Kimberly Grabham, The Riverine Grazier

The best kind of news to report is good news, and The Riverine Grazier was blessed with a wonderful story to tell.

Jill Miller found her lost pendant, which was placed on her fence.

“I want to send out a big heartfelt thank you to whoever retuned my treasured pendant. 

“Nothing would ever replace the original but I was despondent without it. It is so special to me, and I am glad it is back where it belongs.

“I said to my son, Graham (Will) Miller the other day, if I hadn’t found it in two weeks, I was going to have another one made,” Jill said. 

Jill lost the pendant while visiting the Hay Shire car boot sale at Hay Park some seven weeks ago. 

“As soon as I pulled into the driveway, I knew it was gone, I hadn’t even got out of the car,” Jill recalled.

“I always move my necklaces before I get out of the car, and I could feel it was not there.”

She went straight back to the to the Community Building car park where the event was held. 

For the next four hours, Jill, her family and friends scoured the park to no avail. People came with metal detectors, but nothing was discovered.

Jill returned the next day, four hours in the morning and four in the afternoon with still no luck. 

She did this for the next four days. Bottle tops, 10 cent pieces and other odds and ends were unearthed, but not what she was looking for. 

“Every night I would talk to Peter, and beg him to help me find it,” Jill said.

“I even went down to the cemetery to ask.”

Jill was shocked the pendant fell off in the first place, as the original piece that held it on the chain was solid and had been soldered on. 

In the 46 years it was around Peter’s neck, it had not fallen off, in spite of him working as a shearer in the sheds, and all the other physical jobs he had in his life.

Jill laughingly said she had probably done something Peter had not agreed with, and that’s why the pendant fell off.

“I painted the fence the Saturday, and the pendant fell off Sunday,” she said. “We were always going to paint the fence but could not agree on the colour, maybe he was trying to tell me something.”

The pendant is back home now, around Jill’s neck, along with another pendant her good friend Tracy Ellis bought her, with a P engraved.

“I am just so happy,” Jill said.

“Hay is such a good town; everyone looks out for everyone.

“Everyone needs hope, and comfort regardless of what it is, and I am over the moon I have mine back.”

This article appeared in  The Riverine Grazier, 12 June 2024.