“It’s terrible when you love somebody so much and you lose the last contact you had to them,” the 79-year-old said.

For six years after his beloved wife Joy died, Mr Dawson had worn her wedding ring.

After Mr Dawson lost 50 kilograms as a result of prostate cancer, the ring had been slipping off his bony finger; and he’d had to bend it in at the sides so it didn’t fall off.

Last Friday he was shopping in Lavington when he realised the ring was gone, and despite the help of half a dozen other shoppers, his desperate efforts to find the gold band came to nothing.

His friend and carer Vicki Maloney said since then she has often caught him staring mournfully at his empty hand.

Mr Dawson and his wife of 40 years had a true romance; she was, and still is, everything to him.

Every morning and night the former Howlong Bakery operator kisses the picture frame bearing her photo.

“We were good mates,” Mr Dawson said.

“We worked in the same pub, that’s how we met.

“Age didn’t worry us, we just had a good time together. That’s why I’m so dirty I lost it.”

Before Mr Dawson noticed the ring was missing on Friday he’d visited Rivers Clearance Store on Wagga Road, to buy some new jeans for his shrinking frame, and The Reject Shop to get a toy for Vicki’s dog.

The ring is a plain gold band, a bit out of shape, with no engraving.

Its owner will be 80 on October 9, but Mr Dawson doesn’t think he will make it that far.

He desperately wants it back before he dies.

“I want the wedding ring with me when I go,” Mr Dawson said.

“I keep feeling for it and it’s not there.”