Be curious!

I always say the only thing you need to do to be a beachcomber is to be curious. This is not something I need to say to children - if they find something they won’t let it go until it’s been identified for them. I’ve found beachcombing adults tend to be more cavalier - “oh, I thought it was nothing so I dropped it”. But I feel if it caught your eye and you picked it up, it’s something, even if you don’t know what that something is.

I was looking through my ceramic bottle stoppers (top of picture) to find the most complete one for a photograph. My memory pinged with something I’d recently seen online so I pulled out all the similar, but much smaller, ceramic bits I’d collected - from Seaham beach in north east England. I’ve always thought the pieces in the middle of the picture were worn down bottle stoppers but had never been entirely sure so kept them. And there were other pieces (bottom) that I knew were something but had no clue what.

What I had seen online on social media beachcombing posts was a handful of “kiln stilts”. Kiln stilts are used to raise ceramics off the firing kiln shelf to help protect the glaze. My memory had pinged because the possibly worn bottle stoppers and unknown items in my collection are kiln stilts.

I love this. I’ve had kiln stilts in my collection all along and didn’t know it. I KNEW they were something!