A newly-married man lost his wedding ring while swimming in the sea in Gower just two days after he tied the knot. Robin Gemmell, from Oxford, was enjoying a relaxing dip in Caswell Bay following a "perfect" day marrying the love of his life, Hayley, in a beautiful ceremony at Oldwalls in Gower, when he felt his wedding band slip off his finger and plunge into the water.
Robin immediately dived under the water to try and find the ring and kept bobbing up and down scouring the area he had been swimming - but he couldn't see his ring at all. He thought it was gone forever and wasn't looking forward to telling his new wife what had happened.
Then, up stepped Caswell resident Tony Ballantine, a local metal detectorist with a history for finding things. Amazingly, he was able to reunite Robin with his wedding ring just a few days later. Tony, 59, has been a keen metal detectorist since he was just 10 years old and has reunited five people with their wedding rings in recent years. Last month, he spent six hours searching Caswell Bay looking for Robin's ring - to great success. You can get the biggest Swansea news stories straight to your inbox with our newsletter.
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Explaining how he was able to find Robin's ring, Tony said: "I was on the beach metal-detecting and came across another metal detectorist [who I didn't know at the time]. He, Andrew Phillips, told me he'd been contacted by a guy who had lost his wedding ring in the sea. He said he'd unfortunately not been able to find it, but told me the rough area where to look so I thought I'd try and help.
"I did three two-hour stints - it's something I enjoy, I don't see it as a chore! I worked in a grid-formation, backwards and forwards. Eventually, I found it - it was about four inches deep in the sand. I didn't know who it belonged to, so I put some posts on social media and Robin's Auntie, who lives locally, saw it and got in touch with me [so I was able to give the ring back to Robin]."
Praising Tony for volunteering hours of his time to search for his ring, Robin said: "I married my wife on July 17 at Oldwalls, Gower, and two days later lost my wedding ring while swimming at Caswell Bay! A metal detectorist managed to find the ring and returned it. This is the fifth ring he's reunited with its owner. He's a very decent man and just wants to make people happy - he certainly made me happy and I'm incredibly relieved to have my ring back!"
Robin, 41, and his new-wife Hayley, 32, met online in 2018 and got engaged in Santorini in 2020. They were due to get married at Ocean View wedding venue in Llanridian, Gower but sadly that venue suffered a major fire four weeks before their wedding day. At the time, we reported how six fire engines were sent to the scene in the early hours of Friday, June 17, and how firefighters fought the blaze for several hours.
Whilst the blaze was later put out, unfortunately upcoming weddings at the venue had to be cancelled as it was badly damaged in the blaze. Many of the affected couples were able to move their wedding ceremony to another venue, Oldwalls, like Robin and Hayley did. Amazingly, a couple due to get married on the day of the blaze at Ocean View were still able to get married that day, thanks to the incredible generosity of staff at Oldwalls - you can read more about this heart-warming story here.
Despite the change of venue, Robin said his wedding day with Hayley was "perfect". He said the couple kept the day small but were surrounded by friends and family, while photos from their special day show the couple grinning from ear to ear.
Following their wedding, the couple stayed in Gower for a few days before returning home to Oxford. Robin was swimming in the sea with his mother-in-law when he lost his ring - and was fearful of having to tell Hayley the bad news.
Whilst she was disappointed at the lost ring, she was mostly relieved that he and her mum were okay, Robin said. He said he'd like to thank Tony and metal detectorist Andrew Phillips for their tireless efforts to find his ring, and his auntie and members of the Gower community who connected him with Tony via social media.
Going forwards, Robin said he would get his ring re-sized in the hope it would not fall off again. "I want to thank Tony for finding the ring, he didn't even know me but spent time searching for it, I'd like to thank him again. I'd also like to thank Andrew for trying so hard to find the ring and passing on the information about where I'd been swimming to Tony," he said. "I'm wearing the ring now, I'll be getting it resized!"
'I've always liked finding things but it's amazing to be able to reunite people with their lost wedding rings '
"I've always liked finding things, as a kid I liked fossil-hunting - the natural progression from this was metal detecting. When I was about 19, my brother actually made me a metal detector from an electrical kit - it was rubbish, we only found a manhole!" That's what Tony said when asked how he got into metal detecting.
The 59-year-old Caswell resident has found countless items over the years, including coins dating back to the Roman era and several bullets. As a history fan, Tony likes to think about the story for every item he finds - but one of the things he finds most rewarding is reuniting people with their lost items.
Among the people he has reunited with their lost wedding rings over the years was Sheila Curds from Penllergaer who lost her wedding ring at Caswell Bay last September.
At the time, Tony said: "It's a funny thing, as metal detectorists we seem to have a bad reputation as scroungers - but all metal detectorist clubs have a free jewellery recovery service. Sheila contacted the group [that I'm a member of, The Heritage Metal Detecting Club Swansea] appealing for help, she'd had the ring for 51 years and was very, very upset to have lost it. She thought she had no chance of getting it back."
He added: "We started part-way down the beach [where Sheila had been sitting before going in the sea] and moved in a grid system, me going up and down and Roy [fellow group member] going from side to side. After about two hours, we were about to give up but then I heard that signal. It was a chunky gold ring, it had sunk straight through the soft sand and was about three or four inches in the sand."
"[Over the years], I've found everything you can imagine," he added. "I've found cannon balls, musket balls, all sorts of bullets. I've found shrapnel from the Second World War on Swansea Bay. I've found coins from Roman times and Edward I pennies from 800 years ago. I like history and I'm a bit of a romantic, I like to imagine the stories of the items I find!"
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