Dectectorists

One of the TV programmes that was streamed on BBC during lockdown was Dectectorists. A gentle comedy about the lives of two men whose hobby is metal detecting. It’s very low key, subtle stuff. Not laugh out loud, in your face type of funny, but understated and beautifully observed. It’s about looking for gold, and finding it in unexpected places. I watched all three series over the course of a couple of weeks. I loved it. The theme tune haunts me still.

And now a lovely book has been published - Landscapes of Detectorists. This is a real academic book, but it’s very readable. It contains four short geographical interpretations of the programme, with additional essays by the writer/lead actor, and the producer. It’s a genuinely informative book and exactly the kind of non- fiction writing that I like. (I might have more to say on that in a future post.)

Apart from making me want to rush off and buy a metal detector and get out there, both the book and the series have made me look at my own landscape in a different way. The idea, in one of the essays about the land being a palimpsest is just so wonderful. I know it’s an obvious one, but we don’t always notice what’s on our own doorstep. I live in this amazing ancient landscape - the layers of story written by the successive generations of people that have lived here for at least 5,000 years is there to be seen - if I take the time to look for it.