Beginner's Guide to Metal Detecting - UK

I was born in 1962 at Welwyn Garden City. My family then moved to the small village of Weston, also in Hertfordshire. It was here that my passion for history, wildlife and the collecting of all things interesting started. From a young age collecting was my pastime, and items such as pottery fragments from the local Roman villa, fossils, and other curiosities all found their way into my museum . At the tender age of six I found a mammoth tooth lying in the recently excavated soil from some road works, to add to my ever-growing collection. While attending St George s School in Harpenden in the mid-1970s I heard for the first time of a gadget called a metal detector. Despite being intrigued by these devices it was not until the late 1980s that I would actually be able to purchase such a machine. I found that other people in and around Stevenage where I now live shared my passion for metal detecting. Therefore a natural progression was to get together and form a group. This achieved, we call ourselves The Pastfinders . To say that I am interested in metal detecting is definitely an understatement: for me it s a passion. It seems that I am always researching for Roman villas or to find the spot where a Second World War aeroplane crashed. Metal detecting has enriched my life more than any other of my past hobbies.