A London mudlark

Transcript: A London mudlark

Lorraine Turner Akcakaya: Tell me a little bit about yourself. 
Liz Anderson: I’m Liz Anderson. I’ve been mudlarking for about ten years now. I started in about 2015. I started out as a history teacher, and I was going to a meeting, and I was actually walking by the River Thames in London near the South Bank by the OXO Tower. I saw somebody on the foreshoreUfervorlandforeshore, and they were sort of bent down, shuffleschlurfenshuffling along, the tidesGezeitentide was out. He seemed to be looking for something and I thought, I wonder if he’s lost something, a purseGeldbörsepurse or a contact lens or, you know, so I went down and I said, “Can I help you? You’re looking for something. What are you doing?” And he said, “Well, I’m mudlarking.” It goes back to the late 18th century, [when] people searched the foreshore at low tide in London to find things. In Victorian times, it was things that they could sell: really poor Londoners, mostly women and children, who would look for bits of coal that had fallen off ships, bits of copper, anything they could sell to buy food and just sort of live. Nowadays, we don’t have to mudlark for those reasons. It’s looking for artefacts, and as the tide goes out, these artefacts are just depositablagerndeposited on the foreshore for people with licences like myself to come and find. And I looked down at my feet when I was chatting to this guy. And there was a piece of late 17th-
century tin-glazed potteryKeramik mit Zinnglasur, Fayencetin-glazed pottery. It’s earthenwareTöpferware, Steingutearthenware covered with a white glaze and blue decoration of blousyhier: üppigblousy fernFarn(dekor)ferns. And I picked it up and I thought I’m the first person to pick this up for nearly 300 years. 
Lorraine: But nowadays, I’m guessing it’s not really something you could do so much as a job. 
Liz: I call it my job, I suppose I’m a hobbyist, but for me it’s more than that because of the love of history and it never gets boring for me. I blog about it, I do exhibitions, I do interviews. I have to be disciplined with my time, but for me I do view it as my job. 
Lorraine: Just give us a typical day when you’re mudlarking. 
Liz: It would obviously depend on the tide. But I usually have my rucksack packed the night before and I have in there my knee padsKnieschützerknee pads, which are necessary for kneeling down on the foreshore. I have some water and a snack. I’ve got a mini medical kit because accidents do happen. You lean on something sharp. You have to be very careful not to cut yourself. I do wear gloves as well and I have my wellies (UK ifml.)Gummistiefelwellies. And so I have all my kit laid out, you know, the night before. Get myself on the train into the City of London. I will also know when the peak low tide is. So, I try and get there about two hours before. So, I’ve got a couple of hours to search before the tide starts coming in. And when the tide starts coming in, it depends on where you are. You might have another hour, but you have to be careful, obviously, not to get cut off. That’s when you need to be focused [on] what the water’s doing. I do prefer to mudlark on my own because it’s my time as well, not just searching, but to [recharge] my batteries. So, it’s my mindfulnessAchtsamkeitmindfulness. I just block everything else out. So, anything I’m worried about, or the noise of, you know, London coming to life in the morning. It’s a wonderful time. There will slowly be other mudlarks arriving because some areas are very popular. And then we might go and have a coffee afterwards and just chat about what we’ve all found that day. You found that, but I wish I’d found it instead. You know, we have those moments. So, there’s a lot of friendship. If I had an early morning start, then I’ll probably be back home kind of midafternoon and then what I start doing is I wash my finds in a bucket. I have my special bucket and a very soft brush and just give everything a clean. rinse sth. outetw. ausspülenRinse it out and then just let it dry naturally. I have a notebook, which I’ve kept for years, where I log sth.etw. protokollierenlog all the things that I’ve found and I draw little maps, little secret maps, where I found kind of things over the years or an area that’s erodeerodieren, abschwemmeneroding. And I’m keeping an eye on it because something might be coming out. Maybe we hit a medieval layer or something, you know, after all these years. 

Read more about Liz Anderson’s work as a mudlark in Spotlight 11/26.