THEY are snapshots of royal occasions and family photos that tell a thousand stories but for years they have been sat unearthed until now.

Discovered while sorting out paperwork Emmaus Hampshire in Winchester have come across a series very personal and historic royal photographs.

And now the charity is looking to reunite them with the descendants of the original owner.

Chief executive Nigel Samuels believes that they must have come in as part of a donation many years ago.

He said: “It appears that the pictures were taken for and owned by a member of the Chapel Royal, the sovereign’s spiritual choir.”

Piecing together some of the notes, the charity believes he may have been a J W (Jim) Saunders, who at some stage held the role of Sergeant of the Vestry, a key member of HM Chapel Royal.

“We have not been able to find any reference to Mr Saunders so are appealing to the public for help,” Nigel added.

The photographs show a series of royal occasions including the silver wedding celebration of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1948, the Cenotaph Remembrance Ceremony of 1946 and the same year’s Armistice Day service in the Albert Hall. The owner has annotated the cardboard backing in the frames with the names and positions of people involved.

There are also a couple of family photographs and pictures of the Chapel Royal in St James’ Palace. He even sent his daughter Joan a card featuring a picture of the wedding certificate of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip from November 1947.

“We discovered the pictures by chance when sorting paperwork to create space for our exciting new building project. This will enable us to house and offer a fresh start to eight more homeless people, once we have secured the £60k balance of the £280k planned investment.

“If any readers know of this person or his family, we would be thrilled to contact them and return the pictures, which one of our former volunteers must have stored carefully whenever we received the donation. This could have been any time in the past ten years, but was probably at least five years ago.”

If any reader can help solve the puzzle, call me on 01962 868300 or email info@emmaushampshire.org.uk.