“It’s a coin in a bottle.”

“Yes,” replied the solicitor. “Your great grandfather’s I believe.”

“Ah ok. Just that I don’t remember my grandfather ever showing me?”

The solicitor gave me a pitying nod in my direction (which could have come across quite condescending I think), but instead I took it as my cue to wrap things up and take my inheritance home.

“What was the outcome, love?” My wife asked.

“A coin in a bottle!” I shouted as I slumped in my trusty, tattered armchair.

“Huh?” My wife burst her head out from the hole in the wall that connected the kitchen to the dining room, “interesting!”

I shrugged, to myself, feeling all sad and deflated. Nothing more was said and I placed my inheritance up on the fireplace mantelpiece.

Half an hour later we were both sitting at the table eating homemade chips ‘nd egg when the shrill doorbell rang.

“Mr Shaker! So sorry to disturb but I forgot to give you the accompanying letter,” the solicitor, earlier, exclaimed forcing the letter into my hand and then quick-stepped it back to her car.

“Oh! Thanks,” I mumbled with my mouth still chewing frantically.

My wife puzzled said, “everything alright?”

“Solicitors forgot to give me a letter,” in which I read out loud;

‘Jack. I leave you your great grandfather’s coin (in a bottle). Do with it what you will. All my love…’

The letter was morosely to the point, short. I wished he had written more. My wife had obviously noticed my dejected expression as she summoned me over to sit with her on the couch.

We didn’t say anything for a while, just held hands and I enjoyed the silence. They say time is fleeting and I feel an ache in my heart.

“Come on love. Let’s put on the telly, think we’ll just catch the end of our favourite show,” my wife patted my hand.

Five years later Antique’s Roadshow actually arrived on the Rye near where we lived. My wife and I were so thrilled at the thought. We never even thought we’d actually appear on the telly, but there we were, my wife and I, smartly dressed, with my coin in a bottle.

After much scrutinising, odd facial gestures, “hmmm’s, ah’s” John Foster suddenly looked rather excited.

“So, when I see a coin like this, I start to get a little obsessed,” he laughed. “Tell me what’s the story behind it?”

For the first time in my life I stammered. Perhaps it was the beating sun, the crowds, the

crew and maybe my tiredness that had caused it?

“I, I w..w…was left it by my grandfather five years ago when he passed. Sorry there’s no real story behind it just that I could do with it what I wished.”

Apparently I’d been so taken aback with Mr Foster’s evaluation I’d keeled over off of my chair. Oh the embarrassment - on live telly too!

“George V sovereigns, Mr Shaker, have varying values based on their rarity and condition. The coin despite its rattling around in a glass bottle happens to be in quite good condition. In fact this one dates from 1917! It can easily fetch up to five hundred thousand pounds at auction Mr Shaker.”

My wife and I still sit together and enjoy the Antique’s Roadshow. Every now and again I still glance over to the bottle with the coin on our mantelpiece.

Oh I know if you were me you’d have sold it in a heartbeat. But I have all I need; a wife who I love, daughters grown, married and happy. Our little house shelters us well and the good Lord keeps us clothed and fed. What more could I want?

You see my grandfather’s letter may have been short but his lifetime of love given was not. And that’s definitely something an old coin cannot replace.