A woman has been reunited with a ‘precious’ silver charm more than a month after it went missing.

Sidmouth Herald: The lost charm.The lost charm. (Image: Archant)

Claire Rosewood was ‘devastated’ when she discovered she had lost the item, as her friend Mike who gifted it to her nearly three decades ago died last year.

She visited Sidmouth for the first time on Monday, March 20, to drop her partner at the dentist and only discovered it was missing when they were driving to Dorset.

The 50-year-old believes the charm, which was in a drawstring bag, fell out of the car when she parked in Mill Street to go into the town centre.

Claire, who lives near Crediton, said: “I tore the car apart. My partner said, ‘check under the seat’. I went through my handbag. I really did think it was gone.

“For me to lose it just a year after he [Mike] died was like I lost my friend and I have lost my silver ball, the ball I had all these years and I had just lost it there and then. It was devastating.”

Last Thursday, she posted in the Facebook group Sidmouth Remembers and within minutes was contacted by Newton Poppleford resident Norma Grant.

Claire said: “I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t mentioned there was a little silver heart in the bag, I wanted to clarify it was that before I got excited and then she said about the heart.

“It’s the timing of it that was incredible. It was an impulsive decision to write the post and Norma isn’t usually on Facebook, but she just happened to be on it.

“Sidmouth obviously is a lovely community - people seem to come together.”

Norma said that she found the bag containing the charm when she returning from the dentist and had kept it in her car for more than a month.

The grandmother-of-seven said she had never used the Mill Street car park, but did on that occasion.

She added: “I was so glad to be able to bring a little bit of happiness.”

The pair met on Saturday, when Claire gave Norma a bouquet of flowers.