I'm a COLLECTOR!!
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| A beautiful momma wolf spider, carrying her egg sac. Photo taken by a parent when I was leading a group of first graders on a hike in Boulder. |
Collecting – how it started for me, and how walking with my mum and my dad sharpened my curiosity about things unknown.
I
lived near the sea when I was young. Lariggan, the stony beach of Mount’s Bay, was about a mile from my front door – and a mile or two inland were several abandoned
tin mines.
Mum and dad often took me and my brothers to the nearby fields, the woods and the beach. Going to the beach was my favorite walk. We'd search for wishing rocks and heart-shaped rocks. Mum would carry a bag which we'd fill with our best finds, Later, at home, we'd sort out the ones we'd keep and return the others the next time we went to the beach.
Mum and dad often took me and my brothers to the nearby fields, the woods and the beach. Going to the beach was my favorite walk. We'd search for wishing rocks and heart-shaped rocks. Mum would carry a bag which we'd fill with our best finds, Later, at home, we'd sort out the ones we'd keep and return the others the next time we went to the beach.
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| Beautiful pebbles at Lariggan Beach, Newlyn, Cornwall. |
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| Mum would always carry a bag which we always filled with beautiful pebbles |
On the day of my fifth birthday, July 14th, 1942, I was really surprised when my dad, and not my grandma, met me at the end of the school day. [1]
Holding my hand, we walked to the nearby
beach to search for heart-shaped or dark grey pebbles with a vein of white quartz
running through the middle.
These pebbles were very, very special. Mum and Dad
called them wishing rocks.
I soon spotted a really good wishing rock. I picked it up so it rested
comfortably in the palm of my hand. Then, doing what Mum had taught me, I slowly wrapped my fingers around it and
squeezed really tight.
Then I closed my eyes and sent a special loving wish to my mum.
Then I closed my eyes and sent a special loving wish to my mum.
When I finished, I put my wishing rock into what Mum called my treasure tin, a small red OXO tin.
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| Found on my fifth birthday, July 14th, 1947. A beautiful wishing rock and piece of amber |
Then, I spotted something different.
There, lying with all the black, grey and white pebbles was a bright yellow
object. It didn’t look like any of the other smooth rocks. What was it?
It stared up at me, wanting, I felt, badly
to be picked up, wanting to be touched and admired. By me.
I bent over, picked it up and held it in
the palm of my hand. Not wanting to scratch it, I wrapped it up in my white
hanky and put it in my pocket.
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| Me with big brother, Jimmie |
Dad took my hand and we made our way back
up Chywoone Hill. As I walked up the very steep hill, I kept feeling the Old
Holborn tin in one pocket, and checking the lumpy hanky in the other.
I KNEW I’d found something very special. I
KNEW it was lying on the beach waiting for me to come along and find it. I KNEW
it was a special day. I was excited! My discovery made my head glow. It was something
that I KNEW belonged just to me – and would, forever.
When we reached our house in Treveneth
Crescent I quickly skipped up the back garden path, past the three gooseberry
bushes (one for Jimmie, one for Charles, and one for me), pushed opened the
glass door, and ran straight into the kitchen. Mum and Grandma were standing by
the white enameled cooker, waiting for the kettle to boil. Charles was sleeping
in Mum’s arms. Jimmie was tucking into a jam sandwich. Beside myself
with excitement, I shouted, “Mum, Mum, Grandma, Jicky, see what I found.
It’s brilliant.”
I took out my OLD HOLBORN tin and showed
them what I’d collected on the beach. ‘And look at this,” I said, as I
unwrapped my hanky. I knew then by the look on Jimmie’s, Mum’s and Grandma’s faces
that the yellow rock I had found was special. And I found it on my birthday,
too.
“Where’d you find THAT? Dad, where’d he
find that? Did you give it to him?” Jimmie asked. Dad shook hid head. “’E
found it.”
“What a birthday surprise.” said Grandma.
Mum looked at it again, sitting in the palm of my hand. “THAT beautiful
yellow rock was waiting for you. Just for you. It’s a treasure. A real
treasure. Put it in one of your OXO treasure tins, Johnny, and keep it there,
forever. Forever. You hear me? Forever and a day.” I squeezed my treasure
tightly in my hand and took it into the kitchen. I had never held such treasure
before. I turned on the hot water tap and washed off the grainy sand
with hand soap, dried my special rock with newspaper, stroked it, and looked at
it again.
I put it on the dinner table, next to my
birthday tea treats - the big blue and white plate of bread splits, a jar of
jam, Cornish cream, treacle, and yellow saffron buns.
“What is that, Dad?” asked my
brother, Jimmie, again, looking at Mum and Dad. Jimmie picked it up and stroked
the yellow pebble.
Mum and Dad shook their heads and said
they didn’t know, but, as Mum explained, the yellow discovery was something
very, very special. Beside himself with curiosity, Jimmie exclaimed, “T’ain’t heavy. Ain’t a pebble, is it, Mum? I
ain’t never found one like that.” “Don’t say ‘ain’t’, Jimmie, please.” Mum
said. “You’ll find one next time we go pebbling. Just have to keep looking.”
Dad’s story, when we settled down after my
birthday tea, was about his Dad working in the tin mine in St. Just, digging in
tunnels deep down under the blue sea. “Bet he never found a yellow rock like
yours, Johnny,” he said. “Found good stuff, though.”
When I went upstairs to bed, I put the treasure
into an OXO tin, slipped it under my pillow, curled my fingers around it,
and, with a smile on my face. I fell asleep. What a birthday it had been.
As I dressed in the morning, I put the
small OXO tin inside a in my left-hand trouser pocket, next to my favorite
small seashell, to take to school to show my teacher, Miss Harvey.
Dad reminded me as I went out the door
with Grandma. “Got your yellow rock for your teacher, Johnny? Don’t forget
it. You know what your Ma said. Got your dinner, them OXO cubes, too?”
I couldn’t wait to get to school to show
Miss Harvey. Even before all the boys sat in their seats, I was standing by her
tall desk, the OXO treasure tin in my hand, spluttering, “Miss
Harvey, Miss Harvey, see what I found! I found it on the beach, after school,
yesterday. You know, next to the harbor wall. I found it on Lariggan. Went
there with my Dad. You know, when the tide was out, when you can see what the
tide brought in.”
Every word came out in a rush.
As Miss Harvey looked inside my OXO tin,
her eyes widened.
It wasn’t, apparently a rock at all. It
was ancient fossilized tree resin, and, she said, it was called amber. Miss Harvey knew amber was millions of
years old and began its life as tree resin.
Resin? Fossilized? Amber? Ancient? What
beautiful words, I thought.
Miss Harvey held my beautiful amber in her
hand, smiled, looked down at me through her wire glasses that balanced on the
end of her sharp nose, and said loudly, so everyone in class could hear, that
it had been washed ashore after a long trip in the sea.
Miss Harvey handed the amber back to me
and then wrote the word
I turned a little red as I faced everyone
in the room. As I held out my hand and showed the class, everyone stopped
chattering. They were curious and wanted to see why what I had found was so special.
Then Miss Harvey said, “Johnny Paull, why don’t you draw a picture of your
amber? Here, here’s some white paper. Use this! Don’t just draw the amber,
draw the other beach pebbles, too. Just as you remember. Can you see them in your head?”
I couldn’t wait to grab some yellow, black
and brown crayons from the big biscuit tin. Closing my eyes, I remembered just
how the amber looked when I saw it lying with all the other pebbles.
When I’d finished my drawing and showed it
to Miss Harvey, I could tell from her eyes that she liked it. Quickly, she glued the picture onto some black paper, then taped it to the wall close to my desk, and told me to write my name and the date underneath.
As I was drawing another picture of one of
my wishing rocks, Miss Harvey came next to me and, with a broad smile,
said, very emphatically so that everyone
could hear,
”Keep
it, Johnny Paull. The amber.
They’re
wonderful. Keep them. Keep the amber. Keep it in your oxo tin- your treasure tin, sorry - and save it. Save it forever.
That was it. I was hooked. I’ve been collecting rocks of all shapes, colors and sizes ever since. And I've saved my wishing rock and my amber to this very day.
……………………………………………………………………..
The family moved to Penzance in 1949.
My
new school, St. Paul’s Junior School, was close to Alverton Road, next to the
Methodist Chapel. I wondered whose class I would be in. Mr. Miller’s? Crikey, I hoped not. The kids in Gwavas,
Penlee and St. Michael’s Streets said he shouted and hit kids. Would it be Mr.
Jones’s class? Every boy in the
neighborhood I asked about school told me about Mr. Jones and his tall, green,
glass fronted bookcase that stood next to the brass fireplace in the corner of
his classroom. Every boy I spoke to told me that all kinds of rocks and
seashells, fossils, bones, birds’ eggs and colorful feathers were crammed in
the top three shelves.
Sometimes,
I was told, he would takeout a fossil or a shell, show it to the kids, and then
tell them everything he knew about it. I so wanted to be in his class! I kept
my fingers crossed. I was excited and very relieved when Mum told me that she
had met Mr. Curnow, the headmaster, yes, it was to be Mr. Jones’ class.
Perhaps, perhaps, I could show Mr. Jones my amber. Would he like it? Would he
like it as much as Miss Harvey did? I soon learned the daily class routine and
soon learned I had to be patient. The day would come when he would see my
amber.
Each
morning, at ten past nine precisely, Mr. Jones would adjust his tie, button the
middle button of his green sports jacket and then he would select an unused
piece of white chalk from the cardboard box sitting on the rim of the
blackboard. He’d then look up at the top left of the board and slowly,
squeakily, write out the day and the date, followed by the work of the day on
the blackboard - sums, writing and reading – and, with extravagant gesture,
wipe the powdery chalk from his fingers. This was the drill learning, getting
us ready for the important, life-changing examination at in our last year of
junior school – the dreaded scholarship! Then, he’d smile and sit on his
polished high chair, watch us dip our pens into the black inkwells and
carefully copy his words in our books,
reminding us as we did about the need to
‘do things right’.
Every morning and afternoon,
sitting in rows, one behind another, we followed the same routine. But, we
knew, that sometime during the week, when we had added, subtracted, multiplied
and divided, recited the alphabet and written sentences with capital letters,
all to his satisfaction, and sat up straight and behaved ourselves, he would
read a section from The Secret Seven, or The Famous Five, both
written by Enid Blyton. Or, more interestingly, he’d open his cupboard door,
look inside, choose something that took his fancy and place it, with great
care, on his desk, just to the side of the chipped ceramic pot of Stephenson’s
ink.
When
every eye in the room was fixed on his, Mr. Jones would set fire to our
imaginations. Using magical, enchanting words, he’d tell us what the object was,
where he found it, and how long he’d had it. His voice was soft and his stories
were spell binding. It was then that the classroom came alive.
We
knew this was the time he’d let us put our daily workbooks to one side and
share our private treasures. Mr. Jones knew that most of the kids had
pockets full of bits - a small stone or two, a snail shell, a conker, or even a
spider or worm kept safe in a matchbox.
He knew that we shared our treasures during the morning playtime out in
the yard. Sometimes he’d let us empty our pockets on top of our desks so that
everyone could see what we had. Sometimes we could move our desks and sit in
groups and talk with each other about the things we had in our pockets. It was
the only time in the week when he was prepared for the unforeseen, for the
lovely things that happened when the boys shared the treasures in their
pockets. Once a week, if we’d been good, for an hour or so, Mr. Jones’ teaching
came alive. In that short space of time,
we counted and measured, weighed and recorded, drew and wrote, talked and asked
questions. In that short space of time, the boys enjoyed each other’s company
as they shared simple treasures with each other.
The
impact was magical: shifting from the day to day drudgery of rote learning, the
classroom throbbed with energy and excitement – and rich learning.
On
the third Wednesday of the third week, I knew it was the right time to bring
and show Mr. Jones my treasure. Over the boiled egg and bread soldiers’
breakfast, I told my mum I was going to show Mr. Jones my amber that I’d found
on the beach on my fifth birthday. She smiled. “He’ll like it,” she
said. She knew how special my amber was, and that I kept telling her that I was
going to follow Miss Harvey’s advice and keep it forever.
Sure
enough, during the afternoon, when everything was quiet and the work of the day
completed to Mr. Jones’ satisfaction, he went to his cupboard. As he opened the
door, the boys looked and at each other and winked. Mr. Jones looked inside and
took out one of his treasures. He held it up and told us where he’d found it.
He asked if anyone in class knew what it was. No one said a word.
They
hadn’t seen anything like it before. My heart missed a beat! My moment had
arrived. THIS was the time! ’That’s amber, sir, amber!! I know ‘cos I found
some amber!’
I
took out my amber and put it out on the desk. When Mr. Jones walked towards me
and saw it, his eyes lit up.
’WOW!!
Wherever did you find that amber, Paull?” He held it in his hand in the same way that Miss Harvey did. He held it and he admired it. He knew. He smiled.
My
day was made.
Many
years later, when teaching 5th graders, we were sharing their
treasure tins at the start of another day.
The treasure box was renamed a pocket museum by Michael, one of my
students, when he said to me,
“Like a museum, ain’t it? Dad says mine was a
pocket museum.[2]
Can
we call ‘em pocket museums, Mr. Paull? Go on, can we?"
I asked the
class what they thought to the idea.
Everyone agreed
that it was a great idea, and from that day on...................
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
How to make
a pocket museum
for your prized
possessions
You need a tin, a piece of
felt, scissors, glue, and an artifact or two (or more).
- Cut the felt to size.
- Glue the felt inside the
tin.
- Glue rocks/minerals/crystals,
and,
- hey, you have your pocket
museum!
John Paull
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| Porthcurnow, a beach of broken seashells |
Beginning with the search for wishing rocks, birds' nests and anything else that caught my eye, inspired by my mum and dad, Hazel Monica and Arthur Charles, and then Mr. Jones in my Junior School (see posting, St. Paul's Junior School - Mr. Jones's cupboard), I was thrilled as a young teacher to learn that I could use my passion to ignite the minds of young children. That sort of legitimised my obsessive need to look and collect :).
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| A walk remembered forever in a tin... |
I'm going to start with MY Mr. Jones' s cupboard.
Here's the photo - and more:
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| My Mr. Jones's cupboard....with my BEST things in.....well, some of them! |
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| Tins of bones......:and rocks......and crystals.......and, and.......) |
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| Family bits and pieces |
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| Plant cuttings overwintering in my study!!! |
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| Waiting for spring..... |
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| Also in my study...there are tins and tins and tins.... |
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| Some of my OXO tin collection - each one holding something very precious from the past |
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| Underneath the OXO tins, more treasures! |
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| Artifacts from Wounded Knee Reservation |
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| Arrowheads and axes |
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| The microscope I used in my first American workshop - Montpelier, 1967, and left-handed spiral shells, gifts from David Hawkins and Philip Morrison. |
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| Mum and Dad - collecting wishing rocks on Lariggan Beach |
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| Oooooh......an OWL PELLET!! ALMOST as good as a wishing rock! And the bones, when cleaned, look great in a pocket museum.
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| We have just been to see where the kestrel is nesting - on top of the old tin mine at Ding Dong, one of dad's favorite haunts. |
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| Wishing Rock and Amber, 1947, in one of my OXO tins. |
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| Leading a field trip, 1967, looking for more and more stuff.... |
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| Building a dam in Boulder Creek, 1970, with Stewart Mason, then Director of Education, Leicestershire LEA. Now, what's under THIS rock, I wonder.......... And it, collecting, that is, continues to this very day....      |
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