The Ring ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 15)

A ring with an inscription prompts some research into the past

 and an unrequited affair that ended during WW2. 

The way it ended and its consequences had left a scar that had never healed.

A few years ago I acquired a set of herb drawers, mid-Victorian, the twelve drawers in ranks according to size, the largest at the bottom. One Sunday morning I prepared the kitchen table and brought in the draws ready for their rehabilitation. A spot on the corner of my kitchen had become vacant since an old Kenwood Chef had eventually expired and its replacement was better hidden until needed. Retrieving the drawers from the old washhouse and dusting them down I was delighted to be reminded of what a charming piece it was. All the mouldings were intact and each draw had its original brass knob, the lettering had faded but parts of ‘Cinnamon’, ‘Dill’ and ‘Peppercorns’ were still legible. A damp cloth was all I needed to reveal the many coats of paint wherever there was sufficient wear to expose them. Removing each draw it became a game to guess what its contents might have been. Some strongly retained an odour, Rosemary for instance, and Bay, the softwood having absorbed the essence of whatever the had been kept within. Some were indistinct and one was definitely not a herb, at least a legal one.

With a little difficulty I was able to slide out all of the draws except for one. As each drawer had its own compartment and the back was solid there was no way of accessing its rear to push it out. The small brass knob was all that I could use, other than prizing the draw out and damaging the frame surrounding it. I knew the washhouse was damp so I left the drawers in the warm for a few hours. Afterwards the draw shifted a little but there was something jamming its removal. Shining a torch into the narrow opening I could see nothing, however beneath the drawer I could see some wrinkled paper. By using a bent coat hanger I managed to extract a small brown envelope. Inside was what appeared to be a receipt, and wrapped inside that, a gold ring. The ring was plain except for a single stone set into it. Engraved on the inside was, ‘G.M. LOVE FOR EVER S.T.’.

I sent a photo off to a friend who has been in the jewellery business for decades and he informed me firstly the stone was of little value and the gold even less. But he did say it was typically a low cost engagement ring of the thirties or forties. 

The receipt in which I found the ring was for the engraving, it included a date, an address, a reference, but no name. Both the customer’s and the engravers’s address’s ceased to exist after World War 2 and we can presume they’d been bombed or demolished.

Rachael in the village, a keen genealogist, was able to trace the residents of that address at the time of the receipt. The top floor flat was occupied by the Thomas family, of which a twenty three year old, Stuart, had the initials, S.T. We guessed he had bought the ring, had it engraved and was going to present it to G.M. whoever she was. Rachael found that sadly Stuart had died in 1944 during the battle of Arnhem. 

The quest for the identity of G.M. began. Rachael set to work and located a niece of Stuart’s living in North London. Rachael often visits the British Museum so she volunteered to call on the relative. Stuart Thomas had a sister, Alice, two years younger, born in 1923. Alice had a child, Catherine, born in 1948. Over a drink in The Drum I read what Rachael had transcribed from her recording. 

‘My mother told me about Stuart her brother, my uncle, he was training as a cabinet maker and I think Grace worked in the office’. 

‘Grace?’ 

Racheal suggested I read on.

‘After he had been called up they saw each other whenever he was home on leave, but her folks didn’t approved of him. Mom says he came home one Easter on leave but Grace had disappeared and her family didn’t want anything to do with him. A few months later he was reported missing, after a while it was presumed he was dead. Mom went to the factory and told the owner that Stuart had been killed and something the owner said upset mum but she would never say what it was.’

Racheal then showed me a copy of a photograph of Stuart, ‘GEORGE MATHEWS and SONS’ was an arched sign over the entrance to the yard where Stuart was standing and Catherine, his niece, had always presumed it was where he worked. Company records showed just before the outbreak of war, not only a Stuart Thomas, apprentice, but also a Grace Mathews listed as a clerk. There was our S.T. and our G.M.. The surprise turned out to be that Grace Mathews was the granddaughter of George Mathews, the company’s founder and also where her father worked.

The discovery of the ring had led me and several other people on a search, and you may well ask, ‘Why Bother?’ There was something I had to do, if it was possible, I’m just sentimental like that but Rachael had warned me that no matter how certain we are of our research and what people have sworn as the truth, it is not unusual for a fact to be revealed that makes everything fall apart.

It was with some trepidation that, with Rachel clutching a file of papers, we approached a front door in a thatched cottage just south of Shaftesbury, in Dorset. It had taken some persuasion before the person we were going to see had agreed to meet us.

A woman in her seventies answered the door and introduced herself as Gillian. There was some reluctance to engage the subject of our visit, but eventually we got there.

‘You must understand that things were different then,’ said Gillian, ‘Also there was a war on and some people grabbed enjoyment where they could and to hell with the consequences. Mum’s family were quite well off and Stuart was just an apprentice. If they’d have know what was going on they would have stopped it, straight away, but it was too late, rightly or wrongly they still wanted her to get rid of her child . . . ‘

‘Your mother was pregnant?’

‘Yes, they sent her to a private clinic initially, then she agreed to have the child adopted when born but she didn’t which is why I am here.’

‘So you are Stuart’s child, he was your father.’ 

‘Yes, but it’s not an easy subject and because of what happened to mum, and the way she was treated, we never mention him. He was the only man she ever loved and she never got over him leaving her like he did. It’s a scar that has never really healed.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘Well, it was bad enough that mum’s parents disowned her but when he treated her the way he did . . . I can’t forgive him either. Mum says he proposed to her before she got pregnant and they were planning to get married, but that was just a lie. He left after he’d had his fun and mum heard no more, if he’d been killed someone would have told her.’

‘They did.’ Racheal said.

We explained how Stuart’s sister, Alice, had gone to the factory where they had both worked and had told, we think, Grace’s father of Stuart’s death.

‘There’s something else,’ I said. 

Whether it was the right time I didn’t know but looking at Gillian and the emotional turmoil she was going through it seemed appropriate to hand her the thing that had started our journey.

‘I found this in a piece of furniture that Stuart’s father had once owned. I think Stuart had put it there for safe keeping until he came back and asked Grace to marry him.’

I put the ring, still wrapped in the receipt and inside the small brown envelope, into Gillian’s hand. There was a moment when none of us could think of what to say. Then Gillian broke the silence,

‘There’s someone I think perhaps you should meet,’ Gillian got up and left the room.

We waited for at least half an hour before the door opened and a wheelchair appeared. It was, of course, Grace, Gillian’s mother and the G.M. of the ring. 

Why bother? At the age of 91 something that had caused pain and bewilderment nearly all her life had finally been resolved. The only man she had ever loved, truly loved her in return and the ring she held was proof that his promise to marry her was one he was going to keep. To Gillian her father was no longer despicable and un-mentionable, but a hero who died fighting for his country, and someone to be proud of.

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

 on Spotify, Anchor FM, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, 

Google Podcasts, Breaker and other platforms. 

Written and read by Barkley Johnson.