When Paul Edwards ordered a parenting magazine in 2007, he was hoping that it would provide helpful advice and offers to help him navigate the stresses and challenges of bringing up children.

However the magazine never arrived – until now. The copy of Mother & Baby was delivered on Friday – 19 years after he ordered it – with his children now studying at university.

It dropped through his letterbox in Chester with a message from Royal Mail apologising “for any inconvenience caused”.

A social media post Edwards made about the incident has now had about 1.5m views and nearly 60,000 likes.

“Well done @RoyalMail – took a mere 19 years to deliver this magazine,” he wrote on X. “Inconvenience? Well the kids have now left home …”

The 52-year-old science fiction writer ordered the magazine while his daughter was 18 months old and his son was due to be born three months later. They are now 20 and 18 respectively.

Edwards said he found the late delivery “just bizarre” and told the BBC: “Like a lot of relatively new parents, you sign up for subscriptions for things to give you advice, offers and provide things to do with the children – then obviously everyone realises you have to work it out for yourself.

“I’m not sure we realised at the time that the magazine was missing. Then it’s suddenly arrived in the post.

“You get a half-torn screwed-up bag and you think: ‘What on earth is this with sincere apologies on it?’”

Royal Mail said it checks its delivery offices and sorting machines daily, and it was likely the magazine had been put back into the postal system by someone, rather than lost internally.

Earlier this week, the postal regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into Royal Mail for again missing its annual delivery targets, with almost a quarter of first-class mail arriving late.

The company, which has been fined £37m since 2023 for routinely failing to meet delivery targets, had revealed that 24.3% of first-class mail failed to arrive on time in the year to the end of March.

The figures showed its performance has worsened compared with the previous year, when 23.5% of first-class mail failed to arrive within the one-working-day target set by the watchdog.

A spokesperson for Royal Mail said it would “engage fully with Ofcom” and improving its quality of service was “a top priority”, adding that the business was delivering a significant programme of change, backed by £500m of investment over five years.