2 min read
It’s a mild Sunday morning in late September, and I’m on the north bank of the Thames near Wapping. It’s surprisingly tranquil down here – the din of the city has been replaced with the sound of gently lapping waves; the bustling crowds with an occasional dog walker. I’m with 14-year-old Emmylou Vaxby, a London schoolgirl, mudlark – a forager of artefacts on a riverbank – and author of A Guide to Mudlarking on the River Thames. We are here, of course, to mudlark.
As we walk slowly over the silt and rocks exposed by the low tide, she teaches me how to “train my eye” for treasure. First, she explains, you have to bend down and get close to the ground (children clearly have an advantage here). Then, sweeping her eyes left and right across the foreshore – the land between the low- and high-tide marks – she advises looking for “something that’s a different colour”.
We soon chance upon a mud-brown bone. Emmylou explains that it could have belonged to a sheep, dog, or even a horse or cow. How on earth did it get here? I ask. “It may have been cast out by a butcher, after removing the meat, or it could have simply died, then been thrown into the river.” It’s hard to guess its age, she adds, but it’s certainly been there for many years. “It’s like in the Great Stink,” she adds, referring to the hot, dry summer of 1858, when the Thames – and all the raw sewage and rubbish dumped into it, rotting flesh and all – became a foul-smelling health hazard.
