Like A Rolling Stone

In his 1954 book The Pebbles on the Beach, Clarence Ellis shared his passion for the simple pleasure of pebble-hunting. In this extract, he details how to classify and care for the natural treasures you find on our shores

One of the advantages of pebble-collecting as a hobby is that it is one of the most leisurely of parttime pursuits, making little demand upon one’s patience and still less upon one’s physical energy. If the collector lives far from the coast, he must, of course, conduct his beach peregrinations within the limits of his annual seaside holiday, having made sure that the resort of his choice possesses a good shingle beach or is within very easy reach of one. If, however, he is fortunate enough to live on the coast and near to such a beach, he can make his forays when time, weather and mood are all entirely to his liking. A fine and not too windy day in winter, when he has the whole shore to himself, provides the happiest conditions for the assiduous collector. Unless he is one of those rare unfortunates who suffer from the fear of open spaces, he will agree with Byron that:

The pastime commends itself on other grounds. For example, it is very inexpensive. There is no market in pebbles. They are there for the taking. Given sufficient practice, discernment and discrimination, the collector can acquire an array of choice specimens at no cost whatsoever. naturally, he will have to pay if he wishes to have some of his collection professionally cut and polished, but he can have this done for a very modest sum. Then, again, the cult does not demand membership of any society, whose annual subscription he must pay or whose quarterly journal he feels dutybound to read. There is no scanning of advertisement columns for bargains nor are there any pilgrimages to sale rooms.