22 Illustration by David Jien
Letter of Recommendation
I was a magpie as a child; I am a mag-
pie now. My interest is piqued by shiny
objects: In my pockets are brass buttons,
pressed coins, old brooches. I am fasci-
nated by the things people hold onto,
the stuff that rattles talismanic in their
bedside tables. A coin, or battered key,
a ring from the fi ve-and-dime — ancient
codes to crack when someone dies, if
no one’s kept their history. I hold dear a
pin bearing Patti Smith, and a little jade
elephant that lives in the pocket of my
handbag. I have a mourning ring that my
grandmother left me, of jet and pearl, but
whom it mourns I do not know.
And because I love small, ancient
things and painting a narrative onto
them, I recently found myself crouched
beside the River Thames, searching
through the mud, a tiny speck beneath
a great gray blanket of British sky. I did
this last as a child, by Battersea Bridge,
and have thought about it ever since, not
knowing that what I did then had a name:
mudlarking. In Industrial-Age London,
mudlarking was an unseemly occupation,Mudlarking
By Sophie Dahl
the province of urchins and rudderless
women, who picked the carcass of the
Thames foreshore for coal, rope, nails
and bones to sell for a few pennies. It
was a dangerous, pungent way to make
a pittance, and I wonder what my Vic-
torian sisters would think of grubbing
around in the mud for the sheer joy of
it. Today’s mudlarkers are for the most
part history geeks, folks who embrace the
solitude wrought by spending a few hours
searching through antiquated, domestic
minutiae in the rain.4.5.20Finding what’s
constant in human
history by sifting
through the muck.