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Mudlarking the River Thames - Which one of these Thames Mudlarking Finds has an Explosive Past?

nicola white mudlark - Tideline Art

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Just look at this little handful of Thames mudlarking finds, washed out by the tide - and then found by me! One of them has an explosive past. Can you guess which one? Part of the joy of mudlarking is learning more about the objects which we find at low tide. Each little artefact can inspire the imagination and we inevitably learn something new. In my handful of Thames finds is an ARP button which would have been worn by an air raid warden during WW2. These wardens were dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. There were 1.4 million air raid wardens in Britain during WW2 - most of them volunteers.

During this video I meet up with the photographer Tom Harrison who has been working on a project - taking photos of several of the Thames mudlarks. You can see the portfolio of photos entitled "Mudlarks of London" here:-
https://tomharrison.photoshelter.com/...

Tom's project was inspired by a podcast featuring Lara Maiklem - the Author of "Mudlarking" and whose instagram site you can find at @london.mudlark

Photos were taken of several Mudlarks including Lara, Simon Bourne (@si-finds), Tobias Neto (@tob2n), Anna Borzello (@foreshoreseashore on instagram) and myself. It's well worth checking out the photos and also the instagram sites of the mudlarks.

I also met up with Emmylou Vaxby and her family on the Wapping foreshore to participate in Mission COD, the initiavtive of Emmylou, to clean up plastic waste along the river banks.
You can find Emmylou's blog here :-

https://www.emmylouthemudlark.com/

Lastly dont forget that if you are planning on trying mudlarking you need a permit from the Port of London Authority. Details here:- https://www.pla.co.uk/Environment/Tha...

Thank you for watching. You can follow me on twitter and instagram and twitter here:
@tidelineart

See you soon.
Nicola White
www.tidelineart.com

20 Comments

@maisiefreeman8597 4 years ago

Emmylou is a lovely girl, thinking of the environment and how we damage it with our rubbish. I hope she continues trying to make a positive impact for the rest of her life - we need more people like her.

@TheFiown 4 years ago

Nicolas astonishes me AGAIN ! a one centimetre brown buckle on brown mud and I spend an hour looking for my glasses that are on my head !

@mirkatu3249 4 years ago

It's encouraging and entertaining to see kids on the foreshore, not larking but taking care of the environment. <3

@jaycee6996 4 years ago

Half globe lenses were commonly used on a brass stand and were used for example to concentrate light onto the mirror of a microscope, they were termed bullseyes. They were I think used to concentrate light for doing some fine hand work they were also used in lamps on the railways and elsewhere. I had a battery powered torch back in the 1950's with a bullseye lens.

@TheFiown 4 years ago

Years ago I was looking for a special gift for a friend and went into an antique jewellery store in Paris. I asked him what he found the most special and he took out a medieval ring ( maybe 15th C ) , worn down and slightly mis shapen with a worn stone. He said that it had been found in the Seine River near the Louvre. I remember it was 1300 euros, quite unwearable and not within my budget unfortunately. A few weeks later in the Flea Market I found almost the identical ring in a box for 50 centimes ! It is slightly mis shapen had slightly raised shoulders like the Seine one and has a worn cabochon amethyst in it still. I decided to keep it in the end as I had found something else for my friend and today it site in a lovely antique ring box in my bedroom. No intrinsic value just a nice little piece of history.

@martinhoflich6150 4 years ago

this young lady has my highest respect for collecting trash along rivers especially plastik . she will save alot of birds and turtels out in the seas

@shannahenk1655 4 years ago

Well done, Emmylou! I love that you have been working to clean up the plastic in the Thames. I'm in Colorado in the US, and I also care a lot about eliminating plastic pollution. Sometime if you want a challenge, try shopping with your parents and see how many things that you need you can buy without plastic packaging or tags. I tried recently and was very sad about how many times I couldn't avoid buying plastic. ☹️ But with help from people like you, maybe sometime in the future we'll be able to buy things without all that plastic that gets thrown away or becomes litter! Keep up the good work!! 😀

Thanks Nicola for featuring Emmylou's efforts. ❤️

@ianbennett1491 4 years ago

" Turn that light out." Hodges in Dad's Army.😂😂

@kieran.stafford 4 years ago

I have to say, that poor Swan at 0:22 had a very hard landing on the water :)

@ralphwood5875 4 years ago

Tom Tom Tom !
Please remember Nicola is the Queen of Mudlarkers please treat her with the reverence she deserves or we shall be forced to take some rather muddy revenge!*sinister grin*

@louis-op2lm 4 years ago

If you see a screw path in the back of the glass knob,Its a door knob.I saw many when I was younger.Thanks Nicola for your documentary.

@chrisbgifford7387 4 years ago

My Grandmother was a seamstress and she used hem weights in drapes / curtains. It was rare she put them in dresses because you would have to put a lot of them in the hem to make it hang correctly. the rounded glass incased in the metal looks to me like a cane topper.

@Your.Uncle.AngMoh 4 years ago (edited)

I'm back after some time off chasing other rabbits down other rabbit holes. I reckon if I lived near the Thames, I'd become quite obsessed with mudlarking to the exclusion of anything else.

9:25 That looks like a back to something that's been snapped off. Those holes could have been points to run a thread through to affix it to a jacket.

10:20 Saw that and instantly started humming the "Dad's Army" theme. Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Hitler?

That buckle is probably from a leather or cloth watchband.

17:30 I'm thinking the glass dome might be the top of a man's walking stick.

Thanks to Mister Gurgle, Strike Cola is now called Barr's Cola and is made by the people that make Irn Bru- which outsells Coca Cola in Scotland!

Those ship halfpennies look like an interesting story. The design on them changed quite regularly, especially the ones featuring QEII.

We had a Courage Brewery in Australia in the early 1970s. One of their ads ran "He's a man among men. Courage Draught is his beer".

Hopefully, the UK is on the downslide from the omicron VoC.

Take care and love from Australia.

Garry.

@warrencox1101 4 years ago

Thanks for another Thames outing. My aunt was Edward R Murrow, the famous American news correspondent’s private secretary, and lived many years in London before returning to the States. I’ve been to London several times. Enjoy revisiting now through you.

@AriDesarro-dn5ll 1 year ago

So encouraging to see the little people of the world getting involved in cleaning up the plastic in nature. Bless them! Hope that adults will pick up the habit!! Thank you Nicola for sharing your finds.

@johnhartley3596 4 years ago

That glass object is the lens to a flashlight.

@kimberlymolitor354 4 years ago

"It's a something that used to be something"!!! Laughed so hard when you said that!!🤣

@suzannesmith2505 4 years ago

U inspire everyone to see the hisrbehind every object. Thar ring u found meant a great deal to someone once. Just imagine what memories it holds. You inspired Emmylou and her brother in the same way u do all of us! Good on you mate!

@lynneseaward1315 4 years ago

A wonderful video, Nic’. For some reason I was tearful! I love to see people who are interested in ridding the foreshore of plastic! At the same time enjoying the mudlarking side of it.😀The parts about the ARP triggered a memory of what my Mum used to do in the ATS . She was a spotter. She had some very interesting stories to tell about the air raids and going into the underground Bakerloo line, for shelter! Horrible times, yet my Mum found romance. 😀

@Montana_horseman 4 years ago

Always enjoyable to watch your adventures! It rather struck me today how I had a true sense of happiness at seeing you had a video up. I saved it like a chocolate for a time I could solely just enjoy it. So a thought for you: You are truly reaching around the world and giving people a sense of joy and happiness with your content and creativity. All the very best to you.. and the Squirrel. ☺🐿