Three Photos – Three Stories.
A small collection of images and their random associations. Generally martial in nature.
A bunch of swords.
The two swords in the photo and not really worthy enough to go into a museum, they are far too rag-tag and care-worn for that. They came into my hands back in the early 1980’s with no tale or provenance behind them, in fact they are a bit of a mystery.
The story goes thus:
When I was living in Leeds I had a tip off that there was an antique shop in Skipton that had a huge cache of antique Japanese weaponry (a couple of my training buddies had already been on a raiding party up there and snagged some of the better items). I was a student at the time and not exactly awash with ready cash; but nevertheless, a twenty-six-mile trip up to Skipton was necessary.
When I got there, the shop surprised me in that there seemed to be no other antiques other than a chaotic jumble of Japanese swords and spears, with the odd bits of armour and saddlery. Some of them were real oddities; my eyes fell upon a huge sword with a gigantic and unreasonably thick hilt; the shop owner said he believed that it had been made as a presentation to a champion sumo wrestler. To me it didn’t look usable; it was just a curiosity item.
I wondered how much the proprietor knew about what he’d got, he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information. He just sat in his chair and watched as I examined the various wares on show. I really don’t think he was any kind of expert, as I was to find out later.
Anyhow, I had two trips to the antique shop. On the first visit the long sword was bought, for a ridiculously cheap amount, and the second trip the short sword/dagger for even less. And then, when I went back, the shop disappeared, closed down, like it had never been there.
The long sword (katana) has no nicks in the blade but is so ‘used’ as to make me wonder if someone has been chopping wood with it? I did take it to an expert, off Museum Street near the British Museum. It was a case of, ‘bad news’ ‘good news’, ‘bad news’.
The bad news was that all the fittings (‘furniture’ he called them) were 19th century, ‘nice, but not valuable’. But the good news was that the blade was not 19th century, but 14th century… wow. But further bad news, it was so worn and knackered that its value was actually pretty low. Ah well.
I didn’t take the short sword/dagger because I had my doubts about it. It took me ages to remove the securing bamboo peg, and it was clear that it had not been taken apart in a very long time as I was met by a cascade of rust; but it was ‘signed’, or rather marked, by a series of characters that looked as if they had been cold-chiselled into it – undecipherable and still a mystery. But, it is a brutal piece of hardware; someone suggested it might have been made to pierce armour; a bit fanciful but maybe.
Uncle Jack’s gloves.
My dad’s youngest brother, Jack Shaw was without a doubt my favourite uncle. He had never had any kids of his own and was lavish with his attentions to myself and my twin brother, particularly on birthdays and Christmases. We might have been seven years old when he presented us with these wonderful kid-sized ‘pro’ boxing gloves; to which, as best as seven-year-olds can, we leathered the hell out of each other.
Jack was in engineering; heavy industry making steel supports and other hardware for the mines. He’d done his time in the military (REME), hence the photo. I am grateful to him for numerous things (besides the birthday and Christmas presents), but these include his practical toughness, evidenced by the way he dealt with the inevitable injuries he received at work, e.g. sliced guiders in his hands and wrist from collisions with sharp steel, flattened fingers and blackened nails and skin as tough as buffalo hide, but there was no swagger about him, just smiles and jokes. I guess he thought that an introduction to boxing was just what myself and my brother needed.
The only thing he seemed to get fired up about was politics – he was a union man, a shop-steward in the engineer and workers union and hence was pretty far to the left.
Years later, after he had died, I found myself as the only surviving union rep in a workplace where it was extremely hazardous to be a worker’s representative (all the others had been killed off, but I knew where the bodies were buried). Whenever I considered just packing it in, the ghost of my uncle Jack would appear on my shoulder and with a few sharp words, change my mind. Another thing I am grateful to him for.
Thank you, uncle Jack.
Rust.
What I have here looks like a hunk of corroded metal. Well, that was what I thought when I first came across it.
One Sunday afternoon while walking across common land next to the River Chelmer, I noticed a drainage ditch had been dug out from the riverbank. The cut had been machine-made and was a clean and smooth slice through the heavy clay soil.
What caught my attention was that the machine blade had skimmed over a piece of rusted metal about 11 inches long. Not being sure what it was, I released it from the earth’s grip and just slipped it in my pocket.
When I got home, I took the opportunity to examine its rust-encrusted surface more carefully. On pure impulse I took it to the Chelmsford Museum and they were sufficiently interested to pass it on to the British Museum who became quite excited about it.
According to the BM, what I had picked up was a Saxon spearhead from about the 9th century. It was considered rare because it came from the time when the Saxons were abandoning their pagan ways, pagan burials and grave goods etc. and were adopting Christian thinking; hence, very few pieces of weaponry as grave goods survived from that time.
Because it was found on common land, they allowed me to keep it. Now it sits on a shelf as the oldest piece of weaponry in my possession. About 1200 years old is not bad.
But, as with the swords, it will forever remain mute as to its origins, owner and usage. I do know that not half a mile from where it was found was a Saxon ‘princely burial’ from the 7th century, so clearly the Saxons have been inhabiting this part of East Anglia for a very long time.
Really, it shouldn’t have survived, but the archaeologists told me that because it was buried in clay, in deoxygenated soil, the effects of oxidisation and corrosion was limited.
How and why we collect ‘stuff’.
Objects, like photographs, have an iconic status to us, but we have to endow them with some kind of value. We exercise our imagination and try and connect them to a known or unknown past. It’s a very human thing; the same as we bestow status on objects and turn them into talisman, touchstones, or icons; my father’s watch; uncle’s penknife, worth very little to other people but to me priceless.
I reckon we are hardwired to do it.
Has anyone apart from me noticed how we subconsciously create shrines in our own homes?
I remember as a kid observing that the elderly relatives used the mantlepiece to collect objects, or photographs in small frames, and for them, all of this was clustered around the hearth, the fireplace; it’s all so damned primitive if you think about it; the Saxons would have appreciated it, huddled around a central fire in their roundhouses.
It always seemed weird to me that over time, with the decline of the open fire how the next focussed shrine became the television (Neil Gaiman’s American Gods celebrated in the new centuries). More small photos, trinkets from foreign holidays cluttered on the top and, dare I say it, revered.
It’s an odd mixture of sentimentality and nostalgia and it’s been around for a very long time. I suspect that it will never really leave us and may in fact be the source of a future rebellion against the digitisation of everything we hold dear – at least I hope so.
I may add more collections of objects at a later date.
Coming up on Budojourneyman - on the 19th June, another foray into the technical development of Wado karate, some revealing anecdotes. These longer articles are only available in full for the paid subscribers. For a tiny monthly fee get an addition two (longer more in-depth) articles a month AND access to all the previous longer pieces.