We’ve all been there – Year 8 and your parents refuse to bring in your forgotten PE kit.  You are faced with the prospects of a T-shirt deodorant cannot save and a pair of trainers pushing your toes inside of your feet.

The concept of the lost and found bin has haunted us all. In Cambridge, however, it takes a different form: the Facebook page Lostbridge. Littered with chunky earrings dropped somewhere on Sidgewick avenue and jumpers gone awry in a drunken haze on a Wednesday night, it’s full of desperate hope and the occasional success story.

No one likes to lose something – especially the ring that was used to propose to your grandmother. So how long do you pursue a missing item? When do you give up? In what scenario do you convince yourself that the item has potentially been stolen?

“So how long do you pursue a missing item? When do you give up?”

Yet this is what happened to me, at the Wednesday Revs before Halloween. I find myself in a pair of ever-original cat ears and my two-week-old college puffer. After downing a bottle of the most cost-efficient wine from Aldi, I am ready to seize the night with my coat firmly tucked over my shoulder bag, underneath my arm. To avoid the sweat-dripping ceiling, I do not frequently endeavour to enter the Revs dancefloor, but before long I find myself in the ninth circle. Within ten seconds I process the new cavity under my arm – my coat has clearly been caught in the throng. Due to the alcohol causing me to move like a limp marionette and the sea of legs in my way, I fail to recover it. After reassurance from security that it will be in the building, I plan my return to Revs the following morning to collect it at open.

After rummaging in the back, the manager informs me there is no coat. Wonderful news. But it’s okay – embroidered on it are my four-letter-long unique initials – whoever’s picked it up will return it. I join Lostbridge and even make the dignity-hoovering decision to post a cry for help on the Cambridge 2027 Snapchat story. After a week of radio-silence, I reach the conclusion my coat has been stolen and is therefore unlikely to return. I move on, but the curiosity of where my coat lay never stops rumbling in the background.

Cut forward three months – my flatmate bangs on my door and drags me into the kitchen where I am met with incredulous faces. “I’ve seen your coat. A man wearing a Medwards puffer with your initials just cycled past me on Jesus Green.” I have no solution other than to take this to Camfess: to my genuine surprise, someone reaches out with a lead. They once caught someone with six coats tied to them in Market Square – they hence give me enough information to pursue the case of my missing coat (which I do so in a lecture on sediments – please do not ask me about alluvial environments). Yet much to my dismay, the lead falls flat. The perpetrator had returned all coats to Revs and plodges the next morning, mine nowhere to be found. My hope once again dissipates.

“One unlucky student watched back on CCTV his D-lock being sawed off in the middle of the night”

At this point in the story, I choose to accept that this is just a dragged-out event designed to define my first year. Then, on Sunday of Week 3 in Easter Term, I get a series of fervent messages from a friend who’s at church – the coat has been spotted again. On the same man. Maybe he was coming to repent? Confess? After I hurriedly send her a puffer-clad mirror selfie, my friend successfully bargains with this man who actually hands it over, thus bringing the journey of my coat full circle.

More so than coats, the classic stolen item is of course the bicycle. The Cambridgeshire Constabulary claims that “cycle thefts [in the city are] being reported daily,” with some estimates putting the daily figure as high as 25. One unlucky student watched back on CCTV his D-lock being sawed off in the middle of the night, and only a few weeks later discovered someone had taken a liking to his replacement (despite the seat being held together with cable ties).

And if you find a lost item yearning to return to its owner? Hopefully your first instinct is not to flog it on Facebook Marketplace. Students, staff and members of the public will typically hand in found items to plodges, making them the handover point for belongings. To understand this side of the story, I mapped out a route through central Cambridge to speak with the potentially unsung heroes of our lost-and-found sagas – the porters.

“At Pembroke, a fellow handed in a pair of underpants”

“Water bottles, water bottles, water bottles” were what the Pembroke porters said were handed in most often. Next on the list was as expected: CamCards, jewellery, clothes and headphones.

The frequency of receiving found items varied: Peterhouse claimed only twice a week, whereas multiple others suggested daily, and Jesus said it was sporadic. Location plays a defining role in these statistics. With the taxi rank outside, Christ’s often has members of the public handing in things found on the pavement, and the proximity to Jesus Green has caused Jesus to dedicate a separate lost-and-found box for C Sunday.

It’s not just jumpers and wallets handed in – the porters see all sorts. At Pembroke, a fellow handed in a pair of underpants, and a visitor left their walking stick standing upright in the Jesus carpark. Christ’s has received £100 in cash, an arrow, and on another occasion a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs accompanied by a policeman’s hat.

After offering me a piece of cake, Emmanuel’s porters told me about a pair of seemingly long-forgotten velvet high heels that got snatched on an open day. At Trinity Hall, if a student drops the padlock for a punt into the river, they have to use a magnet to fish it out. Once, a student returned to plodge with not only the padlock, but a phone with a CamCard attached. Upon a bit of digging, it turned out the owner of the phone had left five years ago – which makes you wonder: what else lurks at the bottom of the Cam?

Whether it’s lying with the fishes or safely tucked away in a plodge, losing possessions, by chance or by force, is frustrating and can be beyond upsetting. For anyone currently experiencing said misery, consider checking a local pawn shop or try St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things. If you’re not Catholic, maybe try complaining to your Catholic friends who’ll find the coat for you – that’s what worked for me.