Pigs, Buttons and a Musket Ball: A Charity Dig for Teenage Cancer Trust

I had barely unpacked from holiday when Tom told me he had a surprise. He had booked the two of us onto a charity metal detecting dig in North Yorkshire, raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust. Some friends bring you a fridge magnet from their travels. Mine books you a day in a field with a metal detector, and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

We knew we were in the right place the moment we pulled in. Waiting by the gate was a row of round straw bales dressed up as smiling pigs, complete with pink ears, snouts and Teenage Cancer Trust banners. It set the tone for the whole day.

For anyone who hasn't met him yet, Tom is the coin brain behind Tom's Titbits, our corner of the shop for detecting finds and curious coins. He is also my best friend and my usual detecting partner, and there are few better ways to spend a day than side by side in a field, waiting for that next signal.

The field had been freshly ploughed, which is every detectorist's favourite sight. Turning the soil brings fresh ground up towards the surface, so the whole field feels full of possibility. We were far too busy digging to take any photographs of ourselves, so the best I can offer is the view of everyone heading out across it.

What came out of the ground

Buttons were the order of the day, for both of us. If you have never been detecting, it might surprise you how many buttons come out of an English field. For centuries people worked the land, walked across it and lost things on it, and buttons were forever working loose from coats and waistcoats. Tom and I found our share, and honours ended pretty much even.

My pouch also held a few other bits and pieces. There was a copper-alloy buckle with a notched bar, probably from a strap or a horse's harness, a plain copper ring, and what I think is the end of an old clock key. The one that made me smile most, though, was a musket ball: a small lump of lead, now dusted white with age, that was once loaded into a gun and fired, or simply dropped, by someone standing in that field long before any of us.

Each find is a small reminder that somebody once stood roughly where we were standing, going about their day under the same northern sky.

Coffee, cake and a coin the size of a fingernail

Halfway through there was a stop for coffee and cake, which is exactly as important to a good dig as the finds. Standing around with a hot drink, comparing pouches and swapping stories, is half the joy of these days.

It was over a slice of cake that we got talking to a fellow detectorist who had found a tiny silver hammered coin that morning. Tom and I couldn't believe how small it was. Hammered coins were struck by hand, one at a time, right up until the 1660s, and the smallest of them can be barely bigger than a fingernail. Seeing something that size, knowing it had sat in that soil for centuries and somehow been found again, was a proper reminder of why we do this. It was not our find, but it was easily the highlight of the break.

The mystery in the hole

The find I kept thinking about on the drive home, though, wasn't metal at all. Partway through the day I got a good, solid signal, dug down and came up with a lump of stone with a dark, glossy face. My first thought was coal. But coal leaves your fingers black, and this didn't leave a mark.

So it came home with me for some proper detective work. A magnet did nothing. Rubbed across the back of a tile, it left no streak. Then came the real test: I laid it on the ground on its own and swept the detector over it. Silence. The beep that led me to it had come from something else in the hole, and the stone had simply been sitting in the way.

The verdict is flint. Not a hammered coin, sadly, but not nothing either. People in this part of the world were shaping flint into tools thousands of years before anyone thought of a button, which makes even a plain piece feel like a small link to the very distant past.

Why we love these days

A charity dig is never really about what you find. It is about a good cause, a day outdoors, coffee and cake in a field, and a crowd of people who understand why anyone would get excited about a muddy button, or a silver coin smaller than a fingernail. It was a great day, and all in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust, which supports young people with cancer. Our thanks go to the organisers, to the landowner for opening up the field, and to Tom for the best welcome home a detectorist could ask for.

If you would like to see the kind of things that come out of the ground round here, have a browse through Tom's Titbits. And if you have ever dug up a mystery of your own, we would love to hear about it.