Widow reunited with stolen wedding ring after it was found in a plant pot
A woman who had her wedding ring stolen has been reunited with it decades later, after it was found in a plant pot.
Debbie Davidson, from Scotland, had been using lockdown to catch up with her gardening when she came across a gold wedding band in a large plant pot.
The band had an inscription on it, which read Norman and Alice and the date 5.8.61, which Ms Davidson presumed was a wedding date.
She took to Facebook and wrote: “Looking for either Alice or Norman who got married 5.8.61. May be from Edinburgh or Inveresk. I found a wedding ring in a huge plant pot when repotting the plants. I would like the ring to be returned to the owner.”
Ms Davidson told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: “Well I was trying to tidy up my garden and I had a huge pot which is nearly a metre high of a root bound architectural plant in my front garden. I had to get it out of the pot so I got a friend to come and help me pull it out bit by bit and there was huge chunks of earth.
“Because I’d had a bit of a bad back I couldn’t dispose of these huge chunks so I took a spade to them. And as I was chopping them up, out rolled this little gold ring.”
BBC Radio 4 presenter Martha Kearney had gone to school with Ms Davidson in Edinburgh and appealed to her Twitter followers to help with the search.
One user Allistair Campbell found a Norman R Thomson and Alice Thomson on a marriage register.
While another user, Jane Bloomfield, saw that tweet from Mr Campbell and found an obituary for Norman, who had died in 2013, written by his colleague. She then used that to track down his daughter Morag on Instagram.
Ms Bloomfield said Morag was “really pleased that the ring had been found because it was something that had been stolen in a burglary”.
“I cried and cried when I discovered what had happened,” Morag told Ms Kearney.
Morag then put Ms Kearney in touch with Norman’s widow, 85-year-old Alice Thomson.
She explained what had happened to the ring, which she said was “very distressing”.
“I think the emotion I felt most strongly at the time when my daughter discovered a burglar in the house was immense relief that my daughter was okay. I hadn't given up hope because he was discovered in someone else's back garden so I thought I might dig it up in the garden,” recalled Mrs Thomson.
She added: “I never dreamt that after all those years someone would recover it. I’m so grateful that so many people have taken such a lot of trouble to trace me - it’s quite incredible.
“It brings back so many memories. It’s just unbelievable that something like this could happen. We had a lot of laughs together. We had the kind of easy relationship that I think a lot of people would like to have in a marriage.”
Remembering the wedding itself she said: “It was a lovely ceremony with a school friend as my bridesmaid. We then went off on our honeymoon and I think it rained for the next few days after we got there.”
