Wedding ring unites two women living 2,500 miles apart

Ring found in Kent belonged to teen married in Cyprus

As I shuffle through a dozen of documents, including letters, newspaper clippings in Greek and English as well as photographs, I gradually put the pieces together of the story of two women, whose honesty and gratitude left a mark on both of their lives, even though they were living 2,500 miles apart.

On the one hand, I read the words of a letter written by Michael Erotokritos, commercial councillor of the Cyprus High Commission Trade Centre in London. The date is October 13, 1975. “If Marina Andreou from the little village of Trahoni near Limassol in Cyprus could write in English, she would have been writing this letter herself,” he writes in his opening paragraph.

On the other, Marina’s words, translated from Greek on December 12, 1975, set the plot: “While I was working for the packing of grapes and I was putting grapes in the cases, my wedding ring slipped from my finger without my noticing it. At about 5pm I realised that my wedding ring was not on my finger and I was very upset. I then started looking for it everywhere but it was impossible to find it. I was heartbroken and with my eyes brimming with tears, I went home.”

During the summer of 1975, just a year after the invasion, 18-year-old newly wed Marina was tending to grapes as she worked in a grape picking house in Limassol. And it was as she filled some of the thousands of trays of the then popular Cypriot Sultanina grapes that were exported all over Europe, that she lost her ring.

Weeks later, across the Mediterranean sea and on St Mary Cray High Street in Kent in the UK, 50-year-old Kathleen Mole was unpacking produce in her family owned grocery store. Kathleen after having unloaded grapes in, and having discarded a tray near the window, she suddenly noticed the sun glinting on something inside the tray. “I thought at first it was a gold cigar band… it as so small that I could only get it on my little finger so I thought it must belong to a child,” Kathleen is quoted as saying as she discovered the 22 carat gold ring.

It’s Kathleen’s honesty and her own understanding of the value of what she had found that drove the story forward. Adamant to find the ring’s rightful owner, and considering the difficulty in communication of the times, Kathleen reached out to the Retail Fruit Trade Federation who in turn put her in touch with a public relations agency handling publicity for Cyprus Produce who told the story to Michael Erotokritos of the Cyprus Trade Centre in London who volunteered to take the ring back to Cyprus on his next visit. He had two clues to the ring’s owner: the name of the firm which exported the grapes and the traditional inscription of the spouse’s name in the wedding band ‘Andreas 29.8.1974’ which indicated that he was looking for a married woman. After inquiring at all packing stations around Limassol, he eventually traced Marina and returned her ring.

“I never expected that such an honest lady as yourself would find my wedding ring, so many miles away and return it to me,” writes Marina to Kathleen upon the ring’s return. “I do not know how to express my thanks and gratitude. If you wish to do so, I shall be very pleased if you come to Cyprus to stay with us as a guest in our house.”

And so the story goes, upon invitation by the Cyprus Trade Centre, Kathleen and her husband came to Cyprus to meet Marina and her family, an experience that was forever treasured. Up until the day she died on November 21, 2017, Kathleen’s wish was to return to Cyprus and reencounter the culture and peoples that she treasured for her entire life.

Fast-forward to 47 years later and Kathleen will, after all, return to Cyprus. Her granddaughter, Debbie Dickenson is due on the island as we speak to, as she describes, bring closure to her grandmother’s story, or perhaps continue it seeing as she aspires to try and find Marina and share her grandmother’s photo album of her vacation in Cyprus once she’s on the island.

“She always wanted to go back to Cyprus, but it wasn’t that long later that my granddad died and she never went back although she always wanted to,” Debbie tells me on the phone. “She was always taking about the Troodos mountains and the very sweet tiny little grapes with no pips… that all Greek Cypriots are amazing, that she had the best time of her life over there…”

Coincidently, Debbie’ current partner is Cypriot, a delight to Kathleen’s ears; she met him before she passed away. “When my nan met my father-in-law, they got on like a house on fire and she talked about how much she loved Cyprus and about this story, everyone knew about this story, I grew up hearing about this story,” says Debbie.

And so, as Debbie and her Cypriot family will seek a place to spread the remaining ashes of her grandmother on the Troodos mountains and take photos to add to Kathleen’s photo album of Cyprus to complete her story. But Debbie also hopes to find Marina, even though the language difficulties meant the two women didn’t keep in touch after Kathleen’s visit.

“Part of her ashes are buried with my granddad opposite the store in Kent, and I’ve got some left… she’s always wanted to go back to the Troodos mountains and because I’m coming to Cyprus to visit family, I thought it would be nice to take nan’s ashes up there,” she explains.

Debbie describes what kind of woman her grandmother was, how she worked in the family grocery store from the age of 13 and managed it with her sister until it closed.

“Nan was always very forthright and it would never have occurred to her to have kept the ring, never in a million years,” Debbie says. “It must have been very hard to trace the ring back then, considering there was no internet or anything like that, but Nan had to know everything about everything, so would have known exactly where the grapes where coming from. My family didn’t have a lot and I think that’s why it was important for her to return that wedding ring because she knew what it was like not to have anything growing up, she knew the value of things and she was sentimental, a wedding ring is important and I’m sure it would have broken her heart if she’d lost her wedding ring, that’s why she did what she could to return it.”

In a way, Debbie hopes the story continues, that she finds Marina, but even if she doesn’t, it seems that returning her grandmother’s ashes to the island is good enough.