A beloved rocking chair accidentally given away during a house clearance is to be reunited with its relieved owner thanks to an appeal through KentOnline .

Distraught Sue Ibbetson, from Westgate-on-Sea , had been desperately trying to trace the missing heirloom, which belongs to her daughter’s partner Gary Cope, who had promised his grandmother he would never part with it.

When his mother recently died from cancer, Mrs Ibbetson’s husband Pete gave it away to Pilgrim’s Hospices Furniture Donations in Margate while clearing her house, not realising the significance of the chair.

Before they had a chance to get it back, the rocker, which had a note under the seat saying ‘For Gary, with love from nan’, had already been passed to a trader and sold.

The devastated great-grandmother made an emotional appeal through this newspaper to find it, and a dealer from Ramsgate, who asked to remain anonymous, got in touch saying she had seen the article and tracked the Ercol rocker back down after selling it.

Mrs Ibbetson said: “She and I spoke on the phone and she said ‘I believe I have the rocking chair you’re looking for’.“She sent several photos, from every angle, explaining she had repaired just the top of the seat pad where it was very frayed and torn.

“I then forwarded them to Gary at work because he said he would know that chair anywhere. “I kept checking my phone and I saw at the top of my screen his incoming message: ‘It IS my nan’s chair!’

“Wow! What more can I say?”

"We have so many people to thank"

It was returned to the ecstatic 74-year-old who says she has finally had a good night’s sleep and she is now about to reunite Mr Cope with the chair.

“Pete and I picked up the precious chair from the lady and I can only keep saying what a lovely, sincere, honest person she is,” said Mrs Ibbetson.

“She supports Pilgrims Hospice and was genuinely so pleased to be able to reunite the chair with Gary.

“We have so many people to thank.

“Thank you KentOnline for listening to me crying on the phone about the missing rocking chair, asking if you could put out an appeal and printing it.

“Thank you Pilgrims Hospice warehouse in Margate for trying to help Pete and I track down the buyer. And thank you to the lady who got it back to us.”

The chair, an Ercol rocker, had been in Mr Cope’s family for years.

“Gary’s nan wanted him to have the rocking chair because she used to call him her ‘beloved rocker’ and asked him not to part with it,” Mrs Ibbetson said.

“Years ago she had run out of money and the bailiffs turned up at her door and she pleaded with them not to take the chair - it was the one thing she was left with so it really is very special.”

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