These are pearls…

A few months ago my Mum gave me the pearl necklace my Father (now deceased) gave her for an engagement present in 1963.  He bought them in Hendersons jewellers  in Glasgow, and 60 years later I took them back to the Dundee branch of the same shop to have them cleaned and restrung.  They are a gorgeous set of cultured pearls with a creamy colour and a fantastic silver and marquisate clip which has managed to retain all its stones over the years.

There is a story behind this necklace – while I was a teenager, we had a spate of burglaries at the rather isolated country house where we lived.  The little scrotes were obviously just after cash and anything saleable, but they had no discrimination or sense because they took a load of stuff which although it had sentimental value was not saleable in the least (for example some miniature brass camels my friend at school had given me).   Anyway, my Mum only had three really valuable pieces of jewellery – her engagement ring, a gold watch and these pearls.  The first two she was wearing and the pearls were in the house, however by providence she had not left them in the case but lying out on the dressing table.  So the idiotic thieves didn’t take them.

Here they are duly cleaned and in their original case; they are a little older than me but wearing better.  Perhaps I should get myself cleaned and restrung.