What I treasure

My little frog ring

The little frog ring that sits in pride of place in my jewellery box says a lot about my childhood. His tiny orange and black eyes are almost as bright as they were nearly 35 years ago when he was given to me by my brother, Paul.

I remember exactly where in the shop the little frog ring sat – it was on the counter, near the till in one of those trays lined with a thin layer of sponge with little slits in it for things like frog rings.

I had a lovely time growing up. My parents had four children in two sets so I was always closer to my younger brother, Paul. A ten-minute walk from home, around the corner from where we lived, was Mr Price’s Post Office. It was an Aladdin’s Cave for two young children with pocket money, and the jolly gent who owned it was always there with a smile and free chewy sweet shrimp.

Mr Price’s shop was the smell of sweets and newspapers, the idle chat from mums out to get a few bits rather than venturing into town, and the tiny freezer in the corner which held fish fingers, chips and Neapolitan ice cream. Whenever we had the ice-cream from that tiny freezer, the walk home turned into a run before it melted to get it into the even tinier freezer box in the top of our fridge, safe in time for tea. Paul would get extra of the chocolate flavour because I didn’t like it and I had his share of the strawberry bit.

One day, I wasn’t feeling very well, so Paul went to Mr Price’s on his own. He came back with sweets, his favourite comic and this little frog ring, which I have treasured every day since. My brother knew me well and steered clear of the sparkly, girly, pretend gems attached to the other rings and went for the frog in homage to the amphibians that lived in our two fish ponds.

I did actually lose it for a while, but it resurfaced after I moved home and all those childhood memories came back to me; building dens and making mud pies, running a school for our teddies and writing our own newspapers.

It’s very smooth if you run your finger over it and even now I can still wear it, just about, on my littlest finger.