A badly damaged message in a bottle found by a Scottish canoe club during a beach cleanup turned out to have been put into the water by a young student about 25 years earlier.

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David Shand, who found the plastic bottle while participating in the Pentland Canoe Club's beach cleanup at a coastal inlet in the Occumster area, said the small piece of paper inside was extremely faded and difficult to read.

The note appeared to had been written by a young girl named Lynn, but only the first few letters of her surname were legible.

Photos of the bottle were circulated on Facebook and the note was shared with staff at Rothes Primary School, which seemed likely to have been the young girl's school based on the information gleaned from the damaged note.

The former student was eventually identified as Lynn Mighten, now named Lynn Gardner.

Gardner said she threw the message in a bottle into the water near the school, where it was then apparently carried away by the River Spey. She said she was 7 or 8 when she wrote the note, making it about 25 years old.

Shand said he talked with Gardner on the phone and he is now mailing her note back to her.