There’s no DESPAIR like losing your wedding ring …or delight on finding it again! After Andy Murray lost his last week, five authors reveal their own tales of panic and bliss — each one a golden treasure
- Andy Murray announced last week that he had lost his wedding ring in California
- Three-time Grand Slam champion, 34, was swiftly reunited with his ring
- Research found 24 per cent of men admitted to losing their wedding ring in 2017
- Here, five writers share the panic of being unable to find their wedding band
For any husband or wife it’s a heart-stopping moment that sparks waves of dread and panic — glancing down at your left hand to realise, with a shudder, that your much-cherished wedding band isn’t there and you haven’t a clue where it might be.
So it’s no wonder spouses across the country grimaced when tennis star Andy Murray announced last week that he had lost his wedding ring, which he is in the habit of tying to his trainers, then left under a car, as he prepared for a tournament in California.
Thankfully the three-time Grand Slam champion, 34, was quickly reunited with both his ring and shoes, returning him to wife Kim’s ‘good books’. He is far from the only Brit to have misplaced their wedding band. In 2017 it was revealed 24 per cent of men had admitted to losing their wedding ring compared to 14.3 per cent of women, according to a survey by the insurer Ecclesiastical. From mishaps in the garden to tragedy in a toilet, here, five top writers reveal the frantic panic that resulted from the wedding bands that went walkabout . . .
Five writers share the panic of being unable to find their wedding band, after Andy Murray announced last week that he lost his ring. Pictured: Andy Murray and Kim on their wedding day
WE WERE IN TEARS AS WE SEARCHED
By Amanda Craig
Losing my wedding ring happened, not because I had miraculously lost tons of weight, but because my ring had to be cut off when I smashed my elbow one freezing day.
The surgeons did an amazing job putting in a pin, but my arm and hand swelled up with fluid before I got to hospital.
When the ring, which had been engraved on the inside with a secret inscription, was re-soldered, my fingers were still swollen. As they went down, the ring became too big, and one afternoon it slipped off without my noticing it.
I have rarely been so upset. My left hand felt completely wrong without it: too light, misshapen, unhappy.
That plain band of gold — bought second-hand because my husband and I were so broke when we got married — meant more to me than any other piece of jewellery.
We were both in tears searching through our garden in Devon where, we worked out, it must have got lost. Vivid recollections of our wedding day rushed back in torrents. A ring is such a little thing and yet it symbolised so much.
Amanda Craig (pictured) said she was in tears searching through her garden in Devon after losing her wedding ring
Neither of us had ever taken our rings off and now mine was gone. I felt like Frodo in Lord of the Rings when he’s lost his, except mine stood for all the good things in life, not the bad.
I told friends on Facebook, as one does, and Catholics told me to pray to St Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. ‘It always works’, said one cheerily.
Well, I did — and, amazingly, it did. Because in the next minute, I turned over a clod of earth and there it was, gleaming bright.
I’ve never been so relieved, and I now wear a slightly smaller ring on top of it to keep it in place. But I was surprised to find how many friends, especially men, have also lost theirs and been upset ever since.
If you love your partner, a wedding ring really matters. It’s more than just a ring. I don’t know who decided to sell theirs in order for us to buy it all those years ago, or why, but I’d never part from mine.
The Golden Rule, by Amanda Craig (£8.99, Abacus), was long-listed for the 2021 Women’s Prize.
I LOOKED AT MY HAND IN HORROR
By Rowan Pelling
Myths about magical rings returning to their rightful owners have never seemed that fictional to me. I call my wedding and engagement bands my ‘homing rings’ for their Houdini-like determination to re-materialise. In the 1990s I had a particularly busy day whizzing around London before returning to my office to work late. When I finally stopped typing, I looked down at my hand and saw, to my horror, that the diamond from my engagement ring had vanished, leaving gaping claws.
I scoured the premises with increasing despair as I realised it could have vanished at any point that day.
The one place I could call past midnight was the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair where I’d had an afternoon tea.
Rowan Pelling (pictured) said the diamond from her engagement ring vanished, while she was whizzing around London
The night porter said it was fine if I made my way over to search the bar before the cleaners arrived. As I walked up to the entrance a beaming man was waiting for me.
He held out a little white envelope containing the tiny, twinkling gem and laughed at my amazement and joy.
You’d think I would have been tremendously careful thereafter, but five years later I lost that diamond again — along with my wedding ring and the other three bands I wear.
I’d been out drinking with a journalist whose boozing was legendary, and returned to the office worse for wear. Don’t ask me why, but in the loos I took off all my rings and put them on a window ledge.
It wasn’t until the next day, en route to Scotland, that I looked down at my hands and saw they were naked.
My husband says I turned grey. I phoned the office a blubbing wreck, but no one had seen them.
Eventually I realised I must have been the last person to leave the building, so the next person in would have been our lovely cleaner. The next night I slept in the office and waited for her 5am arrival, asking if she had found them and saying I was offering a reward.
She told me she hadn’t, but her eyes looked troubled and I could see how hard it would be to return jewellery taken under circumstances of near-irresistible temptation. So three days later I waylaid her again. This time I asked if she could carry on looking and said solemnly: ‘They all belonged to people I loved, who are now dead.’
This was absolutely true: my wedding and engagement rings had belonged to my husband’s long-dead mother; another was inherited from my uncle’s partner, while the other two were handed down from family doyennes.
A day later the cleaner phoned me and said she had found them behind some loo rolls. She handed them over in an emotional reunion, where I gave her £500 for her kindness and hugged her. When I learnt she was getting married that very weekend I said it would make me happy if she used the reward to buy a wedding ring.
I WAS CONVINCED IT WAS A BAD OMEN
By Adele Parks
Adele Parks (pictured) said her husband replaced the diamond in her engagement ring with a bigger diamond after it disappeared
Wedding and engagement rings are undoubtedly the most sentimentally valuable pieces of jewellery we own; imbued with promise and memories, a symbol of devotion, exclusivity and eternity.
My wedding ring is a string of baguette-cut diamonds, firmly nestled in the middle of two platinum bands. My husband designed it to symbolise our family. My son, from a previous marriage, is represented in the diamonds, my husband and I are the protective, robust platinum bands that cradle him.
My engagement ring is a baguette solitaire. It’s standout, sparkling and sumptuous. Jim said that ring was about me alone. I love them.
Therefore you can imagine how distraught I was on my first wedding anniversary, when I glanced down at my left hand and there was a heart-plunging gap.
The diamond from my engagement ring was gone!
I was devastated, ashamed — which was irrational, as I hadn’t been careless, just unlucky. But I believed I was at fault.
I also felt a sense of fear and doom. Superstitiously, I was convinced that losing the diamond that represented me was a bad omen. Was I losing my sense of self?
Also, I felt incredibly sad. I’d believed that beautiful diamond was going to journey with me throughout my life, reminding me of vows swapped and promises made. But no.
I’d been swimming that day with my son. So, shaky and breathless, I begged the gym staff to drain the pool. Unrealistic, I know, but I was frantic. No one seemed too worried about my loss once they’d established that the ring was insured and could be replaced. But to me, the sentimental value made it priceless.
I was scared to face my husband. Even though he’s the most easy-going man imaginable, I felt I’d broken something. When I finally confessed to the loss, he was the epitome of comfort. He had the diamond replaced. In fact, he bought one that was a smidge bigger to represent the fact I’d grown in that first year of marriage.
Now I try not to be superstitious about ‘things’. Marriages are made up of more than symbols. That said, I haven’t had my ring cleaned in 17 years because I can’t bear the thought of taking it off — in case I lose it!
Both Of You, by Adele Parks, (£14.99, HarperCollins) is out now.
IT WAS MEANT TO LAST A LIFETIME
By Kitty Dimbleby
Kitty Dimbleby (pictured) said her husband Ed had turned over metres of soil before realising his wedding ring had gone
A few years into our marriage, my husband Ed and I moved to Bath, inheriting a stunning, mature garden with our new home.
We took to gardening with gusto, but, because I was pregnant with our first child, most of the heavy digging fell to Ed.
One warm spring day he appeared at the end of the kitchen looking sheepish. ‘My wedding ring has gone,’ he said.
We looked but it was futile; he’d turned over metres of soil before realising it was missing. We borrowed a metal detector but the ring was gone for ever.
‘Oh, well, it lasted three years’ he said cheerily.
‘It was meant to last a lifetime,’ I quipped.
With a baby on the way there wasn’t the budget to replace it. But the truth was he’d never really wanted it in the first place.
Then a Tank Commander in the British Army, it wasn’t allowed at work (heavy machinery and rings equal lost fingers), so he didn’t see the point. Regardless, Ed just isn’t a jewellery man, rejecting a family signet ring and, when we met, only bothering to wear a battered Army-issue watch.
But when we got engaged, I felt that if we were entering an equal partnership we should both wear a symbol of our marriage vows.
I was making a lot of compromises — changing my surname, and leaving my home and job to move to an Army house near his work.
Kitty said she knows that Ed’s commitment to his marriage vows isn’t represented by a piece of jewellery, but by his actions and behaviour as a husband and father (file image)
So he agreed and chose a titanium band to go with my platinum one. We spent much less on it, although if you take cost per wear into account, it turned out to be expensive.
Four years after he lost it, we nearly replaced the ring when our son was born. I was a mess of hormones and sleep deprivation and Ed (no longer in the Army) was working away a lot.
A bitchy comment from a fellow mum about him not wearing a ring upset me. So we went to the jewellers. But while Ed tried on plain bands I was distracted by the sparkly eternity rings on display. Seeing this, my husband suggested, gently, that it made sense to spend the money on a ring I wanted, rather than one he didn’t.
We found a stunning one in an antiques market and that was that. What woman can refuse a band of diamonds when it’s offered to her?
Anyway, I know that Ed’s commitment to his marriage vows isn’t represented by a piece of jewellery, but by his actions and behaviour as a husband and father.
As we approach our twelfth anniversary, no one could ask for a more loyal and kind partner. And while he might not wear a ring, he does have an engagement watch — a smart Omega I bought him the weekend he proposed.
It’s been on his wrist ever since.
I DID NOT DARE TELL MY HUSBAND . . . I JUST ORDERED ANOTHER ONE
By Esther Walker
Esther Walker (pictured) said she lost her wedding ring when her fingers swelled up, while pregnant with her first child
When I was pregnant with my first child, my fingers swelled up so much I had to take off my wedding ring.
I had meant to thread it on to a chain so I could wear it round my neck but lost it before I could do that.
I thought my husband Giles, who is sentimental, would be incredibly hurt if I had lost my wedding ring so soon — we had been married less than a year. So I didn’t confess. I told him that, months after my daughter was born, my hands were still too pudgy to get it on, which was half-true.
Meanwhile, I rang the jeweller who supplied it and he gave me a good deal on a replacement.
The day I received the new ring, I found the old one.
I had put the original ring in its dark-blue ring box and then put it on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet.
Now I had the old ring back I felt it was fine to come clean to my husband about the whole fiasco. I skipped happily into his study, ready to regale him with this story now that there was a happy ending.
It was only as I was halfway through that I saw him glance guiltily down at his own left hand. ‘Wait!’ I said, pointing an accusing finger. ‘Where is your wedding ring?’
‘It’s here somewhere,’ he said, looking slightly flustered and scrabbling around in the drawers of his desk. ‘I have to take it off when I play tennis or do the garden,’ he cried defensively.
‘Ha ,ha!’ I crowed. ‘You’ve lost it!’
He found it again, but he went on to nearly lose his ring so many times it now permanently lives in the ring box in the bathroom cabinet with my spare.
I don’t mind one bit. A ring might be a symbol of a marriage but, in the end, it’s a small piece of the whole puzzle.
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