“It’s just a wonderful, wonderful sound that I thought was lost forever.”

Stan Beaton had kept a voicemail from his late wife for 14 years when an upgrade to his phone line caused the recording to be deleted.

Work by Virgin Media caused the message, which was left by Beaton's wife, Ruby, two years before her death in 2003, to be erased last month, the BBC reported.

The clip was recorded by Ruby to serve as the message people would hear when they called Beaton's phone.

The 68-year-old told BBC Radio Leeds: "I've always resisted changing companies because whenever I mentioned that my wife's voice was our voicemail message and would it be retained and each company said no, so that's why I never changed.

"Sadly it disappeared. I was absolutely devastated by it, but also extremely angry.

"In the early days [I listened to it] quite often. Basically, it came to the point when if I felt low then I would listen to it.

"In December I learned that it had disappeared. I just could not tell people how it affected me at that time. It really did devastate me."

BBC Radio Leeds / Via youtube.com

Rob Evans, executive director of engineering at Virgin Media, told the BBC the task was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

"The chances of its recovery were slim," he admitted.

But after three days of searching, the team found the message on Friday.

This is Beaton hearing his late wife's message after it was recovered:

youtube.com

He said afterwards: "It's just a wonderful, wonderful sound that I thought was lost forever."

"I'm staggered at the lengths they have gone to."

BBC Radio Leeds / Via youtube.com

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