Since the death of their grandmother Lesley in 2011, members of the Emerson family from South Tyneside in the UK have been sending text messages to her mobile phone number for comfort.

But last week something came out of the blue - granddaughter Sheri received a reply reading, "I’m watching over you and it’s all going to get better. Just push through."

She spoke to the Shield's Gazette about the experience:

"I’d sent a message on the Wednesday night telling nan about family life and then I got the reply on Thursday.

"Obviously we know that nan wasn’t ever going to reply to our texts. It was just something we did as a comfort for ourselves, because she loved to text.

"You can imagine what I was thinking seeing a message flash up from her."

After ringing the number the family found that the number had been reassigned to another customer a few weeks previous. The man was very apologetic, and had replied thinking that texts fro the family had been some sort of prank from his friends.

Mobile phone provider 02 claim that the number was sold by the provider giffgaff and are doing their best to retrieve it.

You can also hear Ivan Yates' regale the story in the Breakfast paper review this morning here.