A New Brunswick man has been reunited with his grandfather’s long-lost dog tags, thanks to a British gardener.

Jack Trueman became emotional as he held the tags for the first time Thursday.

“It’s quite emotional when I think about it. I’m happy to get it,” says Trueman. “As you can see, I’m pretty choked up.”

The dog tags belonged to his grandfather, Private Leopold Wellington Cadman, who served with the Nova Scotia Highlanders during the First World War.

Cadman was shot in the foot during battle. He recovered and hung the bullet from his dog tags but he later lost the tags while in rehab at a military hospital in Liverpool, England.

The tags were lost for 80 years, until gardener Tommy Evans decided to plant some flowers in a park in Liverpool.

“Back in 1991 I was planting daffodil bulbs and as I was digging down with the trowel, I came across this soldier’s ID tag from back in the First World War,” says Evans.

Not knowing what to do with the tags, Evans held onto them until recently, when he contacted a reporter in Liverpool who helped track down Trueman in Riverview, N.B.

Trueman says he only knows Cadman through pictures but having the tags makes him feel closer to his grandfather.

After the war, Cadman moved to the United States, leaving his Canadian family behind. Because of it, Trueman’s mother refused to talk about her father. But Trueman was always curious about his grandfather.

“My mother would never talk about it. He left home when she was four years old.”

While the return of the tags is significant for Trueman, it’s also significant to Canada’s military history.

“He is a veteran from this country, a wounded veteran that came back home and coming home from that time is something,” says Bob Dupuis, president of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 6 in Moncton.

Furthering Trueman’s connection to his past, one of his American relatives heard about the story and has contacted Trueman.

Trueman hopes that together, they will be able to complete the picture of a grandfather he never knew.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jonathan MacInnis