The Adventures of Fireman Bob. P1
No Comments
Filed under: Detecting Diary, Fireman Bob — Norfolk Wolf
This article is about fireman Bob and me doing a bit of detecting in the Forestry Commission woodlands. I’m not too sure whether it will develop into a weekly thing or just a one off, I suppose it could depend on what we find or how lazy I become; anyway at least I’ve made a start so that’s somethin’ ’ain’t it?
Bob was telling me one day of his dilemma that most detectorists have to put up with, a lack of decent places to go in the spring and summer moths. You can only walk over the same bit of ground so many times before the ever deceasing finds-rate begin to cause you to wonder why the hell your wasting your time. The still productive sites (one in Bob’s case) are all under crop, so where do you go to scratch that detecting itch? The beaches were out, if only for the fact of the distance he would have to travel, plus the fact that his machine is worse than useless on them.
“Git yerself down to that there forestry commission place, pays yer money an’ yer got thousands of acres to rummage around in. A lot o’ the places will be overgrown an’ in a lot o’ the places there’s nuffun’, but for certain sure one or two places will come up with sumphun. Stands ter reason, yer can’t have that amount of land with nuffun on it, can yer?” (By the way, this is how I talk, I’m Norfolk born an’ bred, so if it gits on yer nerves don’t read it, an if yer do, good on yer boy; I’ll ha’ yer talkin’ Norfolk like a good un in no time.)
Anyway Bob gets himself down there and after a bit of palaver and £40 lighter, he’s now a fully paid up member for a year. Now all that acreage is a rare bit o’ land to be lookin’ at, and I knew what he was going to ask next time I saw him.
He had this whackin’ great map out and asked, “Where do we start?” “Well old mate, if yer start in the bottom right hand corner an work yer way up an’ across, yer should just about do it all if yer live ’till yer 300 or so. On the other hand, we could look at it sensibly and try to minimise wasted time and effort”.
Thetford Forest is the largest wooded area belonging to the Commission around these parts. On its own, it is a 21,000 hectare pine forest that was planted in the Brecks area between the great wars of the 20th century (1914-18, 1939-45). It was commissioned by a government, concerned that during times of war, Britain did not have a sustainable timber supply. Previous to the planting of the forest, much of the Brecks area consisted of heaths, sheepwalks, and rabbit warrens. Many of the excessively drained sandy soils of the area were unable to sustain arable farming during times of low corn prices of the previous Century. It was an area that suffered serious sand-blows during dry summers, as light soils blew across the area, covering villages, damaging river navigation, forming dunes. To counteract this problem, farmers began to plant the belts of scots pine trees between fields - a landscape feature that has become symbolic of the district.
What was needed was for us to imagine what the landscape looked like before the planting of the trees. We needed to take into account the whole topography; waterways, springs, old tracks, contour lines and also nearby village place-names. There are readily accessible archaeological sites on the internet and also local museums and libraries to pay a visit to; plus word of mouth from other detectorists. It would be a question of narrowing down a few likely places and then take a trip out and see if they were do-able. Some might be overgrown with nettles and brambles, but these could always be hit in the winter when they’ve died down.
Now then, what I hadn’t told Bob was the big drawback in detecting in the woods; cartridges. There are millions of the buggers, some are modern, which are easy to tell as they’re iron and rust rapidly. It’s the older brass ones, the cardboard holding the shot has gone leaving just the cap; some right early ones can date right back to where the pin is sticking out the side. The worst of em’ all though, had a thin brass casing, not cardboard holding the shot, they’re still in one piece and are found deeper than normal; so will definitely give you plenty of grief. If one thing will deter detectorists from giving the woodland a try it will be the problem of cartridges; they can be an absolute pain! However, with a lot of patience to begin with and having the right machine, it can be overcome to a large extent.
It’s all very well for the detector manufacturers to tell you to notch them out. Next time this happens, ask them which hole they’re talkin’ out of, cos I’m telling you, it ain’t possible without losing all the good gear as well. I’ve tried all types of metered machines, but the readouts are so variable with all the different types of cartridges, it’s an absolute nightmare. I’m supposed to be testing a new detector, but after two mind-numbingly frustrating trips in the woods, I’m leaving it well alone until I can take it on farmland. It might turn out to be a good machine, but in the woods it’s no different than other metered ones; they ain’t up to it. No, what is needed in these conditions is a machine that works on tone I.D. and not just any old tones either, but one that gives a lot of information with also the length and strength of the signal. Even a machine like this is no good until you really know what you’re doing with it. “If you larn it well boy, it’ll fang hold o’ what you want to find.”
Meanwhile fireman Bob was going ahead, reading the maps and obtaining loads of info off the internet site, getting real excited; blissfully unaware of what awaited him. “Blast me boy, he din’t know what he had a comin’ to him!”
Picking someone to go detecting with you can be a tricky business; there are so many things that can go wrong. The first is trust in the other blokes commitment and ability, it’s no good hitting an area with you pulling out all the stops and nailing the place whilst he’s getting lackadaisical and whinging after a couple of hours, because nothing is coming up. If he has the commitment, ability will naturally improve and with a few timely pointers in the right direction, this can speed the process no end. Another important factor is having the mentality to keep the old cakehole shut. It’s no good slogging yer nuts off going over barren areas for days on end and when you do finally hit a hotspot, you find that after a few days others are now working it; because he couldn’t resist telling someone in the naive belief that they will keep “their” mouth shut. This game is worse than fishing!
After one or two fruitless searches I decided to take him to a stretch of woods that I had heard about; it had produced a few Celtic silver units and some early Roman in the past, but the area had been really hammered. Most of the finds that had been found by previous detectorists were mainly concentrated at the top end of an incline. Pickings would be slim at best, but I felt that if we worked lower down we would have chances of one or two finds at least.
To be continued…
Looks like I’ll be writing more after all, a bit like a serial ’innit?. Will the intrepid heroes come good? Is there really a pot o’ gold in them thar hills, or will it be just another blank day to write off?