Maltese Man Gets All Of Ireland To Help Him Find His Daughter’s Lost Doll
As the last months of summer 2017 were ending, Guy Galea wanted to take his wife and daughter on their yearly vacation to Ireland – but he could never have imagined that a small mishap could lead to a coordinated effort by Irish people on each side of the country to help them find their daughter’s lost Cinderella doll.
“It’s all to do with a taxi driver, but I suppose that I should start from the beginning and give you some background,” Guy Galea told Lovin Malta.
“Every city, Dublin included, has a Disney store, and every little girl and not-so-little girl loves to go in them, so I let my daughter look through the whole shop and choose one thing that she would like to take home with her. She went for a nice set of eleven Disney princesses, and was very pleased with herself,” he said.
The next day, the family headed towards Newgrange.
“My wife being the archaeologist that she is makes sure we get to see all the important historical sites. So, we got a train to the nearest town, Drogheda, and caught a taxi to the site,” said Guy.
The taxi driver was a “very nice and chatty guy” named Tony, and he gave Guy his number to call him when they were ready to go back.
“After spending a few hours at the site, we got in touch with Tony and he drove us back to the station. Cinderella had come with us and Cikka fell asleep in the car,” he said.
However, this is when disaster struck.
“When we got to the station and we got out of the taxi and Cikka realized that Cinderella was no longer with us,” said Guy. “Luckily Tony the taxi man was still there, and we had a look in the back of the car and under the seats, but Cinderella was not there – and Cikka was most upset!”
The next day, the family left Dublin to head to the faraway region of Inch Beach – a whole 345 kilometres from Dublin, on the other side of Ireland, where they were planning to stay for a week.
“We would spend the day driving around the magnificent country side going to old villages and broken-down castles. We would then have supper somewhere not too far from our cottage,” said Guy of their time at Inch Beach.
It was during one of these suppers that serendipity struck.
“Three days into that part of the holiday we go to eat at a pub just down the road from us. It wasn’t a particularly busy night and I walked over to the bar to get another Guinness. There were a couple of elderly women having a glass of wine in the corner. The bartender asked the usual ‘where are you from?’ and when I said Malta, one of the little old ladies in the corner turns to me and says, ‘you are not one of these Maltese people they are talking about on the radio are you?’ I looked at her and said ‘I hope not, don’t think I have done anything wrong while we have been here,'” said Guy.
“‘No no’ she said ‘they were saying on the radio that they are looking for a Maltese family that lost a toy in the back of a taxi – and he found it and wants to return it’.
Incredibly, their public appeal for help finding Cinderella had made it to the national radio – and the resulting finding of the doll had made it all the way to the faraway Inch Beach, right to the pub where Guy, his wife, and daughter Cikka were having supper.
They rang him up the next day and sure enough, he had found the missing Cinderella doll. “We gave him our address at the cottage and we got it back the next day,” says Guy.
With the doll returned, Cikka content, and the family pleasantly surprised by how helpful the Irish were, Guy is just sure that on their next family holiday, he’ll be keeping a closer eye on his daughters toys.
How cute do you think this story is?
READ NEXT: Maltese Family Casually Bump Into John Oliver In Central Park
