A letter from a reader
My dog died in March. In April, a stranger in Clerkenwell made me something I will never take off.
I am not really a jewellery person. I own a watch my husband gave me and a pair of small gold studs I have had since the eighties. That is the lot.
So I would not normally write something like this, and I certainly would not write it about a necklace. But enough people have stopped me to ask about it now that it seemed easier to put it down properly, rather than explain it again over a cup of tea.
It started with losing Barley.
Barley. Fourteen years old and still convinced he was a puppy.
He was a golden retriever and he had been with us for fourteen years. You know how it is. They are not supposed to be the centre of everything, but they are, and when they go the house sounds wrong.
I did not want a memorial plaque or a paw print in clay. I have seen those and they are fine for other people but they are not for me. I just wanted something small enough to sit under a jumper and not have to explain.
How I found it
My daughter sent me a link in April. She had seen an advert on Facebook for a woman in London, an Italian jeweller called Nonna, who was giving away her work for free. You only covered the postage.
I nearly closed the page. Free jewellery. It sounded like a scam.
But my daughter had already looked into it, and she said the woman was real. She had a name and a bench and thirty five years of work behind her.
I had a look. And there it was, near the bottom of the page.
The Hug Pendant
It is a small silver figure, about the size of a two pound coin, sitting down, holding a golden dog close against its chest. The dog is tucked right into the person, head resting against their shoulder, the way they do when they know you are sad.
The pendant the day it arrived. I did not expect it to look like that.
I stared at it for a long time. It was exactly the thing I had not known how to ask for.
I ordered it. The postage was a few pounds. The necklace itself was free.
See the Hug Pendant Necklace here
What arrived
It came five days later in a small box, wrapped in tissue. I will be honest, I expected something light and cheap. Something that would go green after a week.
It is not that at all.
It has weight to it. You can feel it when it sits against your chest. The silver figure and the golden dog are solid, not hollow, and when you turn it over you can see tiny marks on the back where the file went. It is not machine made. Someone sat at a bench and filed this one by hand.
I have not taken it off since the day it came.
The chain is fine but strong. I have worn it in the shower, in the garden, doing the washing up. I have slept in it every night since April. It has not tarnished, it has not gone dull, and the clasp has not once come undone.
I have picked up lighter necklaces in town for forty or fifty pounds. This one feels like it belongs in a glass cabinet. It cost me nothing.
What I did not expect
The first time it happened I was in Tesco. A woman in the queue looked down at my chest, then looked at me, and I could see her working it out. She did not say anything. She just touched my arm.
That has happened four times now. Two of them had tears in their eyes. One of them had lost her own dog the week before.
It does not need explaining. That was the thing I wanted most. You do not have to tell anyone what it is. They just know. A person holding a dog. That is the whole story.
It is not grief. It is closer to gratitude.
And it feels like him. I know that sounds soft. But the weight of it against my chest, all day, is a small weight that says he was here.
About the price
The Hug Pendant is free. The original price was £109. You pay nothing for the necklace and just cover postage at checkout.
I know what you are thinking because I thought it too. But there is no catch. No account to create, no subscription, nothing monthly. You put in your address and your card, and the postage is the only charge you see. The whole thing took me two minutes.
There is a ninety day money back guarantee, but I did not need it.
I went and read the reviews before I ordered. Over four hundred, sitting at 4.9 stars. A handful of people said the delivery took longer than expected, which if anything made me trust the rest of them more. Real people, mostly very happy.
Then I ordered two more. One for my daughter, and one for my friend Janet, who lost her spaniel in January.
See the Hug Pendant Necklace here
What I would tell you if we were having tea
If you have lost a dog, or if you have one now and love them the way I loved Barley, have a look at this pendant.
It is not a memorial. It is not a statement. It is just a solid, hand-finished little thing that sits against your chest and reminds you, all day, that they were yours.
I am not a jewellery person. I have said that. But I will wear this one for the rest of my life, and I will not take it off, and if you saw it around my neck and asked me about it I would tell you exactly what I have written here.
The free offer is still on now, but Nonna has said there are only 376 pieces left across her whole collection, and once they are gone they are gone. The popular ones go first.
The postage was all I paid. The mornings are not as hard.
Susan