Gold linger: Meet the panner who took 40 years to make wife’s rings
NOT many women would wait 40 years for their husband to fulfil a promise.
But Alan Souter vowed to make his wife Colinne a ring from the gold he found while panning in Scotland – and it took him four decades to part with his treasure.
The 78-year-old began his hunt for the precious metal more than half a century ago, after starting off with a frying pan during his years as a geology student.
It was back then he promised his childhood sweetheart he would make her a ring with any gold he unearthed.
The keen prospector has since struck it lucky in more than 70 Scottish burns, often using homemade gadgets to extract the goods from the ground.
But Mr Souter, from Aberlour,
Moray, said: “It took 40 years to get round to parting with the gold to be melted down.
“She said it was a long wait. But I prefer to see it in its raw state rather than it being turned into jewellery.
“When you see a little bit under the microscope, that’s how I like it. You’re the first person to have seen it when you see it in the pan. Until then, it’s been hidden away for hundreds of millions of years.”
He admitted he felt “sad” at the thought of it being melted down. But, fulfilling a decades-long promise, he finally handed hundreds of fragments from his vast collection to a goldsmith to have them cast into two rings – the first 18ct and the other 14ct.
It takes around five grams of gold – the equivalent weight of one-and-aquarter teaspoons of sugar – to produce a ring.
Some of the flakes were so tiny, one of the rings was made from a combination of pieces found in 50 different burns across Scotland.
Mr Souter, a retired geography teacher, said: “There are hundreds of burns in Scotland with gold.
“The bulk of it came from two or three [burns] but I had a lot of vials with two or three tiny specks of gold and they were all thrown into the melting pot.
“I’m now revisiting some of those burns, just so I can have the samples.”
His wife, also 78, is no longer able to wear the jewellery due to her arthritic joints – but not before the smaller of the two rings had to be cut from her finger and she almost lost the other.
Mr Souter said: “The ring fell off with another ring so I went out with a metal detector and found one in the compost bin, but couldn’t find the other.
“Then she was picking tomatoes in the greenhouse and there was the Scottish gold ring lying at the base of a tomato plant.”
Both rings are now stored in a secure location along with his dozens of vials containing specks of gold and each labelled with the place they were found.
The basic equipment he used to collect the treasure includes a trowel and a crowbar, as well as a makeshift gravel pump made using a drainpipe and a tennis ball.
The pensioner also has a dry suit, snorkel and mask for a technique known as “sniping”.
His panning exploits have taken him to Alaska, New Zealand and a former gold-mining community in Colorado.
Using the gold found overseas, Mr Souter also had a brooch, worth around £700, produced which he presented it to daughter Fiona, 56, at the weekend to celebrate her being ordained as a priest. He said: “It’s a unique brooch with half an ounce of gold in it, so it’s quite a heavy thing. It’s made from Scottish, Colorado, Alaskan and New Zealand gold. She’s delighted.”
Until recently, his wife, who he first met at school, joined him in his quest to find gold and the couple would work the rivers and burns together.
But he stressed the monetary value was never of interest to him and even after more than 50 years of panning he still “gets a buzz” when he finds even a microscopic flake.
“For me, it’s a good day out. Some [people] go to places where they know there is gold. I like to go where I think there might be gold.”
But while he is driven by the adventure of the treasure hunt, he said over the years the lure of “getting rich quick” has attracted the “wrong element” with some people “interested in the gold and nothing else”.
“There were umpteen burns that landowners used to let us on, then folk found out and started causing trouble and all gold panners were asked to leave. There is an element who just want to tear the place apart, maybe leave litter and cause problems with farmers by blocking roads.
“Lockdown, in particular, brought out a lot of people just hoping to get rich quick. But in reality it costs more to find it than what the find is worth.”
Mr Souter hopes in the future his collection can be split between his two daughters and the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, to help geologists identify how gold was formed in different parts of the country. He has now written a book about the trials and tribulations of being a gold panner, collating stories from various prospectors to keep their tales alive for future generations.
He admitted age was taking its toll but there are still many burns he plans to explore before his panning days are over.
Lockdown, in particular, brought out a lot of people just hoping to get rich quick