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Tuesday, 5 May 2020

Night Cats

I am going through the infra-red camera to post a hedgehog update video, which will take a while, but here for now are some stills of cat visitors caught in the night.

I would have loved one of these cameras when I was ten. I could have fixed it to a lamp post or telegraph pole to check up on Geoffrey Bullard. Even better, a drone. I used to dream of having a remote-controlled model aeroplane with a camera so I could make sure he wasn’t hanging around looking for bullying opportunities before I went out.

Anyway, back to the cats. Who, after all, does not delight in pictures of cats (apart from Geoffrey Bullard)?

Phoebe is not actually a visitor because she lives here and does not go out at night. Little Black Kitty lives in the house at the back where she climbs up and sits on the upstairs window sill looking superior. Long Legs lives next-door-but-one. We have never seen any of the others in daytime and have no idea where they live. I do like Stripey Cat. He is wonderful and will have a major role in the hedgehog update video. As will Long Legs.

Phoebe and Stripey Cat
Phoebe
Stripey Cat

Blacky Whitepaws and Black Kitty
Black Kitty

Stripey Whitepaws and Long Legs
Long Legs

Patchy Face

Patchy Face
George (left) and Phoebe a few years ago

Ginger George and Phoebe

One other regular visitor, Ginger George, has not apparently been in the night recently. He is easily mistaken for Phoebe, even by us sometimes, but bigger. He’s the sort that sneaks into other cats’ houses to steal their food. He once squeezed in through our kitchen window. Completely fearless. The neighbours come round here to complain and blame Phoebe. 

You have no idea how much I had to struggle with the html to set this out like this.

Friday, 1 May 2020

Carolus II Dei Gratia Mag Br Fra et Hib Rex

(first posted 5th May, 2015)

Charles II shilling 1668

It is by a long chalk the oldest thing I own apart from the worse-than-senseless blocks and stones in the garden - a 1668 Charles II silver shilling. It is quite worn and the King’s face is damaged but the images are clear. A cautious numismatist would probably describe it as being in F or ‘Fine’ condition, just short of VF or ‘Very Fine’.

The ‘head’ side or obverse is inscribed “CAROLUS II DEI GRATIA” – Charles II by the grace of God – which continues on the ‘tail’ side or reverse, “MAG BR FRA ET HIB REX” – King of Great Britain, France and Ireland. The claim to France was historical but one of the shields on the reverse still displays the fleur de lys, the emblem of the King of France. The other shields portray the three English lions passant (i.e. walking, some heraldrists hold them to be leopards), the Scottish lion rampant (i.e. standing) and the Hibernian (Irish) harp. I think the shilling is the variation known as ‘second bust’ but I have insufficient experience to be sure.

The coin was struck – literally because it is a hammered coin – almost three hundred and fifty years ago, which is so long ago it is hard to imagine. It is dated ten years after the death of Oliver Cromwell and a couple of years after the Great Fire of London. Pepys was writing his diary, John Dryden was Poet Laureate, and Isaac Newton was discovering the calculus or ‘fluxions’ and about to be appointed a Cambridge professor of mathematics. England would soon be at war with the Dutch.

I can tell you how I came by it. My dad swapped it for a pair of boots with a farming acquaintance who found it by chance at the side of a newly ploughed field, the exact location now unknown. It was rare chance because this was well before the days of metal detecting. By now the boots will have dulled and decayed, but the shilling still shines.

A collector wanting a similar example for his or her collection today would have to pay around a hundred and fifty pounds – it could be two or three times that without the damage to the face. I don’t really care. Why sell it?

But what was it worth in the seventeenth century? It depends how you estimate it. In terms of purchasing power it would be the equivalent of around just seven pounds fifty today, but in terms of what someone might earn it would be worth between one and two hundred pounds. It depends whether you use retail price inflation or earnings inflation.

I turn it in my fingers and wonder what other hands held it, and how many. Placing it in history is easy but we can never know who owned it, who it was passed on to, what it bought, who lost it, what its loss meant, how it was lost or for how long it lay in the Howdenshire field where it was re-discovered.

Could it have been lost in drunken reverie? Perhaps it was some unfortunate farm labourer’s wage for the day, or a ‘King’s shilling’ taken by someone newly enlisted in the army or navy. Or did it belong to someone for whom the loss might have been a little more bearable, accidently dropped perhaps by a rich landowner and his farm foreman while paying a group of workers?

Some things we can never know but one day there may be an answer my final question, “Where will it be in another three hundred and fifty years, in 2370?” That is a date that seems like science fiction.