FINDERS STORIES: SI FINDS
Mud, Youtube and Long Lost History Returned.
Si treated us to a day on the Thames hunting down some lost relics.
We first met Si at Detectival 2022 where he quizzed us on camera about a rather strange relic he had found mudlarking. There aren’t too many people who like to cross the bridge between metal detecting and mudlarking but Si is out there doing it all! With years of experience under his belt and a plethora of shocking and fascinating finds he hosts one of the best YouTube channels out there featuring all of his digging adventures and more.
So whilst we were in the big city we decided to drop him a message and see if he was out mudlarking at all and wanted to drag a couple of mud novices along. He very kindly accepted and we were sent a pin and a time, a secret treasure map to our next mudlarking adventure.
On the foreshore with Si it just so happened to be one of the super low spring tides, prime time for finding lost treasures trapped in the sticky Thames mud. All we needed was some ‘luck in the muck’ (Si’s trademark catchphrase) and out with the mud lover himself we were certain to find some. Soon enough the finds started appearing and Si taught Ellie the tricks to getting her nose right in that muck to reveal her all time mudlarking bucket listers, lost letterpress type.
Armed with handfuls of letterpress type, a rather terrifying set of dentures and a beautiful sweetheart brooch between us we left the foreshore quite the muddy trio making a much needed fuel stop at a local cafe for those sausage and egg sandwiches (Si’s personal favourite) and a natter about all things mudlarking.
Although I loved the item itself, it was an easy decision to try and track the descendants down and return it to the family.
Roman Found: Thank you for such a great mudlark Si!
Si Finds: My pleasure. Glad you had fun!
RF: Always! So have you always been a finder, have you always had this pull to find lost and forgotten objects?
SF: Oh definitely! I've always had a fascination with old objects and exploring, as a kid I used to make 'buried treasure' using an empty Kinder Egg surprise, then bury it and try to find it. I bet at my old house where I grew up there are still some in the garden awaiting someone with a metal detector to find.
Also, I remember watching the Disney's The Sword in the Stone, and there was an underwater scene in a moat by the castle. They were swimming near old swords and helmets, and I was thinking, why aren't they picking them up?...
RF: Can you tell us a bit about your background and your journey into mudlarking and the digging world? What started the obsession? Did you ever see yourself doing this?
SF: As mentioned I've always had a passion for discovery, adventure and finding things from our past, but I chose Geography over History at school, because I got on well with the teacher, maybe I just enjoyed the thought of field trips rather than listening to lectures on dates etc.
When I was around 30, and all clubbed out, I decided to try metal detecting. Like yourselves, I bought a cheap machine and tried it outside the back of my house, and found a ERII half crown, and a few lead toys, I was hooked. Then one day I took a bike ride down the Rainham Marshes, Essex, and saw the old WW2 concrete barges, and started looking round there. I found a few ha'pennies, and a fossilised sea urchin (Echinoid) and that was my light bulb moment - so then looked into Mudlarking more online.
Back in 2011, there was no online Mudlarking accounts like there is today, just one website called Thames and Field run by MudMen's Steve Brooker, and there was a club night where anyone could just turn up and chat about the things they had found on the Thames. Well for me it was like that moment in the film Roder Rabbit, when they drive into Toon Town, and the curtain lift and everything is colourful and full of wonder. From that club I met some like-minded people and began mudlarking proper!
RF: Is there anything in particular that you are always looking out for or have you found it all?
SF: I don't think you can ever find it all, there's still plenty of things on my wish list. My dream find would be a flintlock pistol, my friend found the remnants of one once, so I know they are out there. I find musket balls all the time, so the guns that fired them must be around somewhere.
I've also never found a gold coin, only a chocolate gold coin that someone threw onto the foreshore! so when that day comes it will be memorable.
RF: What has been your favourite find that you’ve ever made and what was the story behind it?
SF: It was a mid summer’s morning on The River Thames, my friend Jules and I had been Mudlarking for about 3 hours and were on the ‘last knockings’ of the day.
Jules has been Mudlarking for a number of years , and I’d only had my permit about 8 months, so I was taking all his advice, and still do. I was having an average day, with the usual buttons, modern coinage, parts of broken clay pipe, lead seals and other odds and ends when Jules called me over to show me some strange Dutch hammered coin that he had just pulled out, and said I should join him to try this spot! ‘Ok’, I said, ‘One good find for me and I’ll be happy’.
I knelt down, turned over a slab of concrete and carefully scraped back the sand. After a few scrapes I could see a dark grey coin, I thought it was a 10p piece at first, but on closer inspection discovered an image of a woman (Marrianne - representing Liberty), and recognised it as French.
It had two drilled holes in it, which meant it must have been worn, ‘Yes’, I said ‘It’s silver!’ I turned it over to look for a date and to my surprise saw the reverse was polished flat, and an engraving that took my breath away. It was tricky to see because it was dark grey, but there was a winged logo which read ‘RFC’ - N.Posener - 19385 - Jew.
We both were stunned and excited by the unusual silver coin and we agreed it must be a military ID tag, WOW! After a few more minutes searching, we left the foreshore, thoroughly jubilant with the find. There was a lot of information to digest, which, thanks to Internet forums and Ancestry.co.uk - I spent the rest of the day researching.
Everyone knows the RAF, but I learned that RFC, was the Royal Flying Corps and was the predecessor to the RAF, created during the out-break of WW1. So does that mean that N. Posener was a pilot? To find out about his life in the military, I searched various websites including the National Archives. Using his ID number, I confirmed the name matched the number, and discovered he served between 1918-1928. I then looked on Ancestry.co.uk and luckily they had the 1911 census available to search for free at the time, and sure enough there he was, his full name - Nathan Posener, aged 18, living at 292 Commercial Road, only a 250metres from where I found his dog tag!
So he was 21 when the war broke out, but what happened to him after that? Did he have any living relatives? Although I loved the item itself, it was an easy decision to try and track the descendants down and return it to the family.
I began by submitting my story to the local newspaper, once I submitted the story, it was printed and put online on www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk, and I didn’t have to wait very long for a response.
After two weeks the reporter who ran the story phoned me up saying a reader had recognized the surname Posener, and got in touch with his friend John Silverman, who happened to be the grandson of Nathan Posener, and what’s more his mother, Nathan’s daughter Teresa was still alive (aged 90)! I managed to speak to John on the phone and he was delighted and surprised at the discovery of the dog tag because his family knew nothing about it. But even so, his Mother said it had ‘made her year’, and that was great to hear.
It was a great feeling returning something that had been ‘lost’ to the family for so many years, and John appreciated how lucky he was to have it back. He told me that Nathan wasn’t actually a pilot, but a master tailor, and had been called up to design and sew the outer layer of the plane membrane, because in the First World War they were originally made out of leather and fabric.
Nathan was posted out in France, which is where a lot of the conflict happened, and would also answer the question as to why he used a French Franc, also dog tags were only given to the ‘Tommy’s’, so being the eccentric man John tells me he was, he decided to craft himself one. Whether he engraved it himself or hired a jeweller to do it, we will never know, but he did have the industrial needles around to do the job and he quite possibly had the creative hands and skills too – being a master tailor.
I’m happy to report that Nathan survived the war, and went on to live a long life, and passed away in March 1987 (aged 94) in Hampstead where his daughter now lives.
The dog tag has come a long way in it’s life time, not only has it travelled from France to England, been churned around in the Thames for 90 years, but it has also appeared on Channel 4’s What’s Cooking as part of a discussion on how finding items isn’t about the monetary value and that returning long-lost items to their rightful home is a positive thing that few of us ‘Treasure Hunters’ ever get the chance to do.
The dog tag has come a long way in it’s life time, not only has it travelled from France to England, been churned around in the Thames for 90 years.
RF: Have you found anything interesting today?
SF: Yes I've had three great finds today! First up was that ice skate, it didn't look modern, so you never know, maybe it was used by someone on the famous 'Frost Fairs' on the River Thames when the river froze over, the last decent one was in 1814, and there is an account of 'skating' happening, so who knows!
I also found a gorgeous sweetheart brooch, these were made from badges and buttons by servicemen and passed on to their wife or girlfriend. The one I found was from someone enlisted on HMS York, and was mounted onto a beautiful mother of pearl disk. The fastener has broken off, so maybe it fell off, rather than being deliberately thrown away. Imagine the stories that could tell us.
I was having a good day by then, but to top it off, you Roman Found ladies passed on your good luck to me and I found a Roman Minim! I was so surprised, because I detected it, and the Thames is so trashy, its a hard thing to find objects that small. So I got some serious 'luck in the muck'.
RF: What do you envision mudlarking for the future will look like?
SF: It's hard to say, areas of the foreshore that were once productive are thinning out (finds wise), so it's getting harder to find things in the same quantity that we used to, and competition for finds is at an all time high, so you have to work harder to make good finds. But the clippers are still eroding the foreshore, in some places more than others, so more things will come to light, I just hope to be there when they do.
RF: You have quite the YouTube Channel! Do you have any advice for anyone looking to get started on YouTube?
SF: It's very hard work, but we all have to start somewhere. Again, it's a very competitive space, so you have to think outside the box and have an engaging personality or interesting finds and ideas to attract and keep an audience. I've been doing it (seriously) for about three years, and that's doing a video a week, which is hard to do. I take my hat off to anyone who can sustatin that level of focus, but like anything in life, the more work you put into something, the more you get out.
RF: You’ve been sharing your adventures online for a while now, is this an important part of the fun for you and does it ever detract from the day?
SF: Yes I love to film my 'mudventures' and it can be frustrating if you you don't find anything of note, but thats treasure hunting, not every trip is a successful one.
But one thing it has done is forced me to do the things I want to do with my finds, for example research, in the past I might not have researched so hard on every object, and even some of the seemingly mundane objects, like a piece of plate from a long since defunct Cafe can make an interesting story. I'm also forced (in a positive way) to upcycle and restore some of my finds. I'm a person that likes to have projects, so if I find part of a bicycle lamp, for example, in the past I would've put that in a 'to do' box, but now I'm making it into a fully working lamp - that my audience seem to love.
RF: How do you think mudlarking compares to metal detecting, do you have a favourite?
SF: On balance I prefer Mudlarking, because I get to do both! Metal detecting the foreshore is extremely difficult due to amount of iron such as the steel bolts and nails they used for ship building and breaking, but through time and persisitance it pays off. With Mudlarking I also find non metallic finds, like my Roman Pot (eyes only), clay pipes and many bottles.
You Roman Found ladies passed on your good luck to me and I found a Roman Minim! I was so surprised, because I detected it, and the Thames is so trashy, its a hard thing to find objects that small. So I got some serious 'luck in the muck'.
RF: How important do you think the hobbies of metal detecting and mudlarking are in terms of their contribution to archaeology?
SF: I think they are extremely important. Mudlarks have been around for decades and have contributed massively to the knowledge of London's history, for example, Mudlarks have found lead toys dating back to to the 16-1800s, when once historians thought children didn't really have much fun and were often thought of as a commodity by parents who sent them out to work. But we have learned, that like today, parents loved their children as much as they do today, and hence bought them toys, albeit made from lead, that they could play with.
Metal detecting in land has proven invaluable for historians, and massive discoveries have been made, which is evident by the recent spate of TV programmes on the subject such as 'Great British History Hunters' and 'Digging for Britain'. Ordinary people are helping to add to our nations knowledge of the past, and that can only be a good thing.
RF: You are a big one for meeting other mudlarks. How important is the mudlarking community between each other?
SF: I do enjoy meeting other treasure hunters, either Mudlarks, metal detectorists and bottle diggers - it's like any hobby, once you get into it, you enjoy discussing your finds and experiences with like-minded people. There's no doubt I have made a lot of friends through the hobby, and it can be a good way to socialise. Just don't speak to me at the moment it reaches low-tide, because there's searching to do, but we can have a pint and chat over our finds when the tide comes in!
RF: Do you have any questions for us?
SF: Yes, what are you going to do with the false teeth you’ve just found on our mudlark?
RF: Lucie is very taken by that terrifying set of dentures so we fear they may end up pride of place in the Roman Found Collection. You can’t beat a quirky find!
But we really can’t wait to get stuck into the research behind them they feel like they might have some real age behind them so you never know just what history is lurking behind the find! We can’t say the history of dentures is something that we’ve looked into yet!
But a huge thanks once again Si for a wonderful day in the mud and some fascinating answers to our questions!
SF: Of course, and I will see you both at Detectival!
You can find Si Finds on YouTube :
