A treasured childhood toy reappeared in the life of a Dublin man in time for Christmas this year after a tree was taken down in the garden in which he played more than 60 years ago.

The acacia tree, in Ranelagh, where 73-year-old Denis Hickie had played as a child, disgorged a valued black tin gun, lost during a game of cowboys in 1953.

The owners of the house, Anne and Tim Scrivener, found it when they were forced to cut down the tree, which had begun to rot.

The couple had loved the “massive, big old tree”, when they moved into the house in 2003, Anne Scrivener told The Irish Times, but it was dying from the inside out and had to come down.

She said she recalled her former neighbour, who had retired to Wexford, telling her about losing his gun while playing in the tree, so when the tree was chopped down, they looked inside and found the toy, along with a magnet, a knife and a spanner.

Ms Scrivener then got in contact with her former neighbour, Mr Hickie, and last week, he was reunited with his childhood toy.

“Oh my god, my god, that’s unbelievable!” was his response when the rust encrusted object was produced. He said he was about 10 when he lost it. The Scrivener’s home belonged to his aunt and uncle and he played there with his brother and with local friends. On the day he lost the gun, he was with Sydney Armstrong.

“I remember getting up the tree somehow and the thing falling out of my hand and that was it, I just couldn’t get it,” he said.

“It stuck with me for a few days, trying to get the blooming thing, because I wasn’t a gun fanatic, but this was a perfect little thing and I treasured it.”

He said his friend picked up “all sorts of bits and pieces he could think of to try and reach down” into the tree, which accounted for the magnet, the spanner and the knife, but the gun was jammed.

He had not thought about the incident in a long time.

“It has resurrected happy memories. It was a wonderful place to grow up. We used to play our football from dawn to dusk, down around the square in Dartmouth Square. I mean it was ideal, a classical childhood.”