Mudlarking

[Rhiannon]

I saw some guys doing this in Greenwich last timeI was there and a family mudlarking neat the Globe. I'd love to give it a go, although the official website for it is marginally off-putting with its warning of discarded needles and rats urine. Oh, and you need a license - this is London after all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-39365669

[floo]

I have never heard that term before.

[Robbie]

Mudlarks are scavengers, like beachcombers, floo. I've not heard of the former for a long time but there was a very charming film made long before our time which I've seen on TV:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042757/

[Bubbles]

Mudlarks are scavengers, like beachcombers, floo. I've not heard of the former for a long time but there was a very charming film made long before our time which I've seen on TV:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042757/

It's interesting though because you never know what you might find, London having such a long history.

I don't see them as " scavengers" just people with a hobby that looks for little bits of history.

As long as they don't find a ww2 bomb. Which can happen.

I went and walked along one of the beaches on the east coast and a couple of days later they were evacuating it because someone discovered an old bomb.

I would have thought it's much more possible to come across one of those, so many dropped in central London along the Thames.

[Robbie]

I didn't think of the word, 'scavengers', as derogatory, Rose. It has more than one meaning, in some societies it is considered to be highly entrepreneurial for people to scavenge and find things worth something.

From wiki: A mudlark is someone who scavenges in river mud for items of value, a term used especially to describe those who scavenged this way in London during the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Very enterprising!

Yes, it is interesting, must be wonderful to find something of value or even a small coin purse full of money!
(If I did it, knowing my luck, I'd find old socks, combs and condoms.)