Amber

January 2020

Granny's Earrings

Now, as the storms of winter are in the process of lashing at our east coast, is a very good time to hunt for Amber on the foreshore. Mark you, it's not easy to find!

For those of you familiar with Amber jewellery, it would be a mistake to look for gleaming gems amongst the pebbles, as before processing, the raw material can resemble a piece of battered bone, or a dull and unremarkable stone. Most finds in the UK are small but in 2013, a lady beachcomber who knew what amber in the raw looked like, picked up a 700g piece near to Cromer pier that is probably the largest ever found along our coast.

It is possible to find other semi-precious gemstones such as agate, carnelian and serpentine if you look hard enough too, but amber is not a stone at all. It is in fact the fossilised resin of long-dead and buried pine trees from sunken Baltic forests that now lie deep beneath the North Sea. These trees stood around 50 million years ago and when they fell became layered over with silt and afterwards subjected to immense pressure. The woody parts long ago vanished but the gooey resin survived and within it, many insects, flies and even small lizards were trapped. These tiny creatures are often revealed in the final polished products and can throw light on the inhabitants of our earth around the time of the dinosaurs.

Crude jewellery was originally made of irregular pieces strung together then beads were polished and graduated while others were mounted in silver or gold for added enhancement and sophistication.

Amber beads. Image credit: Evelyn Simak

There are over 250 shades of Amber ranging from palest cream and lemon through gold to dark brown and in some regions of the world ruby-red, blue and black. Those items with an insect trapped within often command a higher price for novelty value and interest. In Russia, Amber is mined from a layer of 'blue soil' and large pieces command the same prices as gold, but that is a different matter from the relatively small pieces found along our coast, and is a subject to which I will return in another article.

For centuries Amber has been used for healing since it contains Succinic acid that occurs naturally in plants and animals, (the Romans called Amber sūcinum).

The chemical known as 'Spirit of Amber' was extracted by pulverising and distilling, and was primarily used for rheumatic aches and pains. Worn against against the body Amber warms, and it is believed by many that the acid can be absorbed through the skin for pain relief for a variety of ailments from teething to arthritis.

On another level, Amber is supposed to absorb negative energy, helping to alleviate stress, clear depression and stimulate the intellect. It supposedly encourages decision-making, and spontaneity, promotes self-confidence, creative self-expression and with it wisdom, balance and patience.

Wow! Really? Best I dig out my Amber earrings bought long ago in Southwold and wear them on a more regular basis. Might help stimulate my ageing brain-cells eh...?

—Granny Bonnet

Scallop, Fish and Chips

This week Hubby and I have been cat-sitting for friends outside Bury St. Edmund while they tend to affairs abroad and so, we too have been enjoying a change of surroundings. It's

always lovely to stay in a beautiful place and Suffolk's rolling acres of farmland and forests gave us different vistas as we drove one day through to the coast.

Aldburgh is a pretty fishing town whose cottages and shops today are painted in charming pastels of every hue, their small gardens bedecked with pots of flowers where once nets, lobster pots and the other detritus of fishing livelihoods might have been stored. Like every other attractive coastal town, its houses have been gentrified, (no real complaints about that) but it nevertheless had a feel, at this late end of the tourist season, that it had been semi-abandoned by second-home owners domiciled elsewhere for the coming winter.

We naturally had a delicious fish and chip lunch before crunching along the shelved, shingle beach to view Maggie Hambling's sculpture that sits above the high-tide line. It caused controversy when erected in 2003 as many people thought the beach should be left unadorned and wild, it's very bleakness the beauty and attraction. I have some sympathy with that point of view, noting as I walked towards the sculpture that parts of the high beach-line had their own natural adornments of sea grass and plants growing in abandon out of reach of the waves.

At about 12' high, the sculpture imposes itself on the vast open space with its metallic shells cleverly counter-balanced so as to be able to withstand winds of up to 100 mph. Rustily weathering or scoured and gleaming, it truly is a point of interest set against the bleak horizon and I liked it.

The Scallop is a tribute to the composer Benjamin Britten who lived in the town for thirty years. Cut into the outer rim and illuminated naturally by the sky beyond is a line from his opera Peter Grimes, 'I hear those whose voices that will not be drowned,' the interpretation of which I suppose will be different for each viewer and particularly poignant for those who have suffered loss to the ocean.

So, in reflective mood we headed back past the boats hauled high up onto the beach in front of their little black huts-cum-shops selling fresh or smoked fish, and made our way back inland to take charge once again of two geriatric old ginger gentlemen and their much more boisterous younger tortoiseshell sisters, none of whom sadly likes fish...

There are other attractions on the beach...

https://www.visit-aldeburgh.co.uk/