Plea for missing snaps Australian family lost in Huddersfield – have you found the camera?

A FAMILY are appealing for treasured photos to be returned to them.

The Dargan family from Australia were visiting friends and relatives in Huddersfield over Christmas and New Year.

But a camera belonging to former All Saints High School pupil Lena Dargan, nee Burke, went missing – she thinks it fell out of her bag in a taxi.

And while the mother-of-two isn’t worried if she never gets the camera back, she would like the memory card returned as it contains treasured photographs of her children seeing snow for the first time.

“If you picked up my camera I am appealing to you to please return the memory card to me – I don’t care about the camera.

“These photos mean nothing to you but they mean the world to us,” she said.

Lena, who was a pupil a St Joseph’s Primary School, was visiting family in Waterloo with husband Pat, daughter Luca, three, and son Callan, 13 months.

On Wednesday, December 29, Lena had enjoyed dinner with two old school friends and got a taxi from the rank outside McDonalds.

Lena, who now teaches at a special needs school in Campbelltown, on the outskirts of south-west Sydney, said: “I returned to the taxi rank but apparently there are 200 independent drivers.

“There are photos on there that are so precious to us – my son’s first birthday, my three-year-old daughter seeing and playing in snow for the first time, Christmas with my parents, brothers, sisters and nephews and photos of our time in Ireland with my husband’s family.”

And it’s sentimental for their wider family too – her father-in-law tragically died on the day they flew over to be reunited with family for Christmas.

“I know a lot of Pat’s family were looking forward to receiving copies of the photos,” she added.

“I’m devastated that I took my camera out that night and that it managed to slip out of my bag.

“There were maybe over 150 photos on the memory card of our time in Kilkenny and Huddersfield.

“I have them in my head as I loved looking through them but now I have nothing to show my kids of their time in England and Ireland.”

If you have the missing memory card please call Examiner reporter Joanne Douglas on 01484 437762, email joanne.douglas@examiner.co.uk or bring it into the Examiner office at Queen Street South, Huddersfield. We will make sure it is returned to the Dargan family.