I am chatting to Jon, an ex-tree surgeon from Derby, in one of the galleries of the British Museum. He became an amateur metal detectorist when his wife, Julie, gave him the kit on Valentine’s Day a few years ago. ‘Our honeymoon to Barbados was cancelled because of Covid’, he explains, ‘so this present was the trade-off’. It has proved a source of marital bliss: Jon adores his new hobby, and Julie enjoys ‘weekends of peace’.
How remarkable that these objects have spent centuries lying forgotten underground until – Beep! Beep!
A few months ago, Jon pulled a strange, curved object from the sandy Staffordshire soil, which at first he thought was an aluminium drawer handle. Then, after wiping it down, the colour changed, revealing its true, dazzling form: a 3,000-year-old gold clothes fastener in perfect condition. It was, historians think, made in Iron Age Ireland and is one of only seven to have been discovered.
It’s Jon’s first visit to the British Museum, and at this rate, the first of many. ‘I’ll be back next year’, he chuckles, ‘Plenty more to find’. How remarkable that objects such as this have spent centuries lying forgotten underground until – Beep! Beep! – a metal detector flies above them, and their second life, exhumed, begins.
I headed off to Temple Church this week for a lunchtime organ recital, surrounded by effigies of crusading knights, penitential cells where men starved to death, and memorials to the Blitz firestorms. Those that run the place have a particular interest in English legal history, this being the church of London’s Inns of Court. It was here that King John’s rebellious barons first demanded he assent to their charter of rights over Epiphany in 1215. The King refused, but was forced to sign what became the Magna Carta at Runnymede later that year. Runnymede is an Anglo-Saxon word: a conjunction of ‘runieg’ (regular meeting) and ‘mede’ (meadow). Thanks to the waterlogged Thames floodplain, this land was too soft for cavalry, making it the perfect site for negotiation as both sides were safe from surprise attack.
Here, too, is a monument to Richard Martin, whose kneeling effigy presents him in a red cloak and a smart white ruff. I rather like the sound of Richard: ‘a very handsome man, a graceful speaker, facetious and well loved’. He arranged so many riotous parties that it took him 15 years to qualify as a barrister. If only Mr Martin were around today (and single).
Temple Church’s organ turns 100 this year. What might a birthday bash involve, I wonder? Pyrotechnics? A card from the king? Could the organ, like some ageing relative, be taken on a day trip? It’s not quite as mad as it sounds. This organ started its life in the wild hills of Aberdeenshire, in the ballroom of Glen Tanar House. But, the acoustics within those antler-covered walls were, according to Lord Glentanar, ‘as dead as it well could be… very disappointing’. So, when he heard that the organ of Temple Church had been lost in the Blitz, he donated his own. The Glen Tanar organ came hurtling down to London by rail in 1953.
Since then, it’s pipes have faithfully served the church’s Sunday services, carols, funerals and christenings. ‘How nice to hear the Glen Tanar organ again’, the late queen commented on a visit in 2013, remembering dancing in the Scottish ballroom in her youth. The film composer Hans Zimmer was impressed, too. He described it as ‘one of the most magnificent organs in the world’ and used it to record the film score for Interstellar.
Happy 100th birthday, then, to Temple Church’s showbiz organ. May its 16ft Bourdon (Gt 2nd Division) and its 8ft Tuba (not affected by octave couplers) sound for another century. Fingers crossed I’m invited to the party.
New year, new me! At least, that’s what the online algorithm seems to think. With every click comes a slew of adverts for gym memberships, healthy eating recipes, and impossibly tight yoga leggings. Is it really necessary to make fitness clothing quite so tight? Must every crevice and curve be put on show for all to see?
But then my mind flicks to Geoffrey Chaucer – as I’m sure was the intended marketing strategy – who I’ve been researching for a new book (there is currently an excellent exhibition at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, ‘Chaucer Here and Now’, which I’d heartily recommend).
The earliest record we have of Chaucer’s life dates to Easter 1357, where his name appears in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh (a daughter-in-law of Edward III). It paints a surprising picture. Not Chaucer the diplomat, nor Chaucer the poet, but Chaucer the trend-setter, and a risqué one at that. The accounts record his black and red hose (stockings) and his tunic, a paltok. So outrageously revealing, some blamed the fashion for causing the plague. These paltoks were ‘extremely short garments’ which ‘failed to conceal [wearers] arses or their private parts’. The same sentiment could, no doubt, be applied to gym wear today. Chaucer would fit in well at my local Virgin Active.
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