Angela Coppock-Le Voguer bought the Jersey Aero Club cap for her father John Coppock as a momento after she paid for him to fly around Jersey for his 60th birthday.
Following his death in December, aged 70, she brought the hat back to Jersey from his native Burnley, while her sister in New Zealand took a cap she had given him home and her brother was given one bought on a trip to Norway.
For the last six months the Jersey cap has sat on the dashboard of Mrs Coppock-Le Voguer’s van, until Saturday when it went missing while on a trip to Grève de Lecq.
The van had been parked in the public car park near to the Martello tower and Mrs Coppock-Le Voguer believes it may have fallen out while she and her daughter, nine-year-old Florence, were getting out to go to the beach.
‘My daughter had forgotten her hat and I said wear grandad’s hat – I’d rather she did that than get sunburnt,’ she said. ‘In the end she decided not to wear it and said she had left it in the car. It was only on Tuesday when I realised it wasn’t there.
‘I don’t blame her at all, I think it must have fallen out of the car.’
The childminder from St Ouen added: ‘I keep choking up when I think about it and I daren’t even tell my mum,’ she said. ‘I feel a bit gutted, it is just comforting having it there. He helped me to choose my van so it is a bit symbolic and I do sniff it sometimes, I can’t help it.
‘If anybody has seen it or picked it up please let me know. And if someone has got it and likes it I am not angry, I will buy them a new hat.’
Mrs Coppock-Le Voguer can be contacted on 07797961613.
