Back in time
Pam Bush tells us a story about metal detecting and how the objects she finds provides her with an intriguing insight into the past.
My hobby is metal detecting.
I go out in all winds and weathers to farmland, beaches and friends' gardens, sweeping the ground with my detector.
I wait with baited breath for the bleep that will tell me that something interesting lies in the ground.
"What can it be?" I wonder as I dig.
I enjoy the treasures I find - not for any monetary value - but for the flights of fancy I associate with them.
When I first find something, I hold it in my hand, close my eyes and the object takes on a life of its own as I create a story around it.
I wonder who was the last person to hold it... how they were dressed... what they were doing at the time they lost it and how they lived.
I then see vivid scenes from the past.
Holding a musket ball I will hear the tramping of soldiers in their uniforms, as they depart for bloody battles leaving their weeping women behind.
Gazing at a decorative Georgian shoe buckle, I fancy I see the swirl of ladies' skirts at some grand ball.
Period music.
A rusty knife takes me into the kitchen of a huge manor house where, like a child opening the door of a doll's house, I peer invisible into every room, witnessing the life within.
Background noise - children talking.
Surrounded by my collection of treasures I know that I'm really a time traveller, and my metal detector... it's my time machine.
Pam Bush
