11-year-old Indian origin girl reunites man with wedding ring lost on UK beach
An 11-year-old Indian-origin girl has made a man very happy after she found his lost wedding ring on a UK beach and then tracked him down with the help of her mother to hand it back to him. Priya Sahu discovered the gold wedding band in the sand on Ventnor Beach in the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England last month, a day after Matt Eastley had lost it during his visit to the beach.
He told the BBC that he had been "splashing about" in the sea before he realised the ring had slipped off his finger and felt he had lost it forever.
He likened its return to Cinderella being reunited with her glass slipper in the famous fairy tale.
"We thought someone must be devastated about losing their wedding ring and Priya said it would be magical if we could actually find this person," said Aswita, Priya’s mother.
Before leaving the Isle of Wight, Eastley had asked a cafe owner on the beach to keep an eye out for his wedding band, with very little hope of ever being reunited with it. He had planned to eventually replace the ring, symbolic of his marriage to wife Lisa 15 years ago.
Once Priya found the ring, she and her mother set off on a mission to track down who it belonged to and through friends and friends of friends, they managed to connect with the cafe owner who then put them in touch with Eastley.
They all met up in a park in the port city of Southampton on Sunday, when Eastley was able to slip his lost ring back on his finger.
"[Losing the ring] was devastating. It is irreplaceable – that's the only word I can think of,” the resident of Kent in south-eastern England, told 'BBC South East'.
“But it's been wonderful. It's life-affirming. It's a really happy ending. It's been a bit of a grim 2020 but [the find has] certainly put a smile on my face," he said.
