A METAL-DETECTING group has achieved a hat-trick of ‘saves’ with its third successful recovery of lost jewellery.

Dean Houston, of Scottish Relics Metal Detecting, based in Dunbar, was contacted via his YouTube channel by Annie Allen, whose son Ruaraidh had lost his 18ct gold signet ring, a gift for his 18th birthday in April.

Annie, who lives just outside North Berwick, put out a call for a metal detector on a local Facebook news page, and was put in touch with Dean.

Dean used his XP ORX metal detector along the family’s gravel driveway, searching for an hour without any sign of the ring.

Dean said: “It was quite a big gravel driveway and I’d been searching where they said they’d lost it but, after searching for an hour, I’d kind of given up hope that I was going to find it.”

He added: “I then decided to metal detect in the bushes because I thought it might have rolled in there and, lo and behold, I found it straight away.”

Dean was featured in the Courier last year when he managed to find newlywed Toby Binnian’s wedding ring in the sea at Tyninghame Beach.

And Dean’s metal detecting friend and colleague Alan Webster was also in the Courier at the beginning of March, having found his dad’s solid gold ring on Gullane golf course, after it had been missing for five years.

Dean said: “We don’t offer a service to find lost items, – that’s just how it’s happened.

“From time to time people contact us, asking us to help. If it’s local, we’ll go and help out but we don’t make a business of it.

“But sometimes people contact us in dire need, and if I can’t attend I’ll always recommend somebody that might be able to.”

Ruaraidh, 18, a student at Edinburgh Academy, was given the ring by his dad for his birthday, and was intending to have it resized after lockdown.

He said: “It wasn’t noticeably too big but I was rushing out my car and it just flew off my finger.

“It was pretty awful.”

Ruaraidh and Annie searched for the ring the next morning for several hours before Dean arrived on the scene.

Ruaraidh said: “The ring was nowhere near the place we thought it would be.

“I was just relieved. Dean was such a good bloke, he was so nice.”

Dean said: “I don’t tend to like doing recoveries as sometimes I don’t find the item, so it’s always a bad feeling not being able to help out.

“However, today was different. I was over the moon to have found this ring for them, especially in these difficult times.”

To find out more about Scottish Relics Metal Detecting, go to www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9t Tu8k66_hVa4SQE53kAg