Detecting Together

Arriving home from work full of excitement Teresa announced suddenly, “I’ve bought a metal detector.

- Ray Stones

We’re going to a dig on Sunday!” “Are we?” I said. “Oh, goodness! What has she got me into now?” were my precise thoughts at the time.

Well, off we went and met the late Ken Wilcox; he told us the rules and generally put us right on all related matters. Now all that happened way back in September 2009.

We set off across the fields and after about 20 minutes got a signal and dug up a nail! However, things were about to improve, as next we found an even bigger one! Here is Teresa pretending she knows what she is doing.

Six hours later with a pocket full of scrap we both happily went home, stopping to pick up an Indian take away on the way, as had become our habit over the years. It only took that first outing to get us absolutely hooked on detecting.

We tried in vain to obtain some permissions but the answer was always “No,” or “Sorry somebody’s already doing it.” So we had to rely on organised digs. However, at least we didn’t have to worry about which field to do that day (the Roman or the Saxon etc.). We had some great fun, but didn’t find much. Our best find was a 13th-15th century strap end or horse harness.

Then, in early 2011, Teresa spent seven weeks in hospital and we were told she might not make it. Well, she did and we spent some months building up her strength and restoring her memory, which had been almost wiped out. We eventually got back out on a few digs and decided to buy a better machine. We went for the XP Deus purchased from Leisure Promotions at Newbury. They said that if we could get down in a couple of weeks, then they had a dig on the Sunday. They were really nice people there.

We picked up the machine, read the manual and had a nice meal in the local pub. Sunday came and we could hardly contain ourselves.