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 NOW
ALBIE HAD ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED in collecting anything ‘old’
– the more ancient the better, in fact– and he was often
seen on Sheringham beach scouring the sand and shingle in the hope
of discovering a relic from the past to add to his collection. His
long-suffering mother always protested about the clutter in his
bedroom: unusual-shaped stones lining his window sill, wartime relics
filling his chest of drawers where his socks should have been, and
the bones of long-dead sea creatures, miraculously turned to stone,
filling his tallboy – but, there again, his mother did have
to dust them!
ROZ
WASN’T BEST PLEASED at Albie’s suggestion
to search for fossils on West Runton beach, as, being such quiet
and secluded spot with only the sea birds for company, she had
hoped for some romantic attention from her boyfriend – but
there he was poking around in rock pools instead!
“I
am here you know, Albie,” she said, getting exasperated
by his inattentiveness. “Do you really prefer long dead
creatures turned to stone when you’ve got me in the flesh?”
“I’m
sorry, Roz,” he replied, getting the message loud and clear,
and confessing: “I git a bit carried away sometimes, when I’m
lookin’ for fossils and that...”
“I
did not come all this way to be given the cold shoulder,”
she declared indignantly, “come here and give me a kiss
– this instant!” So Albie duly obliged!
For
a few moments, the pair remained locked in a passionate embrace
by the waters edge until Roz, sensing her boyfriend had other
things on his mind, opened her eyes only to see Albie’s gaze
was transfixed on a distant object half hidden amongst the rocks.
“Oh,
Albie,” she said, rather angry at an unexpected break
from their canoodling, “what is it now?”
“There’s
a rather nice sea-urchin over there,” he replied, breaking
free from her vice-like grip. “I shan’t be a minute!”
Quickly,
he turned over a large rock and half hidden in the chalk underneath
was a prize specimen for his collection, and he just had to have
it! Digging it out of the crumbling chalk with his penknife he returned
to Roz, proudly displaying the magnificent fossil in the palm of
his hand.
“I
have to confess,” she declared, holding the fossil and gazing
at the little lines of dots where the spines would have been, “it
really is quite beautiful – but how old would
it be, do you think”
Albie
pondered for a moment, scratching his head as he did so, and then
replied: “Probably about 100 million years old, give or take
a few!” he said.
Roz
was rather impressed and becoming quite eager to learn
a bit more about his hobby.
“Is
your dad like this as well?” she asked, wondering whether it
ran in the family. “I mean, does he share your passion
for collecting things?”
“Heavens,
no,” Albie replied, startled by the thought, “Dad’s
always too busy down the Co-op to have any time for hobbies!”
“No,
if the truth’s but known,” Albie continued, thinking back
to when it all began, “I reckon I’ve got my Granddad to
blame for all of this!”
ALBIE
TELLS ROZ ABOUT HIS GRANDDAD
 “My
granddad, Elijah,” he told Roz, as they both began searching
for illusive fossils, “has been a beachcomber for as long as
I can remember, an’ he often took home to Wyndham Park many
fossils what he’d discovered on Runton beach. So, I guess I
musta followed in his footsteps!”
“But,
when did it all start for you?” Roz asked him. “I
mean, how old were you when you became interested in fossils?”
“Well,
many years ago – I wuz about nine at the time,” replied
Albie, “Granddad took me fossil-hunting on Runton beach for
the first time. We hatta climb down the cliff face, down a rickety
old ladder put there for holidaymakers, or ‘vistors’ as
we called ’em, so as to explore the sand and shingle at the
bottom of the cliffs.”
Roz
listened intently as Albie continued his tale.
“That
first day, I didn’t actually find no fossils,” Albie told
her, “but, as the receding waves uncovered a ridge of shingle
at the water’s edge, I noticed a really pretty, pear-shaped
stone that seemed to glow with a rich golden colour when I held
it up to the light.”
“Was
it a piece of long-lost pirate treasure?” asked Roz, playing
along with him.
“No-oo,
silly!” Albie replied, “Anyway, I said to my grandfather,
‘wha’s this here stone, then Granddad? ’Corse that
do look pretty, dun’t it?”
“That,
my lad, is ‘amber’,” he told me, handling the piece
and holding it up to the light. “An’ that be worth a bob
or two, that’s for sure.”
“Where
do amber come from, Granddad?” I then asked him.
“Wuh,
tha’s a good ’un, boy, you wholly know how to ask a hard
question you do, an’ all,” he replied, scratching his
head as he thought it over.
“Well,
that all starts off as a drop o’ resin from a pine tree, running
down the trunk,” Granddad told me in a most knowledgeable
way. “Then that set hard; an’, sometimes,
a totty little fly gits trapped in it, an’ if you look real
careful like there may be one in yar stone!”
“How
fascinating!” exclaimed Roz, “but, was there a
fly in your stone?”
“Well,
I
squinted at it, this way and that, but I couldn’t see a fly
or nothin’,” was Albie’s honest reply, “just
a lovely translucent golden stone, and to me the prettiest
thing in all the world! And tha’s how I got started on collectin’
things.”
Roz
thought his story was marvellous and told him so, and, decided,
more than ever, that she, too, would like to share his hobby.
“I
wouldn’t mind meeting your granddad one day,” she told
him, “he sounds such a fascinating man.”
“He’s
a right old character,” Albie laughed, “and can tell a
yarn or two as well – do you know, he once told me that woolly
mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers roamed the cliff tops at Runton!
Can you believe that?”
“Mind
you,” he continued thoughtfully, “to
discover something like that would certainly put West
Runton on the map, don’t you think? Can’t see it happening
though, can you? A mammoth
at Runton, never in a million years!”
ROZ
AND ALBIE MAKE A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY!
The
North Norfolk coast had recently been hit by some very unsettled
weather, with storms and high winds buffeting the coast with a vengeance
and resulting in some freak tides, particularly high, which had
scoured away much of the beach at West Runton, taking stones, sand
and shingle far out to sea. This had uncovered the vast expanse
of fossil-bearing chalk where the two art students were now standing.
 Together,
Roz and Albie began making a thorough search of the chalk beds,
probing here and there, and using a penknife that Albie had thoughtfully
taken along. Soon, they had amassed quite a collection of fossils:
sea-urchins with pretty-markings on their domed shells, curly snail-like
molluscs – or devil’s toenails to Albie – and a handful
of flinty, bullet-shaped ‘thunderbolts’.
They
didn’t know it then, but they were moments away from making
the discovery of a lifetime!
“What’s
this then, Albie?” Roz asked, hardly able to conceal
her excitement at the possibility of her first ‘find’.
“Do you think this may be a fossil?”
At
her feet she pointed to an unusual shape, half-hidden in the sand.
Feverishly, they began digging away until, to their amazement, a
spinal column of some long-extinct sea creature appeared before
their very eyes.
“That
looks like the backbone of a small dinosaur or suffin’!”
Albie exclaimed, and continued with his frenzied digging. The more
chalk they removed, the more of the skeleton saw the light of day
– the first time in over 60 million years!
 Soon,
they could see parts of the skull, most of the spine and, what appeared
to be, other bones branching off either side of the spine.
“We’ll
hatta move fast,” Albie declared, as the tide had begun to
turn with the water already lapping around their feet!
Using
his penknife, he quickly removed one of the vertebra, not a moment
too soon, as the incoming tide completely submerged the skeleton
forcing them to flee to the safety of dry land.
“And
this,” declared Albie proudly, holding their most-precious
find in the palm of his hand for a moment, “is what
I call a fossil – and it’s all down to you for
finding it!”
“But,
what is it?” asked a curious Roz. “And what do
you call it?”
“Well,
tha’s definitely a dinosaur – but apart from that
I hen’t gotta clue!” admitted a bewildered Albie. “But
I know a man who will!”
AN
EXPEDITION SETS FORTH
The
following week, first thing Monday morning, Roz and Albie took time
off from their studies at the Norwich School of Art to present their
‘find’ to the curator of Norwich
Castle Museum for identification and dating. Handling the single
vertebra very carefully, he began examining it meticulously, looking
at it closely through the lens of a large magnifying glass.
“I
reckon tha’s a dinosaur, or suffin’,” Albie told
him, brimming over with pride at their discovery. “We found
it in the chalk beds at Runton.”
 “No,
it’s definitely not a dinosaur!” declared the Curator,
eventually looking up from his magnifying glass. “It appears
to be part of the backbone of a long-extinct sea creature called
a ‘Mosasaurus’
that lived in these parts about 65 million years ago.”
What
was the difference, thought Albie? Surely anything that
extinct just had to be a dinosaur!
“It
was a carnivorous aquatic lizard,” the Curator continued, “somewhat
resembling a flippered crocodile.”
This
impressed Albie greatly, at last he’d made that one important
find – with Roz’s help, of course!
“You
found it in the chalk beds, you say?” the Curator asked, to
which Albie nodded that they did.
The
Curator began to look rather puzzled. “How unusual,”
he declared, taking another look at the crumbling piece of bone.
“You see, it’s not fully fossilised, and it’s
quite rare to find something of this nature in the chalk!”
Picking
up the telephone on his desk, he summoned ‘a second opinion’
from the laboratory nearby. Eventually they were joined by a white-coated
Head of Palaeontology and his assistant, who began viewing Roz and
Albie’s important find very closely.
“A
most interesting discovery,” announced the man in the
white coat, “and you found it in the chalk you say?”
Albie
nodded his head in agreement. “Yes – at West Runton,”
he replied.
“Could
you and Roz take us back to the very spot where you found the bones?”
enquired the Curator, “as it’s most important to excavate
and preserve the rest of the skeleton!”
Albie
and Roz said they could of course, as they had memorized the location
exactly, and so a survey of the site was planned for a day when
the tide would be out.
A
couple of weeks later, towards the end of February, the Castle Museum
team – led by Roz and Albie – arrived at West Runton,
parking their cars on the cliff tops overlooking the beach.
It
was a glorious late winter’s day, with an insipid sun bathing
the cliff tops and beaches – and the tide was well out. But,
as Albie and Roz led the way onto the beach, no-one could ever have
predicted the action of the tides. For the sea had given back what
it had taken away in January and the Mosasaurus lay well and truly
buried once more, hidden somewhere under five or six feet of wet,
shifting sand – never to be seen again.
Despite
digging on the very spot, where Albie was certain the bones lay
hidden in the chalk, it was all to no avail and the disappointed
expedition was forced to return to Norwich, empty handed!
“Keep
looking, Albie,” said the Head of Palaeontology, consoling
the lad, “who knows, the Mosasaurus may turn up again
next February!”
But,
it never did, of course!
NEXT:
Find out what happens when Roz
comes to stay with Albie for a few days!
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as I would love to hear your comments –
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