After the successful return of Craig's lost wallet, Summer Times has become a go-to destination for people who've lost or found something precious.
Jonathan Pascoe tells us the extraordinary story of a silver cigarette letter he lost on a Fox Glacier mountaintop in 1967 and reclaimed 35 years later.
The engraved cigarette lighter that Jonathan Pascoe lost at Fox Glacier in 1967 Photo: supplied
In the winter of 1967, Jonathan was a "young keen enthusiastic fellow" having an "amazing week in the mountains" of Fox Glacier with a couple of friends.
Summitting a peak 2,800 metres above sea level on a bluebird day, he and his friends had to shout out their exultation.
"I'm not a great poet or anything but we shouted at the top of our voices, quoting [William] Wordsworth… Wordsworth said 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!' That really summed things up for us."
The next day Jonathan realised he'd left behind his expensive Ronson lighter - a birthday present from his now-wife a few months earlier.
After nervously explaining what had happened, Jonathan didn't mourn the cigarette lighter too much - soon after he gave up smoking and has been an anti-smoking advocate for 50 years.
Then, in 2003 - 35 years after Jonathan had last seen the lighter - his daughter was driving through Fox Glacier township and met up with a friend who was mountain guiding.
The man told her a friend of his, who is also a mountain guide, had something that might be of interest to her.
It turned out seven years he had discovered Jonathan's lighter - no less than 12.5km slope distance from where it had been left.
The silver lighter had travelled down the steep Fox Glacier at an average of 1.17 metres a day or 426 metres a year, according to the calculations of Jonathan's glaciologist friend.
What first appeared to be a clump of metal was cleaned and polished up by a fox glacier jeweller and revealed itself to be a revealed an old-fashioned silver lighter with the inscription 'J.G.Pascoe'.
The lighter is now framed and mounted on his wall, Jonathan says.
"It was very meaningful to have my girlfriend and subsequent wife spend money on this expensive lighter. We didn't have a lot of money so it was very special and it is still very special to me."
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