Wedding dress found through coin

Gillian Hodge did not expect to find her dress in a charity shop

A mother hunting for dressing-up costumes for her daughter has found the wedding dress she sold more than 20 years ago in a charity shop.

Gillian Hodge, from Heathfield, West Sussex, recognised the gown as her own because the silver coin sewn into it in 1983 was still there.

She found the dress hanging up in the Oxfam shop in Haywards Heath, and immediately bought it at a cost of £45.

"It's been lovely to find it, and it brings back happy memories," she said.

The silver threepence was still sewn inside the label of the gown

Mrs Hodge said she was surprised to find the dress exactly as she had worn it on her wedding day.

"As I looked at the label my heart jumped because the label was sewn together.

"When I got married my mother gave me a silver threepence for good luck - my father had given it to her - and I sewed it between the two labels in the wedding gown, and there it still was."

Mrs Hodge said she was sad that she had sold her dress, but was now "over the moon" to have been reunited with it again.

"Just to have it, just to have something like that - a sentimental thing - it means quite a lot," she said.