Homecoming after long journey 
for plaque tribute to teenager

Property firm Citu put out a public appeal when construction workers found the small, brass plaque metal during work on its Little Kelham development earlier this year, reading “In Memory of Carinna Lynch 1978 – 1995.”

Archive searches revealed a young woman of had passed away at Barnsley Hospital in the same year, and traced Carinna’s mother Janine Lynch, now 65. This week she was reunited with the tribute to her daughter, whose life was cut tragically short at the age of 16 by a rare, aggressive autoimmune disease.

The plaque had part of a bench which Carinna’s family had installed at the former Priory School, Lundwood, which she attended up until her death from Wegener’s granulomatosis – a rare disorder affects the blood flow. When the school was demolished two years ago, her family assumed the memorial had been thrown away.

“I was so touched that they contacted me to say they’d found the plaque,” said Mrs Lynch, of Monk Bretton, Barnsley.

While the story of the person behind the plaque has been uncovered, just how it made it all the way from Barnsley to a building site at Eagle Works in Sheffield remains a mystery.

Nadia Jagiellowicz, sales negotiator for Citu, said: “We’re delighted that we have been able to reunite the plaque with Carinna’s family.”