Wednesday 7 February 2018

The time machine

I think I’m about to find a time machine in my garden.  I’ve uncovered two things that lead me to believe this.  Digging down in the sandy soil beneath the prickly hedge a few years ago, amid the calcified skulls of poorly sparrows who perished in the cold and fragments of clay pipe that look just like their bones, I came upon an escutcheon.


I even just love that word ‘escutcheon’.  It sounds so archaic. That little piece of metal which once decorated and protected a keyhole, a keyhole in a door to who knows where, from who knows when.

This little plot of land has been used by people for hundreds of years.  So I love it when I find the evidence of those who’ve left it behind, and long for the day when I might find an ancient coin perhaps, or a shard of pottery that dates back even further.  I love the way the worms, the moles, the ever churning, moving soil, turn up these random things.

Then, just a short while ago, amongst unidentified pieces of rubble and slivers of willow pattern crockery in the earth not too far below the surface, I came across this.  


It seems to be a door handle.   A broken porcelain knob,  and all that can be seen of a number, perhaps a date - 67 - stamped into the unglazed surface.


The handle bar now so bent, twisted, the rust growing around it like a living, organic thing.


A keyhole, then a doorhandle. More thoughts inevitably follow.  Thoughts of locks and passageways and portals.    And if you were to tell me that there was a strange and spine-tingling story behind these finds, I would love to believe you.  What tale might there be?  The time machine beckons,  it’s out there somewhere, I just need to find the key, literally.    I'll keep digging.

Where would you have it take you?

25 comments:

  1. You find the key and turn it . It takes you into a time fold ,and another you .The one who said yes when you said no to a big decision or the other way about .You can now how it panned out long term if you had gone the other route .
    Ours is an old workmans cottage.They used what they had .Amongst the flints that make up our back wall are an old ink bottle and an old fashioned pop bottle with a wire fastener on it and a marble inside .One year a swarm of wild bees nested in it .

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    1. Oh - what a great idea. I love that. It's really set me thinking... a parallel life.
      Your flint wall sounds fascinating - and a nest of bees in a bottle in a wall would have had me enthralled. Love the resourcefulness of those old builders too - or were they thinking ahead to the future hoping that someone would find those objects and wonder at some hidden meaning?!

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  2. Like an episode of the Detectorists!

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    1. It is - without the metal detector! Still looking for gold...

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  3. Need to find a hinge next, help that portal to open...

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    1. Aha, yes a hinge as well as a key. I'll keep my eyes peeled. Wouldn't it be funny if I actually really do find both?! I'll let you know before I disappear...

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    2. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs...

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    3. Or something more interesting for someone to dig up too one day!

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  4. As you know I love time machines and it seems the year I keep coming back to in music is 1967 so that’s where it would take me. Seems to me that is was easier to be generally content back then - There were pressures but of a very different kind. Then again in the matriarchal kind of world I lived in back then words like feminism didn’t exist as not even an issue - Not great for everyone back then I suppose.

    Love the word escutcheon and doubt if many people nowadays would ever use it but they used to be elaborate back in the day. Hope you make many more finds including the elusive missing key!

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    1. Yes, I think we should definitely set the time machine to '67, as that's the number on the knob! I fancy a trip back there too, but would rather like to re-set my age too - to about 18, so I could be the perfect age for seeing live bands, going to art school and hanging out down the Portobello Road in my Biba gear! Fancy joining me?!

      Love those old elaborate eschutcheons too. And really decorative ancient keys and door knobs. The smallest, most functional items can be works of art - something really special about that.

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    2. Gosh - this is all a bit freaky. I love revisiting 1967 in my blog and like you would like nothing better than to saunter down the Portobello Road in my Biba gear (as an 18 year old). How weird that the number on the doorknob was a surreptitious 67 - It's a message from the past coming to me via your blog!

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  5. When you find the door, let me know. I have a few shows in 1979 to attend. Fascinating finds, C.

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    1. I will! Ah, 1979 - what a year. It was a very significant one for me particularly in terms of music so I think of it very fondly. I'll be sure to get you some gig tickets if I ever go back :-)

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  6. I find these echoes from other lives compelling, perhaps the majority of us do hence the popularity of programmes such as Time Team? There's an interesting article in today's Guardian about crooked coins ( love tokens) thrown into the Thames and recovered by mudlarkers ( and you know how fascinated I am by mudlarking!) I'm also following some mudlarkers accounts on IG and the things that come glinting out of the mud.....

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    1. So glad it's not just me. I love the mystique of these objects now, even though there would have been no mystique when they were in use. Just another boring door-knob, just another disposable clay pipe. But to me the only tangible elements of a past I never knew.
      Will check out the article, thanks - I've read a bit about these love tokens in the Thames before, they really fire the imagination. Lovely stuff. The IG mudlarking tales sound good too.

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  7. Can't stop hearing The Detectorists theme song, now. Not an unpleasant experience.

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  8. Interesting garden you have! It's possible the local historical museum might be able to tell you more about the escutcheon, although you risk them wanting to keep it :)

    Reminds me of a Roald Dahl non-fiction short story 'The Mildenhall Treasure', about a discovery in the 1940s near Mildenhall in Suffolk.

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    1. It's only a small garden, but people have lived here for a few hundred years, so I live in hope of exciting discoveries! I don't know how old the escutcheon is but I noticed a few similar ones online described as 'antique'.

      Mildenhall is not far from here so I must check that out, plus I love Roald Dahl but didn't know of that story, so thank you!

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  9. Excellent post. I want a time machine that takes me back to my youth with the wisdom (ha!) of years.

    But I'd settle for going where Marty McFly went.

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    1. Thanks Rol. I agree about going back to our youth with the wisdom we've acquired since.... but at the same time, where would be the folly with its ready excuse?!

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  10. Yes, keep digging C - fascinating finds. What year would I like to return to? So many to chose from! 1979 sounds like a good place to start though. I'll meet you and Brian at the bar.

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    1. Will do! See you in '79 then, bring a few quid to cover gig tickets, drinks, chips and bus fare back - a fiver should do it!

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  11. I love the way objects retrieved from time can truly feel like a tiny doorway to the past; the sense of possibility is tangible. Me? I'd plump for 1973.

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    1. I know, that's just what it feels like. Funny how they are quite mundane objects but become sort of mysterious and romantic when separated from their time.
      And 1973 - a good year for music for you, I know!

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