Children at St Andrew's School in Hove put messages in a bottle as part of a writing project.

Even though the bottles were taken well out to sea by a fisherman, teachers never expected to hear about them again.

But a German sailor and two Dutch schoolchildren found the bottles hundreds of miles away in the North Sea after only a few weeks. They wrote back to the delighted children in Hove.

It's almost quicker and more reliable than second-class mail.