Great Recovery Story

LOST & FOUND, ONE GOLD WATCH

It was in early May 1990 that I received a call from a Mr Slater down in Devon, he had seen an advert that I had placed in a Farming paper about our free search and recovery service he explained about his father losing his gold fob watch when he was planting a field for the War effort. This all happened in 1940, and they had been searching every time they ploughed the field. This watch was a family heirloom, and could we help?

I told him we would be delighted to try even though it was over fifty miles away. So I made arrangements for some of the members who were available to travel down on a Sunday later that month. It turned out to be about a five acre grass field, and due to the run of sunny weather it was rock hard.

After meeting with Mr Slater we set to work even though it was a red hot and it got hotter as the day progressed. It was a normal farming field, with plenty of rubbish and a few bits and pieces, but nothing much of interest.

After about two hours we started to congregate at the cars for a break and a well deserved cuppa, and to compare the rubbish we had all dug up. This was when Peter one of the lads said “what does this watch look like?” I started to describe it again, thinking to myself we must all know what a watch looks like, but then he said “what like this one” and there it was, in his hand.

Everybody was dumbfounded, there in the palm of his hand was the gold watch, it was in great condition, except that the glass was gone and it was a little battered from its 50 years in the soil. Considering the field had been ploughed constantly over this length of time it was in quite good nick. 

After we had cursed him for not telling us he had found it and to making us wait, we set of to see the farmer, unfortunately he wasn’t there, so we left a message and he turned up in the field a little later. 

He was delighted as it shows in the pictures, he could not believe it. Peter is shown in another photo holding the watch, and his cuppa. And the other shows the team. The watch was later valued at a £1000.

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