St. Andrew’s Day: Students asked to help find saint’s missing hand

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Current and former students of the University of St Andrews are being asked for information which could solve a decades-old mystery of the disappearing ‘lucky’ hand. The large statue of the saint was gifted to Scotland’s oldest university in the 1960s – and at some point over almost four decades based in the Botanic Garden car park in St Andrews it lost its left hand. Before its donation to the university, the statue stood in the foyer of the North British & Mercantile Insurance Company building in Edinburgh, where staff touched the statue's hand for luck. “Before it came to the university in the 1960s, St Andrew sat in the foyer of the North British & Mercantile Insurance Company building in Edinburgh and as members of staff came in to work they touched his fingers to bring them luck.