When a mudlarking find emerges from the Thames mud, more often than not a forgotten story emerges with it. In my experience, researching the story is often as intriguing as finding the artefact in the first place.  This mini codd bottle embossed with G. P. WEAVER - PLUMSTEAD was no exception. It took me somewhere I certainly never imagined visiting (and that is into a kind stranger's small back garden in Plumstead! Let me explain).

Let's start with G. P Weaver - who was born in 1838. He was a licensed victualler, a mineral water manufacturer and hotel/pub magnate.  Here in 1871 he is registered as being a bar/hotel keeper - and was married with three children.

But that wasn't all. George Pike Weaver had his finger in lots of pies!  In 1890 he bought some land in Plumstead and with the help of lots of men and horses and carts, he built a large football stadium.  An important football stadium.  It was the Invicta stadium - Arsenal football club's first real stadium (see it marked in green below). George Weaver, the landlord, charged Arsenal 200 GBP per year for Invicta when they moved there from Manor Ground in 1890.  

When Arsenal moved into Invicta stadium they were not yet a professional team -but not too long after they moved there - in about 1891, they became professional.  It wasn't long after this that landlord George Weaver put the rent up significantly. Arsenal at that time couldn't afford it. Not only that but George also tried to take the club over. By the end of 1893, Arsenal moved back to Manor Ground in Woolwich.   George was left with an empty stadium which he managed to rent out for a year, but finally the stadium was demolished. George died in 1896 at the age of 53 before housing was built on the land in 1897.  I learned all this information from the excellent website and blog www.arsenalhistory.com and what I also learned from them is that there still remains a few of the original concrete terracings from the Invicta Stadium in Plumstead where it once stood.  So, I set off with George's codd bottle and my son Angelo as camera man to try to locate these concrete terracings from over 130 years ago!    

Fortune was with us when we arrived at the area in Plumstead where Invicta once stood. After peeking over a few garden fences I had a hunch that we may have found what we were looking for. A family happened to be arriving back home to one of the houses I thought might harbour some of this Arsenal history, but they were non plussed when I asked them about it - and politely said that they didn't know what I was talking about. BUT, the second person I asked, a gentleman by the name of Dinesh, who was very fortunately for us standing in front of his house enjoying the sunshine - said that yes indeed there were some original concrete terracings in his garden and would we like to see them. A huge thank you to Dinesh for opening his door like a portal to the past and and for allowing us to film in his garden and imagine ourselves watching an Arsenal game back in 1890! 

It is very special to find an object with a name on it such as this one. George Pike Weaver is long gone and long forgotten.  But this codd bottle which has laid beneath the mud for over a century now shines a light on his story and that of the Arsenal football club  (to whom  the Invicta Stadium is nothing more than a faded memory of the past). Quite possibly many Arsenal players now know nothing about it at all although it is mentioned in the official Arsenal website. 
Yes, it was exciting to take George Weaver back to the what remains of the Invicta stadium. These little journeys through time are what keeps me going back to the Thames foreshore.

Thank you to my son Angelo (actually a Charlton fan) for coming along with me and filming me in Dinesh's garden! Massive Thanks to Dinesh and family.  And a huge thank you to the following sites and resources (Thank you Arsenal for the photos I have used. I wanted and tried to get your permission and held the line on the phone for almost 45 minutes but then was cut off !):-
www.thearsenalhistory.com
www.arsenal.com
​wikipedia history of Arsenal
blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk

One of the beautiful things about mudlarking is that you never know where a find will take you. I’ve experienced the thrill of holding a small muddy object in my hand which then goes on to bring to life historical events in the greatest of detail.  Many artefacts left out by the Thames at low tide have been an incentive for me to learn miscellaneous information I would never otherwise have known about or even thought about.

​In May 2022 I visited New York and had the pleasure of going mudlarking at Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn. I found something there on the shoreline that transported me back to my 11 year old self in the 80s, to a time when I was particularly anxious (to the point of not being able to sleep), about the possibility of a nuclear war. I remember one night very clearly  going into my Dad’s bedroom in the middle of the night and waking him up, begging him to reassure me that there would not be a nuclear war.  It was hardly surprising really. It was the time of the British Government’s public information campaign “Protect and Survive”, designed to advise the public on how to protect themselves against a nuclear attack.  Although I don’t remember actually seeing the leaflet or the broadcasts mentioning it – I absorbed the collective anxiety around me like a sponge.

​Eventually over time, thankfully, the nuclear fear subsided and new anxieties came to replace that one. I ALWAYS choose good ones that end in certain death.  Before setting off on a much awaited canoeing trip in the exquisitely beautiful Algonquin Park in Canada almost 20 years ago, I unfortunately honed in on a small paragraph on a park notice which said “very rarely, black bears stalk humans”  (or something very similar to that!).  The paragraph seared into my mind (everything apart from the "very rarely" bit), and with a can of bear spray at the ready clipped to my belt I hardly slept for 4 nights. As I lay on my unzipped sleeping bag I ran through my methods of escape for when the time came.  It's not that easy either when you're dealing with bears, who can pretty much do everything you can except better and faster. Sharper teeth too.  Needless to say I now know that I would have been extremely lucky to even catch a glimpse of a bear,  but I was exhausted by the end of the trip.  You miss so much of the beauty of what is going on around you when consumed with anxiety.

​ I was excited about my mudlarking trip to Dead Horse Bay, having heard so much about it. When I first saw the small rectangular piece of metal with a name and address stamped into it, lying on the muddy surface of the beach, I thought (and hoped) that it was a military ID tag. Merrill Kazanjian,  the New York detectorist and mudlark that I was with said that he didn’t think it was, and that it was more likely to be a civilian tag. It was a couple of days later when I found out exactly what it was.  My fried Alex, a New York mudlark and history hunter, explained that it would have been issued to an American child in the 1950s so that they could be identified if they were injured or if they perished in the event of a nuclear attack.

I was intrigued and somewhat horrified to hear this.  I know that if I had been issued with an ID tag along with the Protect and Survive leaflet back in the 80s,  my anxiety would have soared to a whole new level.  Holding the tag in my hand I am happy to say that it did not take me back in time to experience the dread I felt back then, but it did make me wonder how it made those American children feel.  Alex sent me a piece from the extremely informative "The Forgotten History Blog" about the issuing of the ID tags to children in the USA in the 1950s. 

​Having learned about why this ID tag that I found was issued, all that remained was to see if we could trace the child who once wore it.  As we can see, the child was one Robert Luchan, born in 1943 and whose father was called Charles. With these details, and with Robert's address,  Alex set about doing some research. He discovered that sadly Robert Luchun passed away in 2006. It wasn’t long though before he provided me with all the details I needed to make contact with the Robert's family. 

When I contacted Pam, Robert’s daughter, I wasn’t at all sure if she would see my message, let alone answer it.  I suppose it must be a little strange, receiving a message from someone in another country, claiming to have found a metal ID tag with your father’s name on it, on a beach in Brooklyn, over 70 years after he wore it - miles from where you now live.  
 
But to my delight, Pam answered me. She was somewhat amazed and puzzled as to how I found it but she was also delighted to hear the news.  As it happens, she was due to see her Mum, Robert’s wife, that very evening for her own son’s graduation and she couldn’t wait to tell her about the find. "He died 16 years ago but we talk about him daily" she said. "It will make my Mom very happy!”.

Bob's wife kindly sent me photographs of Bob as a child – probably at around about the same age as he would have been when he was wearing his ID tag.  She also attended the same school as Bob, St Savior's Brooklyn and was 2 years behind him. She too remembers being issued with a metal ID tag. ​

Mudlarking finds like this are my favourite by far.  A find in the mud connects people, evokes memories and brings people to life as their story is told and shared with others.  Pam went on to explain that her father went on to become a US coastguard and was a career officer who went all over the world working to clean up oil spills in the water, (such as Valdez in Alaska and spills in Saudi Arabia during desert Storm). It was wonderful to be able to bring Bob Luchan into the limelight and find out about the valuable work he went on to do.  Im now very happy to be able to return his ID tag Bob's family. 
 
It’s quite timely that this New York mudlarking find surfaced from the mud at a time when talk of nuclear weapons and nuclear threats have once again bubbled up to the surface. It's made me realise with some relief that I've made great progress in no longer becoming anxious over things that I really have no control over!  I have mudlarking in part to thank for that. 

Thank you to the Luchun family for allowing me to share Bob’s story. Thanks to Alex for enlightening me on the story of the tags and for the research. Thank you to Merrill Kazanjian of Metal Detecting NYC  for taking me to DHB. And thank you to the author of the Forgotten History Blog.

You can watch my YouTube video here in which I find Robert Luchun's ID tag and many other treasures:-

I wanted to post a little thank you message to everyone who has supported me on kofi.  Here it is in the link above.