickled onion Tudor Crisps costed just 2.5p.

"It is the oldest thing our group has found so far!”

Sharon, who is now considering framing her special find, added: “It’s crazy to think how many people have walked past that crisp packet in the last 50 years!

"Goodness knows what else is there. but that one was a little gem.”

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