Viral tweet in search for Bonnybridge couple's missing ring

Patricia and Graham Schofield were travelling home from Yorkshire after spending the New Year with their son and his family when Graham lost his engagement ring.

The jewellery item went missing while the couple were on a train travelling from York to Edinburgh on Tuesday, January 2.

Despite searching while on the train, the ring has not yet shown up.

In a bid to try and reunite his parents with the ring, the couple’s son, Kevin, tweeted the train company to ask whether it had been handed in as lost property.

And unexpectedly this social media act went viral, with his original post receiving over 7000 retweets.

His tweet said: “Hi @VirginTrains. My dad lost the engagement ring he’s had for 48 years yesterday (2/1/18) on the 10.53 service from York to Edinburgh. He was in Coach E. Was it handed in by anyone? All RTs gratefully appreciated as well.”

Virgin Trains replied to him saying: “Hi Kevin, really sorry to hear this. It sounds like your dad was travelling with @Virgin_TrainsEC so we’ll pass this over to the team for you.”

Then the Virgin Trains East Coast team got in touch to say: “Sorry to hear this Kevin. We’ve retweeted it for you. Have you logged this with Lost Property in the meantime?”

But it wasn’t just the train operators who took time to get in touch, with Kevin receiving many messages of support.

The former Falkirk Herald reporter, who now works as editor of Politics Home, said: “It wasn’t until the following morning I found out that dad had lost his ring, but I thought I might as well tweet Virgin Trains to see if it had been handed in.

“It had more than 7000 retweets, which I was quite surprised at, I wasn’t expecting it.

“I had nice messages from people, complete strangers, with their own suggestions with what else to do too.”

Patricia (69), said that Graham noticed he lost his ring after going to the toilet, not long after they had boarded the train.

She said: “He’d gone to the loo and when he came back he said it had gone.

“He thought he’d heard something drop when he was drying his hands.

“So I went and got the guard, who was very helpful.

“He closed off the toilet to have a proper look, and pulled everything out, but didn’t find it.

“The ring was on Graham’s right hand and it’s maybe just slipped off and fallen down the back of something.

“It’s of huge sentimental value and he was quite upset.

“He went up and had another look later and I went and had another look too, but we didn’t find it.

“I have logged it with the train company’s lost property and I also phoned Edinburgh because the train terminated there, but nothing had been handed in.

“It might be that it is found later, and maybe one day it will turn up.”