A TROON man and his metal detector came to the rescue when a woman lost her engagement ring on Troon Beach.

A plea for help was posted on social media to return the jewel back to the owner, Joy Simpson, when she lost it on Wednesday, September 13.

Lynne Powell, who knows the rings owner through her daughter-in-law, said: “Posting on behalf of a friend, her engagement ring slipped off her finger, either in the vicinity of the ice cream kiosk, whilst digging in the sand, or the Lido.

“It’s a pear-shaped diamond, with diamonds at the sides and shoulders.

“I wonder if anyone with a metal detector would be willing to comb the area of sand in front of the Kiosk?

“It slipped off her finger when she was digging with her toddler.”

Andy Muir came down to the beach in search of the ring with his trusty metal detector and when he found it, he was cheered by a class of photography students from Glasgow Kelvin College who were shooting for their landscape project.

Andy said: “I had a spare hour so went down to in front of the kiosk area as mentioned and I went searching up and down with my metal detector.

“There was a photography college class down from Glasgow and I accidentally walked in front of one crouching for a photo - I apologised telling them I was looking for a ring and one replied “needle in a haystack”.

“I didn’t have much hope with how the wind had been.

“I got a beep after 25 minutes but it turned out to be a Capri sun pouch, however, after about 40 minutes my detector beeped again and the ring was a few layers of sand deep.”

Lynne told the Troon Times that the ring was in her possession and it would be passed on to Joy over the weekend.