A FORMER Kendal electrician put some extra sparkle into his marriage proposal by providing the gold for his fiancee’s engagement ring.

Hopeless romantic and new-age gold panner John Greenwood spent months scouring Scottish rivers until he had enough of the precious metal to make the ring for his girlfriend.

His labour of love paid off when his fiancee Morag Shearer accepted his proposal when he popped the question armed with the unique ring before Christmas.

John, 46, who now lives in Crieff, Perthshire, said: “I’ve been incredibly lucky to find so much gold to make a ring but I was out there every weekend and in the evenings before it got dark in freezing cold water.

“I certainly put a lot of effort in.”

The Burton-in-Lonsdale-born man spent six months searching for gold nuggets in rivers around the Highland Boundary Fault which separates the Scottish mountains from the lowland and is home to precious metals and minerals. “I’ve actually got so much left over I am holding it back to make our wedding rings. I just can’t believe I found so much,” he added.

The ring, which also includes three diamonds, used around three grams of his 21-gram gold hoard and was made by a goldsmith in Perthshire.

But John almost let the cat out the bag when the package containing the ring accidentally arrived in the post before he could get home and had Morag, 40, suspicious.

He said: “It all worked out brilliantly though – I told her we were going for a pizza but drove to the Gleneagles Hotel and I proposed by the glittering Christmas tree.

“She had no idea all my gold-panning would have resulted in that.”

John was an apprentice electrician and plumber for GNAR Howson at Ingleton and lived on Valley Drive, Kendal, before moving to Scotland to work as an explosives technician.

He is the grandson of the late William Greenwood, who ran a garage at Ingleton, and the son of Carmen and Tony Greenwood who live at Austwick. His grandmother is Margret Robinson of Gargrave.

Earlier this year gold-panning in Cumbria had a boost when prospectors revealed they had found traces at Troutbeck, Dunmail Raise and pockets of Sedbergh, as well as Mungrisdale and Alston.