Thursday 16 March 2023

Pipe dreams

 "I wasn't picking up cigarette butts..." says Andy, in a scene from Series 2 of the ever wonderful 'Detectorists', as he bumps into Dr Tendai, who, shortly beforehand, had interviewed him for an archaeology job in Botswana.  "Clay pipes," he continues, "I saw some bits of clay pipe in the flowerbed..." He holds out his palm to show the chalky white pipe fragments.  "Broken bits of pipe that people used to smoke."

They do look like cigarette butts, but I've found myself just as acutely aware of their existence as Andy is, any time I'm pottering around in my garden.  Only yesterday I wasn't even digging or anything, I just glanced downwards briefly to where the snowdrops have emerged and a piece of clay pipe was just lying there, looking up at me.  Well, not exactly looking up at me, but you know what I mean.  Not buried, not even dirty.  Just lying there in the open, above the soil, as if it had been strategically placed there by someone five minutes beforehand for me to spot.  Who is that phantom pipe layer?!

These are some of the pipe fragments I've found in the same circumstances, all of them in this small, humble garden, all of them brought to the surface naturally - by worms, birds, moles, voles, Wombles, who knows what, but they just appear now and then, unsearched for - and I love it.  


They may only be tiny remnants of the existence of ordinary men in buckskin breeches with tobacco-stained moustaches but they'll do for me - little time travelling morsels from long-gone lives.  I totally get why Andy holds onto them and keeps them in a glass jar - I do the same.

Back to the scene in 'Detectorists'.  "How old are they?" asks Dr Tendai.  "These ones are Victorian.." Andy points to the thinner fragments, "but that one's early 18th, maybe late 17th Century."  "How can you tell?"  Dr Tendai's curiousity is clearly piqued now.  "Older ones are thicker and they had a much smaller bowl because tobacco was so expensive..."

Thick and thin together

I haven't found any sections with the bowl intact yet but now I know, from Andy's explanation and yesterday's find, that I had in my hand a little piece of (thicker) pipe which must once have been puffed on by someone around 400 years ago.  Here's another fragment with some relief decoration at one end still showing too.

I can't help it, I just love how something so small and simple can resurface after hundreds of years and make me feel that myserious connection the way it does.  I hope I'll keep finding cigarette butts bits of clay pipe in my flowerbeds.

~~~

I was wondering about some music to accompany this post too.  Well, I could have given you Crackdust, the Botswanian death metal band mentioned by Andy and Lance in this episode - honestly, they're real - but how about an unexpectedly stompy glam version of the Nashville Teens' 'Tobacco Road' instead?  

Albatross: Tobacco Road, 1975

(Although, if you're still curious about Crackdust...)


Crackdust: Mortal Decay

21 comments:

  1. Love this C, those everyday links to the lives of people that lived hundreds of years before us

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    1. Thanks, yes these daily stuff of life type finds are in a way more connecting than rarer treasures might be. (Not that I'd mind find a Roman brooch or two, though!)
      Similarly the neighbour two doors down keeps finding really old buttons in her garden (these were workers' cottages).

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  2. "Ordinary men in buckskin breeches with tobacco-stained moustaches" - is this reference to CC and George's recent adventures in Broughty Ferry?

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    1. I always suspected they were time travellers in disguise, Ernie.

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  3. Sadly being Vegan George wouldn't entertain the buckskin trousers!

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    1. Maybe a nice pair of linen pantaloons for George?

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  4. Do you ever find any bowls intact, or is it just stems? I guess the bowls are inherently more fragile.

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    1. Sadly only the stems. I'd love to find a whole unbroken pipe, it would have pride of place!

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    2. Apparently there is a Society for Clay Pipe Research at http://scpr.co/ and, can you believe, a National Pipe Archive!

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    3. Oh wow, Martin, thanks! What have you started....???!!

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    4. My work here is done. If that work is the introduction of a internet rabbit hole for you to go down...

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  5. I just love thinking back to all the people who have lived, loved and had families in a house - sadly the house I live in has only had us and the previous residents whom I got to know and are still in the area, so no mystery there.

    Our previous house was over a 100 years old though and you can find out quite a lot of info from the title deeds and old records - still only found bits of crockery in the tiny garden though. What you are finding really is history though and wouldn't it be great if you could find out who the owners of these pipes were? Might even be photos of them in their non-vegan breeches.

    Funny how you never find the bowls - maybe they kept them and just fitted a new pipe part. Maybe you'll find out more from Martin's website. As for the "who all has lived in my house", think that's more of a retirement project.

    Great version of Tobacco Road.

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    1. I love those thoughts about previous residents too. Sadly we can't find out much about ours, it's over 200 years old but there's very little info on the deeds. A more detailed investigation through old parish records/archives may reveal more - a project for the future perhaps as you say. In the meantime, yes, bits of old crockery and other oddments like these pipe pieces have a nice way of triggering the imagination.

      There were some amazing looking pipe bowls (thanks Martin!) Real pieces of art. Would love to find some but they must have been so fragile.

      Glad you like that song version, I think it really works.

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  6. Non Vegan Breeches, two more from them in session after the weather.

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    1. That made me laugh out loud Adam!

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    2. Me too! And not beyond the realm of possibility...

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  7. I can't believe that Crackdust are a real band!
    Thing about the pipe stems is that they always pop up looking so fresh. I am guessing that they broke really easily and hence gardens of any age are swamped with them. However thus far I have only found the finner newer designs.

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    1. I know, re. Crackdust, I was very surprised! But love that attention to detail in the writing.
      That's so true about how clean the pipe stems are when you find them. That one I found the other day, one of the thicker ones, didn't have a speck of dirt on it. I guess that's to do with the texture of the pipe but even so, it's as if they've just been placed there. Good to know you've been finding them too. I've mentioned/showed them to various friends who live outside the area and they've never seen any before!

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  8. A must for the finds table.

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  9. Sorry, C, that was me. Who else?

    JM

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    1. Ah, the lovely finds table! The closest thing I have is a finds shelf in my little Shedio, on which there are saucerfuls of.... not secrets... but bird skulls and other bones, fragments of birds' eggs, crockery shards, a couple of mummified baby rats (!) and various unidentified objects that, for some reason I can't fathom, shout out "keep me!"

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