By Margaret Maccoll
Luck, some creative googling and an act of kindness has reunited a family with a precious gift lost 10 years earlier.
A keen metal detectorist Marc Richardson was out at Munna Park Noosaville with his partner and her daughters celebrating a combined birthday party when he decided to let the children try out the metal detector.
“I got some small change and buried it in the children’s play park,” he said.
“Then I showed the kids how to use the equipment and watched how much fun they were having. When we had all finished i went for a look around the park and ended up finding a gold pendant with what looked like a horse and something written in Latin below.”
Marc posted his find on Metal Detecting Australia Facebook site seeking further information on the pendant and was amazed at the response.”I found out the translation ”A Sound And Vigorous Mind Is The Highest Possession” and the family name,” he said. “So then I googled the family name and it came back as an English family who had moved out here around 2004. They happened to live 100m away from where I found it.”
Jim and Tracy Blayney, owners of Wolngarin Holiday Resort, had lost the pendant in March 10 years earlier when they’d wandered over to the park to take some family photos.
Twelve months earlier Jim’s father had gifted a pair of cufflinks, which had belonged to Jim’s grandfather, to his wife Tracy and she’d had both cufflinks made into a pendant.
They noticed the chain had broken on the day the pendant went missing and had employed a metal detectorist to find it but to no avail.
“It was really precious to us,” Jim said. “We were devastated.”
They could hardly believe it when Marc knocked on their door last week to return the lost treasure. They looked back at photos taken 10 years earlier and noticed one, which showed the broken chain being worn by one of their children, was in the exact spot that the pendant was found.
“It was quite and emotional day,” Jim said.
Jim praised Marc for going to the effort to seek them out. And they now plan to get a new chain for the pendant.
Last Sunday was Neighbour Day. If you have any good neighbour stories let us know at newsdesk@noosatoday.com.au
