Couple plead for return of tragic Lisa’s journal (From Daily Echo)

Couple plead for return of tragic Lisa’s journal

7:00am Tuesday 9th December 2008

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IT was the most precious and personal memory of their daughter.

Recording the details of a trip of a lifetime that ended in tragedy, it was a poignant reminder of Lisa Wilson’s adventurous last months.

The 23-year-old was killed when the car she was travelling in to Australia’s Ayers Rock was involved in a crash.

Now the priceless journal she had kept throughout her trip around the world has been stolen.

Clive and Trish Wilson returned to their New Forest home after a holiday, two days late because their flights were delayed, to find their house had been broken into.

Burglars had ripped out and stolen a safe that was bolted to the wall.

It contained jewellery belonging to Trish and Lisa, negatives of family portrait photographs, tapes and CDs Lisa had made for friends, and postcards she had sent home from her travels.

But it is the A5 blue-and-green journal of Lisa’s ten-month trip that the couple are desperate to be reunited with. Trish, 59, said: “It is something we will never be able to replace because we have lost Lisa. We just want the journal back – we can never replace what’s in that.

“Everything in that safe was special to us. You just don’t think this will happen to you.”

Clive, 56, has been working on a book recounting Lisa’s travels using the postcards, pictures and words from her journal. “We feel sick about the whole thing,” he said.

“Without the journal, we will never be able to finish the story. It’s got no value to anyone else, but it’s so important to us. We just really hope someone might find it and return it to us.”

Since Lisa’s death, her parents, who live in Nomansland, have set up The Lisa Wilson Scholarship Fund.

The charity has so far raised £160,000 to enable students who have overcome adversity or cannot afford the fees to study at Southampton Solent Univers-ity. Lisa graduated from the then Southampton Institute with a degree in business management.

The burglars broke in to the Wilsons’ home at 11.30pm on Sunday, November 30

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