Hey Blog! Back in February, I had one of the best archaeological opportunities ever and so of course I’ll tell you all about it!

No, it wasn’t to be the next presenter/specialist on one of my favourite archaeology TV programmes. It was to go to London to talk to people about what I’ve been doing with the Derbyshire Scouts Archaeology (DSA) team, Youth Committee, and digs. In particular, a find from Willersley that I couldn’t tell you about before, as it had not been identified – the most spectacular thing I’ve ever been present at the finding of. Two members of the Youth Committee were metal detecting when they uncovered an Anglo-Saxon brooch – a Great Square Headed brooch, to be precise, with some of its features indicating a local style of design. During the dig, no one was certain if it was genuine – but later analysis by the Portable Antiquities Scheme proved it was, and luckily the DSA team was able to keep it (the treasure laws are very complicated, but this brooch was not counted as something that needs to be given to the Crown).

Besides being a find of historical interest (perhaps not national importance but still exceptionally interesting and locally significant, if the “local group” similar brooch design theory is correct) and of immense pride for the DSA team, it is also very beautiful – I would wear it, if it wasn’t so delicate and the pin was missing. Remarkably, it has remained mostly untarnished in the ground – the ferrous pin hinge has mild corrosion, but the silver gilt copper alloy brooch part is still bright. Estimated to be made 520-575 AD/CE, it is around 1500 years old, and I am extremely envious – the brooch was found just a few metres away from where I was and I didn’t find it – but it’s a good way for more people to be interested, by a chance find.

Back to what I was doing at this opportunity. The Youth Committee has been funded by an organisation called Youth United – they fund ‘uniformed groups’ and the current project they have been doing is heritage-based – and this was the chance to tell the people from the organisation, as well as other groups funded similarly, what we’ve been doing and why they should continue to give us their support. The brooch, which we had the chance to take to show, was obviously the star attraction; I then had an idea for a timeline. My signature activity, it seems – I’ve done several now! – but this was a timeline of brooches. After borrowing a Roman Fibula brooch, raiding the family jewellery box for one of Nanny’s old brooches, and buying a Victorian/20^th century imitation of a Georgian Cameo brooch, and printing out four images of brooches from other time periods, I had an activity where people who came to my stall could guess the time period as a group. I then prepared a short slideshow presentation, and formulated several topics into a mini speech, which did get reordered with each telling, but worked to catch people’s attention.

We went down to London, spent a few hours in the British Museum looking at other examples of Great Square Headed Brooches from the Anglo-Saxon period, and then Tubed across London to the venue by the Thames. I then changed into Explorer Uniform and set up the table with the timeline, the brooches, and the laptop. Then, all I had to do was wait for the guests to arrive. They soon did – and mine seemed to be a popular stall. Perhaps being the only young person there actually running their own session about the project helped – as did the timeline activity. Everyone loved it. After all, holding a brooch over a millennium old doesn’t happen every day! People were relatively accurate dating the brooches, and I only had to correct a couple of them each time. I might have to steal that activity to run somewhere else, perhaps as an evening activity on the experimental archaeology camp later this year. I think my enthusiasm came across, and Youth United are very keen to help us in the future. In all this was an absolutely wonderful session, and I think taking part confirmed my choice – I definitely want archaeology to be part of my future.

Hey Blog! During February, I went to the British Museum to a home-ed activity day!

The British Museum is a national institution which runs many archaeological & heritage organisations and visitor open days. It is one of the museums London is famous for. When I was younger and fanatical about dinosaurs, I generally focused more on the Natural History Museum – I still do – but now I am perhaps more likely to go to the British Museum, as archaeology has taken the top spot. However, last month, the museum was offering an activity day for home-edders, so it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed!

Included in the activities on offer were:

• The Silk Roads exhibition
• A talk about the Parthenon
• Two workshops, one after the other, of which you could take your pick of Living History, What makes a good Archaeologist, Felt Making, etc.
• An excuse for a day out at the British Museum!

The Silk Roads exhibition was the biggest draw for us – we had not had a chance to see it before, and the silk road, the path/s from Western Europe to East Asia and back again, is to us one of the most fascinating places in the world. It starts in China (or Japan – but you need a boat to start on the ‘road’) and travels along many winding paths through the top of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, skirting the Middle East, traveling through Europe, reaching its furthest length in Spain or Britain (depending on the path travelled). However, it was not one road with tradesmen who travelled all the distance – merchants might operate along a short distance, before passing their wares on to another who might take them further along the path. Thus, a piece of silk in England that came from China might have passed through hundreds of owners, which is why silk was so expensive and exotic. The sheer amount of cultures the Silk Road interacted with is astonishing, and show that the diversity we think is a modern thing was thriving many centuries ago. The exhibition was so full, I could have spent another hour in there, as it featured the travel, historical events and developments, and some of the fascinating artefacts found along the way – all in so much detail and so many of them, making for an absolutely fascinating display!

Next up, the Parthenon talk. The Parthenon is the famous temple at the top of the Acropolis in Athens (Acro – high, Polis – city), the one in the traditional Greek style with Doric columns, a parade of steps up to the door, and a triangular roof of white marble – a temple to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war who reputedly gave the Athenians olives. However, it is more than “just a Greek temple” – it is probably one of the finest surviving examples in the world, and has inspired countless buildings – including the building the British Museum is housed in! There are also some very interesting stylistic and historical features of the Parthenon that were discussed, for instance the relief carvings around the top, which were brought to Britain in the 19^th century and now housed in the Museum; and how the columns are doric – representing strength; as opposed to ionic (what’s on the Museum) – representing knowledge and learning.

The first workshop I attended was about living history – like reenactment but instead of one event, a scene depicting the lifestyle at the time. It explored the need for time-accurate objects (and perhaps knowledge and behaviourisms) and how people who practice living history learn these things. It also gave us a chance to think about what items we would need to take on the role of a historical trade (needed for living history) and realise it’s hard to decide how much you do to get into the persona – just where do you draw the line at “historical accuracy” when a single sock takes an entire winter of evenings to finish?! It was very enlightening, and useful if I decide to try living history myself.

The second was about the history and archaeology and what was needed to become a good archaeologist. I knew a lot about this, as I am passionately into archaeology and have done it quite a lot! I had to restrain myself on some of the questions, to encourage the other attendees, but since I now know how it is run, I might steal some of the ideas to run with the Scouts.

It was a really enjoyable day, which included a lot of learning and was very inspiring, and I would love to revisit the British Museum again very soon!

Hey Blog! On Thursday last week I ran two workshops for the last part of my Arts Award, which I’d love to tell you about!

As I have recounted previously, I have been working for an Arts Award on the topic of Prehistoric Art. You might think this is a very complicated subject which is a little indefinable – well, in some ways you’d be right. ‘Prehistory’ lasted so long (all the way from the Big Bang to when someone developed writing) that a handprint from 100,000 years ago is rather far away chronologically from a handprint made only 4000 years ago, be it by the same species or with the same materials. If you weren’t thinking that, you might have been wondering if there is even any art at all from this period – either because they were primitive people and didn’t think like that or because we’ve trashed it all before we realised it was art. No and no. While I recognise art is subjective and therefore my views may not be yours, I think the art from the prehistoric period, besides being aesthetically pleasing, stunningly colourful, made in a special place, and having a stupendous amount of history that goes along with it, is some of the purest, most lifelike and moving, with the raw power of the captured image of the subject in it. “After Altamira [one of the caves of art in Spain] all is decadence” Picasso said, and in this I agree.

It is that story I wanted to tell even more than the art. The idea of art always being a story is a notion I learned from my study of Banksy, and have since applied to every artwork and it seems to be true. Drawing on the inspiration from the prehistoric people, I decided to focus on art inspired by nature for the first workshop and then, to include the prehistoric element, art inspired by people for the second. This gave rise to a rough plan, then refined, which included comparing categories of art then and now, a timeline, a large collection of natural materials enough for a museum, a selection of art materials, and a couple of hours for making art. I then added a Powerpoint presentation and quite a few printed photos of art from different times and places, a set of frames, and several very heavy boxes to carry all of this, put an advert for the workshops on the local Home-Ed Facebook page and hired a hall to use. I should be honest; at this point the plan was still barely worked out.

Then it was a week before the workshops. The plan was still more in my head than on paper.

Then it was the weekend, and the plan – you guessed it – still remained largely in pencil and covered in question marks.

[Ed.: By this point, the Home Ed in a Shed finance department was wondering why they had agreed to pay for materials and the room.]

Then it was the last two days before the workshops, and I finally got down to actually pulling all the loose threads together. The plan went down on paper and it seemed like it would work, though I had no time to practice or change anything.

Then, on the day of the workshops, I was finally able to see the hidden meaning of life and solve all the problems of the world bring all the paraphernalia to the hall and have a go.

The first thing I got everybody to do was to listen to a quick recount of the story of my trip to Paris two years ago where I attended the exhibitions. That provided the story for the ‘Art is a Story’ trope I was focusing on. Then, I displayed some of my art that I had prepared and some art from other people; all this was inspired by the natural world – the second crucial concept I wanted to impart being ‘Art from Nature’. Then, indicating the table covered in my nature collection, I set them making art. The brief was to be inspired by either the shape, colour, texture, pattern, or some other factor of the material and then create art from it. Alternatively, they could arrange the objects in a pattern or arrangement to either draw or put in a frame. The story could be how the natural objects were found, or what their backstory was, or who found them and what happened next – or it could just be how you interpreted them, which is another type of story.

The second workshop, in the afternoon, was about the third theme – ‘Art from People’. I started by getting participants to arrange artworks along a timeline to guess when they were made. Overall, it went amazingly – lots of art, lots of discussion, and lots of laughs! Then, when everyone had worked out the dates of the art, I introduced the idea behind the art they would create – take inspiration from the style, subject matter, or some of the motifs used in prehistoric art, and use that inspiration to develop their artwork. When they were starting to finish off their creations, I brought out the final mini-activity of the day – a slate pendant, inspired by both a prehistoric one and one I made when I was messing around in the shed, before I realized it wasn’t my idea. The day rounded off with everyone wearing a pendant, differing only in the design, and admiring each other’s art.

Both workshops went very well, I think. The plan worked, and all participants went home with some beautiful artwork. Next time I run a session, I will make sure to plan in advance, not that morning! Aside from that, I think I did very well and am glad I had the chance to introduce more people to the world of prehistoric art. There remains one final thing to do before I get my Silver Arts Award – evaluate my work on this project and project delivery, and analyse feedback I receive from participants, helpers, and people who see the art in the mini-exhibition online. Hopefully I can do that soon without too much difficulty!

Hey Blog! This post is about an amazing science opportunity in Sheffield I went to a few weeks ago!

Last year, I told you about an initiative called Sparking STEM. Run by Amanda, this project offers in-person science practicals for children from starting learning science through to GCSEs and iGCSEs. If you look at Science Experiments and Food Testing – I wrote about one of the two sessions I attended in that post. However, this year I have done a further five sessions, which are what I will now relate to you.

Microscopy. We used light microscopes to look in more detail at some samples, and learnt how to use a proper microscope. I do not have a proper, high-quality/power one of my own as yet, so this was a good chance to try one out. Light microscopes use lenses to refract and reflect light back into the lens to make the image appear larger – thus making it easier to see small details. It’s astonishing how much detail there is in everything when you start looking! Even in something that looks perfectly smooth, there are tiny scratches and shiny patches. I would love a microscope to test out all sorts of different materials to see what they are made of.

Force and Extension. This is a subject which uses Hooke’s Law – Hooke being a contemporary of Newton and an investigator of how much force applied changes the shape of the object. His law says that F ∝ x, or more accurately, F = k x. Force applied is proportional to the extension of a spring, and is equivalent to the extension times the spring constant (stiffness). However, there is a limit to the law, like when you stretch the slinky too far and it refuses to go back to normal. Yes, we’ve all done that. Most upsetting. That is when the object is irreparably stretched into a shape and Hooke’s Law no longer functions – which makes for interesting graphs!

Respiration. This is one of the most important formulae for all life on earth and together these two make the most important bit of chemistry in biology (which is why you can’t teach science disciplines separately and therefore why I’m trying to do all three sciences!). Glucose (the simplest sugar) plus oxygen makes carbon dioxide plus water or, in its balanced chemical symbol form: C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ = 6CO₂ + 6H₂O, releasing energy in the process, which powers all our functions and our lives. This means the pH value in the test tube changes, and we can measure to what degree it does by a precise pH indicator. By examining the change in colour of the indicator solution, we can see whether the pH changes and thus whether respiration has occurred. Of course, only living things respire – it is one of the categories for a living organism to fulfil – so only the living things in the test tubes changed the pH. In all, a very interesting practical!

Osmosis. This is like diffusion but only with water particles and always across a membrane. Best demonstrated by leaving potato slices in water and seeing them swell with the water that they absorb to try and equalise the water content in and out of the potato. Osmosis must be considered by farmers when they fertilise a crop – if there is an excess of fertiliser, the water in the plant will osmose (is that a word?) out of the plant to balance the water : nutrient ratio inside and outside the plant – potentially causing wilting. This is a universal principle that applies to many things – almost all substances and some forms of energy will try to equalise to their surroundings. Heat behaves this way; electric charge behaves similarly (because there are opposite charges, they try to neutralise); and particles also do this, whether water (therefore making it osmosis) or other molecules (therefore showing diffusion). Even though it can be proved purely scientifically and logically, it belies a great truth about the universe and how all things exist in balance.

Lung dissection. If you don’t like reading about chopping up body parts stop now and skip to the end: this was a real dissection, on sheep lungs. While slightly disturbing, it was important learning: how you breathe. We all need oxygen for respiration to release energy (as seen above) but instead of being a chemical process, breathing is a mechanical one. We physically (but not consciously) pull down our diaphragms, making room in the chest cavity, which pulls air into the lungs. Air rushes down the trachea, into bronchi and then bronchioles (think plumbing) then reaching the alveoli, where different gases for respiration are swapped. This enables us to keep on living. Yay! There is something profound about seeing the last breath of a sheep in the air bubbles in the alveoli, but rather amusing about seeing lung tissue float to the surface of a beaker when all other tissues sink to the bottom (because of the air content). I’m glad I attended; it’s important to know how the body works, even if you need to cut up a sheep to do so, and rounds off the post nicely – biology, or any science, needs practice to understand properly. Who knows what experiments this mad scientist might get up to next?!

Hey Blog! Last weekend, I was on this year’s annual Scouts Chilly Challenge camp, so I thought I’d discuss camping with you!

I should think that most of you like camping. Even if it’s often cold, or always wet, or even snows, or the fire refuses to light until you’ve decided not to bother, it’s still all part of the fun. The basic outline of every Scout or Explorer Scout camp is more or less similar: put up tents, activities, dinner, campfire, supper and bed; then next morning wake up, get the fire going again, tidy up, have breakfast, strike tents, and back to activities or on the march. But every camp is unique, as you never pitch your tent in exactly the same place twice, or lie on the same awkwardly-positioned rocks two nights running. And it is always a fantastic experience.

However, since I have related camping before, today I will be discussing camping more broadly, in terms of equipment, safety and sites. Have a go at listing some camping equipment. The first thing will most likely be “tent”; the second will probably be sleeping bag. The third is usually either food, lighting, or warm clothes. There are actually loads to get ready in preparation for a camp, even if you’re only getting ready personal equipment. I do not have a my own one- or two-man tent, though it is something I would like to get some day. I do however have a sleeping bag – the warmer the better with these things, as you can always take a layer off, but you can’t get more layers if you’re already wearing them. While I didn’t take one this time, a knife is one of the handiest tools to have, as you can carve items like tent pegs that you’ve forgotten besides having multiple attachments for various purposes if you’ve got a good one (a knife is also the ultimate thing to have once you’re shipwrecked on a desert island). A good torch is essential, as you can use it for signalling, games, finding your pyjamas, and locating your tent after coming back from the toilet block. Then of course there’s a bowl/plate for dinner and mug for water and hot chocolate. Depending on how long you’re going for, you could also need a washbag, because you do get very smoky and sweaty by the time you come home. However, it is unlikely you will need one on a one-night camp!

For safety on a camp, the most dangerous things are campfires, cooking knives, and perhaps rivers, if you’re near them. Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a safety instructor, so please listen to them not me. This is just what I know and some common sense. However, do try to stay uninjured!

For fires, remember: the fire triangle (oxygen, fuel, ignition); what goes on the fire stays on the fire; anything on/in the fire is hot enough to burn you; no pranks, scuffles, or silly antics around the fire; put it out afterwards; and basically just be careful! With knives, the most important thing to know is that you should always cut away from yourself. Besides that, you shouldn’t have too much issue, so long as you are careful and stay clear of anyone else using one. And with water, don’t go close unless you have to, and then be aware of the banks, distance from, and depth and speed of the water. Thankfully that isn’t a problem at the local Scout campsite, but it’s good to know if you go camping elsewhere.

If you do camp on your own or with family, then the places are limited. Only a few locations are available for wild camping nowadays, which is a pity, but does keep you safe. Know your site, pick somewhere uphill of your toilet unless it is plumbed in, and not near water. Ideally, you never go on your own, but if you do, tell someone where you are going and when you will return. In other countries, you might need to keep yourself safe from bears, etc., but in the UK, this is not an issue so don’t worry that one might enter your tent!

I think camping makes you appreciate our Mesolithic ancestors who camped every day of their lives, and brings you closer to the wild you wake up with. This is where we came from – waking with dawn, walking on fresh dew, and watching the birds and the stars. It also is an immensely valuable skill, which has proved lifesaving in the past, and everyone should have the chance to try camping!

Hey Blog! For a few weeks, I’ve been crafting and making every day I can, both in an attempt to increase my productivity and as one of my favourite things to do.

I have always been very much on the production side of things. Admittedly I sometimes tend more towards destruction – I once took an axe to some perfectly serviceable pieces of wood to make them look more, well, axe-cut and rustic; and at other times have dug very deep holes, possibly as a mine shaft or a dinosaur excavation. But whenever I’m not doing that, I like making – whatever it may be. I have told you of my wood turning exploits, and that I do sewing, and baking, and watching “The Great British” of these things, but these have not been all brought together under a collective subject on HEIAS before.

This seems a good point to mention that I am very interested in heritage crafts, and indeed all crafts; and this may one day be a career choice or at least a permanent hobby. However, at present I have a pride that everything I create, be it copies of the Rings of Power or a crochet stick, is entirely hand-made and done using simple tools without specialist equipment, yet are things of beauty and fine make. What I make on the lathe is slightly more advanced as it requires a carefully designed machine, and the pokers I made at High Peak Junction (Home Ed at the Forge, 6^th Jan 2024*) are even more specialist. Most unfortunately, I do not have a readily available forge at home, the correct PPE for dealing with close to 1000°C temperatures, nor the iron/steel to use, so I cannot replicate this craft.

Heritage Crafts (https://www.heritagecrafts.org.uk) have a list of over 250 recognised crafts they support, and many of those are on the Red List – endangered crafts which need more people participating to pass on the skills. I do not know yet which of these I would most like to pursue – if any – but it’s good to know there are people who are preserving this valuable cultural, productional, and fast-vanishing knowledge.

Last week I did 5 different types of making, one on each day – not counting weekends – and here they are:

Monday. Knitting. This is a birthday present, so I can’t say any more here, but it’s half finished now and looks fantastic! It has also been a good reminder of knitting, as I had almost forgotten a few of the techniques – but the muscle memory survives even when the conscious memory does not. When this project is finished I will need to make a point to find another to work on.

Tuesday. Crochet. Still doing the squares, and it is looking like the full blanket may take several years to complete at this rate – sorry! I need to keep going and get a lot more squares done.

Wednesday: Wood turning. This time I made a needle case out of some of the yew wood we have. It isn’t the best ever needle case I’ve made, but was a good practice – it is very difficult to get the thickness right!

Thursday: Baking. My most practiced recipe – shortbread biscuits. They are blimin’ lovely if I do say so myself. I’m doing baking as my skills section for DofE, so this shows how I started – and now I just need to improve. What’s for pudding next week? Any suggestions?

Friday: Chain Mail. I know what you’re thinking – “But Kit, you just said you don’t have a forge. How can you make chain mail without one; unless you have the chain rings all made already – and even then you still need particular tools for riveting together?” Well, yes. It’s not particularly strong, since it’s made of aluminium – this is ring pull chain mail. While it might not stop arrows fired from the longbow I’m making down in the garage, this does look the part and is beautifully shiny. A huge thanks to my friends, one for suggesting the idea and another for providing some additional ring pulls. Now I just have to work out a method of soldering them shut to make it even more secure…

There are many crafts that I haven’t even heard of, and I’m sure I will have a go at many of them. I feel like I dabble in them all – a “Jack of all trades, master of none” situation – but, as the proverb closes “though oftentimes better than master of one!”

* – this also has a short paragraph on my making up to that point so you can ‘compare and contrast’ how far I have come

Hey Blog! Last week I took the train on four out of the five days, so that’s what I’ve written about this week!

“Platform 1, for the Home Ed in a Shed Railway Journey to Understanding Train Travel. This service is currently on time, calling at…”

At the start of this journey into the railway, we must go back to the very beginning. The first trains were steam trains, running on a steam engine, in the industrial revolution. This engine used the pressure of boiled steam to push a shaft that turned the wheels, and while they didn’t go as fast as modern trains, they were faster than anything at the time – or HS2 nowadays! At approximately 30mph, this was a new and exiting mode of travel, and though there were accidents, on the whole it was safer, more efficient, and a lot faster – even if it was incredibly polluting, as it was coal-powered, but then they didn’t know that then. A railway craze developed – as it had with the canals, perhaps a century before, steam travel expanded and thousands of miles of track were laid. But unlike the canals, these have outlasted time and automobiles, and are still used today.

In the present day, train travel has come a long way. We have bullet trains in Japan – developed using bioengineering, with the shape of the kingfisher’s beak inspiring the shape of the front of the train to reduce noise pollution. There are Eurostar trains underneath the English Channel – admittedly not the widest stretch of water, but still an immense achievement, since the tunnel met perfectly in the middle. There are Subway, Underground, and Metro trains underneath cities – impressive that there are all these lines, none of which interfere with foundations, underneath thousands of people who walk unthinking over them. Some places have trains which go up mountainsides, some have trains on great viaducts which cross valleys, we have trains under and over the earth, sea and sky.

I live on a little branch line, which once was a major line of the Midland Railway Co. but is no more. The closest station to me was one of only three triangular stations in the country – stations where there are three platforms in a triangle which can go three different ways. In some ways it is slightly annoying that the fast trains do not run through on to Shefield any more as then we could go a lot more places without having to change, but it is nice that it is quiet. Beyond the end of the line are the trails where trains use to run, but now are for walking and biking, not the Iron Horse. We used to take the train almost every day, but through covid and then after we got used to walking places and took a long time to go back to the train. However, we are almost back to normal levels now, so that’s good. Special train journeys we have made include taking the Eurostar to Paris, the Sleeper to Orkney, besides going to London, York, Shefield and other cities, which happens about once a month. I like taking the train, and it is certainly a very pleasant method of transportation – hopefully we will continue to be able to travel for a long time!

“Platform 1, for the Home Ed in a Shed Railway Journey to Understanding Train Travel. This service is delayed, and now expected to depart at…”

Yes, I know!

Rail travel has inspired many a poem or novel: This is the Night Mail is one of my favourite poems, with fantastic rhythm and amusing yet totally believable imagery, and of course the perfect romantic send-off involves a handkerchief waving from a train window as the couple are separated until the rendezvous sometime in the denouement. I have just contributed some little lines to this (pun on rail lines) which I hope you enjoy, and when you next take the train, think of how much this form of travel has influenced the world.

Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum, Chugatobuum…

Hey Blog! To start 2025, I’m going to give you another book review.

This post’s book is a bit older than most of the ones I have reviewed recently, and is by poet laureate and author John Masefield. Not only was he a brilliant poet (his poem Sea Fever is one of my favourites) he was also a good children’s author in the relatively young genre of fantasy. This was a rather new idea in fiction at the time – when it was written, Tolkien would not have changed the world of literature with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and while the Victorian era had had a trial with fantasy via Alice in Wonderland, it was not a well-established genre. Masefield wrote two children’s books, The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, the former a tale of treasure hunting, witchcraft, the power of memory and the mysterious Midnight Folk; the latter a book of darker magic, kidnapping and a box of incredible and unexhausted powers. It is the latter that I will review, as it is set in the week before Christmas, and Christmas plays an important part in the plot. While this year that time is past, opening the Box can allow you to travel through the past (and possibly the future – see the last post!), so I don’t think it matters.

Another good story starts on a train. Well, don’t they all?! In this case, Kay Harker is traveling home for the holidays, and makes the acquaintance of both the wandering magician and performer, Cole Hawlings, and the two unsettling curates with mind-reading powers, surprisingly lucky card tricks and successful pocket-picking abilities. After producing a ticket when Kay has lost his, and then disembarking the train at the same station as Kay, Cole gives him a task – to warn the Lady with the Ring that the Wolves are Running once again (Note – this feels very much like the warning that the Dark, the Dark is Rising!). After passing the message on, and coming home, Kay invites Cole to do a short (but magnificent!) performance, after which the strange couple from the train arrive to find him, this time with a third man, Abner Brown, a dark wizard from The Midnight Folk who seeks Cole, power, and treasure. It seems Cole has broken through their ring and plans to escape “with the goods on him”, and is carrying something of great importance. Moreover, he is being assisted by the Lady and Herne the Hunter, the three of them all bearing rings with “the longways cross in gold and garnets”. No sooner have Abner and his cronies arrived than Cole pulls off a trick by which he can step into a painting, escaping them once again (wouldn’t I just love to be able to do things like that!). Then, that night, Cole summons Kay to King Arthur’s Camp hill to entrust him with the thing Abner wants: the Box of Delights, crafted by Master Arnold and in the guardianship of Cole to protect till Arnold comes back out of the old time. Kay is sent back home by the Box with the task to keep it safe from all, but above all from Abner’s gang. Can he keep it safe over Christmas?!

It is certainly a brilliant story. I got it in a stocking several years ago, devoured it, and loved it, and it still lives on the bookcase under my bed. I don’t think anything is quite like it; the idea of a group of people trying to smuggle a powerful magical object through a net of people looking for it has been used, as has the ability to shrink, fly, and see through time; but this goes further, building a world of Christmas, various folklore, friendly mice and rats, and through it all two rival powers seeking to gain a seemingly unremarkable but in fact wonderous box. Oh, and it also has a bunch of gangsters dressed as clergymen, all headed by a wizard; and a group consisting of an old showman, a half-stag-half-man, and an old woman who lives in an oak tree, who are aided by a boy unaware of all the box can do – I would love to know how Masefield came up with this! Besides the story in itself, it has been an inspiration for many, so its reach has spread through literature. One day I need to write a thesis on how children’s fiction literature is inspired by earlier novels and all goes back to some source, probably King Arthur. And then I’m trying to work out how all these books fit with one another, into one multi-faceted literatureverse. But however you respond to The Box of Delights, it is a very good Christmasy, magical, and cleverly written book, as relevant now as when it was written: although some of the more old-fashioned bits may not be present in the modern time, the thought of wolves remaining in hidden hills and an entire cathedral choir being scrobbled in a bus are just as interesting now!

The BBC made a series of the book some time in the 70s or 80s; we found it the other night and have been watching it. Although some of the lines from the book are rearranged, it is very good as it hasn’t left any of the plot out so far (we’re on the third episode) and I like the visual effects; more reachable than modern films and yet realistic. There are still several episodes to go so I will have to get round to watching them at some point.

While writing this post, I realised I had been interested by the gold and garnet rings when I first read the book, before I even started on The Hobbit. I even made some copies with the shiny paper. Interesting, because when I did get into Tolkien, I used real copper wire and coloured glass pebbles to make some of the rings of power. I generally make something from the stories I read, e.g. a carved staff, a clubhouse (the shed, even though I have had no club meetings there yet), a box of spy gear, and several wands, so it’s not surprising that The Box of Delights received the same respect. What could be next, I wonder?

Hey Blog! As it’s the end of the year, and it seems as if this year has gone even faster than the one before, I started thinking about time – and therefore, it is ‘time’ to share it with you!

Most people do not consciously think too much about time. Animals likewise – apart from knowing when to get up, when to go places, when to eat and drink, or when to go to sleep again, it’s unlikely that animals bother too much consciously considering time. Some animals do need to use time seasonally, of course: mating, migrating, and hibernating, or in humans, cultivating; all are seasonal activities which we need to know the time for. But while almost every animal has an inbuilt body-clock, or sometimes multiple clocks, these are mostly below the level where we can consciously rely on them. Humans are probably the only animal which records time externally, and the best example to start with is a clock.

A clock doesn’t actually measure the flow of time – nothing can. All we can measure is how something else is affected by the passage of time. In the case of a battery-powered clock we are using the stored energy in the batteries to turn a second, minute and hour hand, and because the clock’s own mechanism regulates how much energy is released at once, we can set the hands to move at a constant rate which means that, if each hour is the same length, we can measure how much time has passed. If I took your clock off the wall and manually moved the hour hand forwards one hour, it doesn’t mean that the very time of day has changed – only the time recorded by that clock. Even if I hacked the supercomputers, changed the time on every single time-keeping device in the world, I still wouldn’t have changed time – though I might have wreaked havoc world-wide as deadlines, emails, meetings and birthday parties would have been moved ahead according to the clock!

While I can’t literally alter time, I can record its passage in many ways. For instance, grandfather clocks, which have to be wound up, use a complex system of levers, bars and weights to move the hands and prevent the winding weight from falling instantly. Alternatively, quartz clocks are run on the interaction between electrical impulses and quartz crystals. The quartz sends a constant-rate impulse when you put a charge through it, which means we can measure how much is released and how fast and thus run time off that. Ancient Egyptian water clocks had a small hole which the water drained from, and how much drained in a single night meant you could fill it up once a day and determine the time after that from markings on the walls. Candle clocks use a set length of candle and a known length of time it takes to burn, combined with markings on the side like water clocks by which you can read how long it has been burning and thus the time. In theory, you could measure time by any means whereby a constant rate of change has occurred over a long period combined with a scale to mark its passage.

You will probably have noticed in that last paragraph that time is, quite simply, a rate of how long it takes to do things. As I read in a book once, “What is time but motion?” Taking time as a measure of motion, or any process, you could record time by how long it takes for me to write this blog, but since sometimes it takes forty minutes to finish a post and sometimes takes three hours, I don’t think it’s a very consistent scale!

Time can, as we have seen, be measured by different scales. However, these differ drastically depending on the time we want to reference. Oddly, light years are not a measure of time but of distance, because they are how far light can travel in a year. That is, one Earth year – a Mercury year is shorter than a Mercury day, for instance – but a Mercury day is longer than an Earth day. However, this doesn’t even cover how space and time interact. The esteemed Albert Einstein was an expert at this, and he formulated the two Theories of Relativity. Special relativity is, to put it extremely simply, that the laws of physics always apply; that the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same; and the formula E=mc², which means that essentially, mass and energy are the same thing. However, General Relativity is the theory that space and time are intertwined in a universal blanket known as spacetime, which the existence of mass bends to create gravity. Thus, if objects can be spatially affected by gravity, they can also be affected timewise. The discovery of the whole spacetime continuum is an incredible feat of theorising, reasoning, and endless calculations. And it also offers time travel scientists both a possible line of inquiry and a good thing to use to explain everything (like archaeologists and “ritual”!).

Speaking of time travel… this is a very strange field of research. No one has yet proven it is possible – but absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. It is speculated that were you to circle a black hole, you would see yourself going round on the other side, in the past (or maybe in the future) – because the immense gravity of the black hole has warped the time element so much that you could see yourself in the past (or the future). I once personally formulated a theory that if you go faster than the speed of light you go either backwards or forwards through time – but this is impossible, since the speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest thing that can ever be. One clue that someone has developed a time machine is that time travel is illegal in China. Yes, there is a law which means you could go to jail if you used time travel. Admittedly this is unlikely to ever be implemented, but then again…

Authors have also used this as a major plot device. While I have never watched Doctor Who (in fact, the list of movies and TV shows I have watched is very low overall; I primarily devote time to history/wildlife documentaries) I have read The Dark Is Rising and a few similar books. What I have gleaned from this is: time travel is a more complex plot device than you might think. To do it properly and believably (at least to me), I would have to conform to the rules of physics or else blur it over with a lot of sparkly effects. And that is not even incorporating whether going back in time means you can change the past, thus changing the future (the present); or creating a parallel, alternate world; or whether you can’t go back at all, just forwards. Just don’t mess with tales of the fairies – if they whisk you away, you may return in a hundred years after being away only a few minutes. A bit like me with books, only much, much more severe!

I will leave you with two paradoxes. Firstly:

A young man discovers a time machine. He uses it to visit the past, and see his grandparents who he never met. Unfortunately, a tragic series of accidents means he manages to kill his grandfather simply by appearing in the past. By killing him, his parent cannot be born, and thus he cannot be. Therefore, he cannot go back in time and kill his grandfather. Therefore, his grandfather does not die, has a child and subsequent grandchild who finds a time machine, and so on…

A young woman discovers a time machine. She goes back in time and manages to crash the machine, and is stuck in the past. She meets a young man, and they go on to get married and have a child. This child looks just like her… then she realises that events are happening just as they were when she was a girl, before she went back to the past. That’s when her daughter disappears, in a time machine, to go back to the past, to become her. So where did she come from? Which time is real?

Ultimately, if time travel is real, it would mean there is no past, no present and no future. As once written on a sundial, “Time is, time was, time is not.”

• Editor (Mum)’s note: It would be a lot simpler if you just said, “Time travel. It’s very complicated. Happy new year!”

Which brings me to my conclusion. I hope you had a good 2024 and will have an excellent Happy New Year of 2025!

Hey Blog! Apologies for not posting for the last few weeks, it’s been busy this year though I really should have made more time for Home Ed in a Shed. However, earlier in December, I visited Kenilworth castle, and the week before that was the archaeology Christmas Party session, and so together those two are the inspiration for what I’ll be talking about today!

Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) is something I have written about a lot; archaeology is one of my big interests. Every year, there is a Christmas party, which is mostly fun and games with a few bits of learning mixed in. It has an optional dress code where some of the members come in a historical costume, which has made for a peculiar gathering which looks like a whole load of time-travellers have appeared in the same room together – everyone from the Stone Age to the Second World War – and is a brilliantly fun event. Some people don’t come from the past, but there is usually a small collection of history. Some of my past costumes have been Viking, Tudor, Anglo-Saxon, but this year I decided to get together with a friend who goes and make a joint costume. It all began with our surnames.

Mine is Bailey – probably a derogative of bailiff, one of the officials who served a lord of the manor and his knights. This friend’s surname is Wilmott – I do not know it’s etymology, but the last half – mott – provided a silly joke that we were mott and bailey (you know, like the early Norman style of castle called a motte and bailey) and perhaps we should go as a castle. She liked the idea, and so we arranged a day to meet up and create some gigantic cardboard hats!

I called on my resident senior structural engineer (AKA Dad – he is quite knowledgeable on stuff like this) and put forward my castle designs. Unlike real castles, their primary purpose was not to be strong enough to stand up to a battering ram, big enough to hold an entire community during a time of war, or almost indestructible so an attacking army couldn’t break the walls. They did, however, need to fulfil one function of castles – to look impressive! My original idea was to make them from big disks of cardboard, fill papier-mache around in places, then put a lollipop fence and houses on the top, as well as having a large keep embedded in the taller, motte hat. And that’s more or less how it was made!

We ditched the lollipops for cardboard for reasons of weight – having half a tonne of wood balanced on your head is never a particularly good example to set at a children’s group! – and used paint rather than model railway resin on the duck pond, as it was easier and cheaper to do. I marked stones on the donjon or keep with Sharpie, and we finished off the two separate hats with a reinforced cardboard bridge balanced in place once we had both put the hats on. It did look amazing and we had quite a laugh – and I’m currently thinking about what we’re going to go as next year!

A week or so after the party, I met up with family at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. This is a very famous castle – it is one that King John invested in and then ceded to the barons under the Magna Carta; it is where the Hundred Years War’s second phase started, which led to Henry V’s victory at Agincourt (see King Henry V, scene III); where Robert Dudley tried to persuade Elizabeth I to marry him (he failed); it was held by royalists and slighted by parliamentarians in the civil war (which is an AWFUL waste of a castle!!!); and was a home for hundreds of people from its building in the 1100s to its current existence in the present day. Now it is an English Heritage castle, which means it is in good hands and is being looked after, after centuries of looking after other people within its walls. I certainly recommend it – you can still go up inside the castle proper, and some of the rooms still exist! The gatehouse was little damaged, so it has remained a residence till the last century, and is now a museum, the gardens are beautiful (even if it was winter and so there was not much when we visited), and the views are stunning. Also, it has an excellent little café in the bailey, so be sure to try some of the cake!

Merry Christmas!!!