Mystery man delivering romance novels around Eastbourne makes confession

Richard Dalziel, 59, claims he is the one who has been randomly delivering romance novels to mailboxes in Eastbourne. Photo / RNZ

By Bill Hickman of RNZ

A Lower Hutt man claims he is the one who has been randomly delivering racy fiction to mailboxes in the harbourside community of Eastbourne.

Titles such as Shirlee Busbee’s Midnight Masquerade and Barbara Benedict’s Lovestorm had been appearing in mailboxes, leaving the community all aflutter over who was behind the spicy deliveries.

Richard Dalziel, 59, said he had been working to clear a space in the home of a family friend and had come across “three to four apple boxes” of the colourfully titled books.

He said he often fished in the bays around Eastbourne and had been having fun popping the books into people’s mailboxes “for a joke”.

Midnight Masquerade was found in an Eastbourne letterbox last week, while Lovestorm was delivered to Dawn Brannigan's Eastbourne home. Photo / RNZ

“I’m not dropping them off thinking ‘they might want a bit of something on the side’ or anything like that.

“No, it’s random and as far away from my house as I can get,” Dalziel said.

“People have been guessing ‘is he a spoon lover, is he handsome?’ this and that. The reality is that it was a prank and I’ve done it before and nobody said anything.”

Dalziel, a painter and table tennis enthusiast, said he grew up in the area and had recently returned.

He said he enjoyed hearing people in the community discussing who was behind the books.

“Guys were in the coffee shop saying have you seen this about the guy putting these books in [mailboxes] and I said, ‘That’s me!’. I laughed, I went, ‘Oh my god, I’ve made the news’,” Dalziel said.

Dalziel said it took about two or three days to distribute the books around the community.

He said he had no plans to drop off any more but he might consider popping a few flyers into letterboxes for an informal table tennis league he was hoping to set up.

– RNZ

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