Things We Found In The Ground, written by cousins Eleanor Bruce and Lucilla Gray, is a book about how chance and circumstance leads to discovery. The introduction tells of childhood memories of the cousins. Bruce recalls weekends spent with grandparents in rural Lincolnshire, "natural wild landscape tamed into cultivated fields and pastures. It’s a vast, wide, flat patchwork of land that remains relatively unchanged today, and is utterly perfect for our weekend family tradition of an afternoon walk, topped off with a picnic diligently prepared by Mammette." It’s on one such picnic that Bruce discovers a piece of pottery peeking up through the earth. When her grandmother declares it’s Roman it leads to weekends full of wonderment, bonding with her grandparents as they search for more Roman sherds. On the other side of the world in New Zealand, Gray searches the shoreline for and finds "artefacts we call taonga, skilfully carved from stone, wood and bone many centuries ago by Māori craftspeople, that hold the greatest stories." Both girls keep their childhood wonderment of time absorbed, feeling safe with their discoveries and stories they tell.
In 2020, COVID-19 brings tragedy and circumstance for change, and both find themselves together for the first time since childhood, discovering in each other hope, purpose and metal detecting. They obtain permission to detect in the fields and land of the Lincolnshire village of Bruce’s grandparents. Lady-H is the eccentric landowner who grants the permission and with it gives the cousins her energy to find the history and people held within the land.
Once they have the permission, for me this is when the journey through time begins. The cousins took me to metal detecting meets, to the inside of Lady-H’s home, to the patchwork fields of Bruce’s childhood and beyond. The beyond includes being taken to the time of the Roman invasion through the unearthing of a Roman military buckle and then I’m returned to the present by a Coca-Cola can. At times the cousins get stuck in the mud both literally and metaphorically. The writing kept me wanting to stay walking alongside them in those fields of mud, rain and digging. Willing them to keep going, they did: a thimble lost over 300 years ago tells of a time when a women had no right to personal property. They could, though, own domestic articles like "just a thimble": "it’s one of the few objects a woman had agency over in a world that was generally entirely out of her control." An enamel Royal Navy badge with a suspension ring, from which hangs a tiny blue metal ribbon, told the story of the the giving of miniature regimental brooches to loved ones, known as Sweetheart Brooches. These were symbols of love, waiting, not knowing and grief. The story of the Sweetheart Brooch uncovered the reality of life for those left at home.
Bruce and Gray demonstrate that metal detecting is a way of life, a commitment made to finding artefacts that will teach us about the people who came before us, no matter how long ago. They have taught me about coinage, life in a medieval village and the importance of the past. They took me to Egypt and to the gold rush of America, on their journey to the end of the rainbow.
Sally Shaw has an MA Creative Writing from the University of Leicester. She gains inspiration from old photographs, history, childhood memories, and is inspired by writers Sandra Cisneros, Deborah Morgan, Liz Berry and Emily Dickinson. She has short stories and poetry published in various online publications including the Ink Pantry, AnotherNorth, Roi Faineant Press. Sally lives in the countryside.
