St Anthony – The Countryman's Daughter

Friend thrown a life jacket

Stefan’s expensive work jacket was accidentally sold at the school fair

Last year I wrote several columns about things people had lost, things they had found, and about St Anthony to whom the faithful pray if they need help finding a misplaced item.

That subject cropped up again recently when I was on a ramble with my friend Jane and she told me a couple of remarkable stories that I felt I had to share.

Jane and her neighbour Aisling get on with each other very well, attend each other’s parties, exchange birthday gifts and such like. They also swap items of clothing, if they find they are not wearing something but think the other might like it. One such item was a jacket that Aisling gave to Jane several years ago. Although Jane liked the jacket and placed it in her wardrobe, it stayed there unworn for a long time. Finally, a few weeks ago while planning for a night out, Jane remembered the jacket and thought it would go very well with what she wanted to wear. She dug it out and tried it on to see if it suited. Instinctively she put her hands in the pockets and to her surprise, found there was something left inside one of them.

Pulling it out, she discovered it was a pair of beautiful diamond earrings. Astounded, she immediately took them round to show Aisling. Her neighbour was also astounded – and delighted. She revealed that they were the pair of very expensive earrings she had worn on her wedding day and which had been lost for at least 10 years.

Aisling and her family used to live in Singapore, and while there, they employed a cleaner. She explained to Jane that after a while, they began to suspect the cleaner of pilfering things. They had no evidence to prove it, but to be on the safe side Aisling began to hide her most precious pieces of jewellery in the pockets of the clothes hanging in her wardrobe. The problem was, over time she forgot what she had put where, and by the time they moved back to England a few years later, she had completely forgotten that she had hidden her wedding earrings in a jacket pocket. For more than 10 years, she had lived in the belief that her treasured earrings had been taken by the cleaner and that she would never see them again (to be fair, the cleaner had almost certainly stolen other items, so it was not an unreasonable assumption to make). To get them back after so long was an absolute and unexpected joy.

A similar story involved Jane’s husband Stefan. Jane’s and my own children went to the same primary school which held regular fairs and jumble sales. These occasions were good excuses to declutter our wardrobes and pass on any unwanted toys and bric-a-brac.

One year as one such fair was approaching, Jane had a good declutter and filled up the car with jumble, putting a pile of unwanted coats on the back seat before dropping them off at school.

A few days later, her husband was preparing to leave for a business meeting, and asked if she had seen his smart jacket.

“Where did you last have it?’ asked Jane

“I left it on the back seat of the car.”

You can imagine Stefan’s choice response when he discovered that his expensive tailored jacket had been sold for a song at the school fair. Jane had unknowingly scooped it up with the other coats on the back seat and handed it over with the rest of the jumble. They both assumed Stefan would never see his jacket again, and Jane was banished to the dog house.

But the story does not end there. Later that week, tempers having cooled, the couple were out for a walk when they noticed a stranger walking towards them. He was wearing a very familiar item of clothing.

Stefan, being a lot braver than I would have been, stopped the man and asked about the fine jacket he was wearing. The man confirmed he had picked it up from the local school fair for 50p.

With a bit of astute negotiating, and offers of giving the man back the 50p, Stefan and his jacket were happily reunited.

Do you have any stories of unexpected reunions?

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 28th Feb and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 26th Feb 2025

Finding the faith

The red circle shows where I found the back of my earring on the bathroom, the same place I’d lost it about a week before

The back of my earring which was lost on the bathroom floor for a week before magically reappearing. Was St Anthony having a laugh at my expense?

I’ve had a few more responses about lost items following my column on the patron saint of such things, St Anthony of Padua. If you recall, he is the patron saint of wayward possessions, people and even faith, having been credited with many miracles that recovered seemingly unrecoverable losses.

Canada-based Lynn Catena contacted me saying: “I have a friend who texts asking me to pray to St Anthony for her. It’s probably worked two or three times. The last time, sadly, her passport remained lost. But I reminded her that she could show her Nexus card to return home to Canada from the US (A Nexus card is a form of identification that allows US and Canadian residents to cross between the two countries without a passport). The other times her diamond engagement ring and a lost diamond pendant from a broken necklace were located.”

Monica Ganz from the USA added: “I’ve often prayed to St Anthony for things. Sometimes I have found the item, sometimes not. Interesting story about the novice monk who stole St Anthony’s prayer book, but then brought it back. Imagine how awful that must have been for St Anthony! Oh, loved your ending. It is a mystery on how we search for things only to find them in strange places.”

Yorkshire cyclist and blogger Rob Ainsley recalled a story from around 1982: “I went to the fair one evening with a friend. As we headed home for the night from our last ride, the rollercoaster, he noticed a bunch of keys on the muddy path in front of us. “Look,” he said, “Someone’s dropped their keys. I’ll take them to the police station and hand them in.” Except he didn’t have to: they were his. They’d fallen out his pocket during the ride, unbeknown to him, and he’d stumbled on his own keys quite by chance…My mate was Dave. I wish I had his magic powers today. My fabulous thief-resistant 15 out of 15-rated bike lock isn’t much use until I remember that safe, memorable location where I put the keys!”

It is always sad, though, when we lose something that is meaningful, as mentioned by Liz Davidson, who also happens to be my aunt, and her mum was my grandmother: “I have a few single earrings. I have one Whitby Jet earring which was my mother’s. I’ve never found its mate.”

Clare Proctor came up with a suggestion for my treasured, now single, diamond earring: “A second piercing is definitely the way to go, especially for your diamond – or have it set in a ring instead and wear that. I have been known to wear odd earrings, if they compliment each other. Do not throw your diamond away – it may be reunited with its partner one day – think of that elephant!” ‘That elephant’ refers to a pendant that was lost by a friend of Clare’s until it fell out of a sofa during a house move many years later.

Lynne Wheatley suggests: “You must also write about lost shoes. So many people lose one shoe – how many different shoes have we seen in different places? Whenever I see one my mind makes up a little story about who is wearing the other one. Just like your lost earnings, so interesting.” She has a point, doesn’t she. You see lonely shoes in such strange places, like roundabouts and roadsides. How do they get there? Do people throw them out of cars?

Having written my column about St Anthony, I then I dropped the back of one of a favourite pair of earrings on the bathroom floor. I heard it land and thought I would easily find it because it is only a small bathroom. I scoured the floor on my hands and knees, looked under all the obstacles, and found absolutely nothing. I was baffled and finally had to admit defeat and give up. In the intervening week, I vacuumed and mopped the floor, still not coming across it and assumed it was lost forever. Then yesterday, I saw it on the floor, right in the spot I thought it had first landed, not under or behind anything. Just there on the the open floor.

Was St Anthony was having a laugh at my expense?

I’d love to hear from you about your stories, memories, opinions and ideas for columns. Use the ‘Contact’ button on the top right of this page to get in touch.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 16th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 14th August 2024.

Praying for a Tony award

A painting from the chapel of Pius V Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Venice) by Joseph Heintz the Younger depicting the miracle of St Anthony of Padua and the Mule. Credit: Didier Descouens – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62705004

My column last week about lost precious things made me think about the non-practical methods we employ to try and find them again. Having been brought up a Catholic, I was taught that there was a saint to pray to for almost every problem in life, and it was to St Anthony that you had to turn if you lost something.

I remember as a youngster praying to him when I had mislaid an important item, but unfortunately cannot recall if my prayers were ever answered or not. Traditionally, you were supposed to recite an old couplet that went:

“Tony, Tony, turn around, something’s lost and must be found.”

There is another, perhaps more reverent rhyme written by Julian of Spires, a German Franciscan monk and contemporary of St Anthony who was particularly known for being a gifted writer and musical composer noted for his ‘rhyming offices’, prayers, that are said or sung. He wrote this one about St Anthony in 1241, about 10 years after the saint’s death.

“The sea obeys, the fetters break, and lifeless limbs thou dost restore,

while treasures lost are found again, when young and old thy aid implore.”

St Anthony is known as either Anthony of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital where he was born on 15th August 1195, or Anthony of Padua, the northern Italian town where he spent much of his later life. He planned to travel extensively to preach and hoped to become a missionary, but his recurring poor health curtailed his ambitions. He ended up in Padua and became one of St Francis of Assisi’s most famous followers. He founded a Franciscan community and became known as a champion of the poor and as a gifted preacher celebrated for his simple yet compelling delivery. St Anthony died battling poor health on a return journey to Padua on 13th June 1231 (now his saint’s day).

He earned a reputation for performing miracles, including reviving several people after they had been confirmed dead, reattaching severed limbs simply by praying and holding them in place, getting a newborn baby to declare out loud who his real father was after said father had accused his wife of cheating, and other miraculous achievements involving people with a whole plethora of illnesses and disabilities. He was also said to induce wild animals to behave in surprisingly sophisticated ways when in his holy presence. As the patron saint of lost things such as possessions, people and even faith, he is also credited with many miracles that recovered seemingly unrecoverable losses.

Thanks to his miraculous reputation, he was canonised less a year after his death on 30th May 1232 by Pope Gregory IX, and considering he was not yet 36 when he died, he must have been a remarkably charismatic and impressive man. In January 1946, Pope Pius XII named him ‘doctor of the church’ which in Roman Catholicism indicates his theological writings are considered particularly important.

The original reason he became patron of lost things is thanks to a story that involves a novice monk who stole Anthony’s book of psalms in which had written personal notes he used for his sermons and teachings. The novice took the book, then deserted the Paduan Franciscan community. Anthony prayed fervently for the return of his book and for the novice to return to the faith. His payers were answered, and the repentant novice came back, forgiven and welcomed once again by the community.

There are websites that celebrate St Anthony, and they encourage the faithful to submit their success stories of having found lost stuff after praying to the saint. Some could be just good luck, while others are much harder to explain. One story involves a teacher who lost an earring. She scoured her classroom including looking under her desk and chair. Just as she gave up, the cleaner arrived with his dust mop, and she explained the situation, asking him to look out for it. That night she said her prayers to Saint Anthony and the next morning, there was the earring lying under her chair in the same place she had looked the night before. She asked if the cleaner had for some reason placed it there, but he said he had not found it, despite looking out for it.

So how did it get there?

I’d love to hear from you about your stories, memories, opinions and ideas for columns. Use the ‘Contact’ button on the top right of this page to get in touch.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 2nd Aug and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 31st July 2024.