When I was a schoolgirl, I thought my name was very boring and wished to be called Amanda, after an obscene Victorian novelist, Amanda M’Kittrick Ros. The name Amanda had not, at the time, gained the popularity it now has. My boyfriend, Peter, carved this for me. It was intended as a brooch, but was too heavy. He made rings for us, from a farthing. The holes remind me that I wore it as a neck pendant, before it became the ring, that preceded my “real” engagement ring, bought from Birdsall’s jewellers in Skipton.

Loaned to the online collection by Sheila Coe