My Beach Combing Origins

To be honest, it was inevitable. I spent a lot of my childhood living on the Thames Estuary, that bit where river meets sea, where it's not really one or the other, and it feels more like marshland in places than anything like the romantic picturesque images of the sea. But I LOVED that about it.

The thing about the Thames, is it connects London to the sea, and traditionally the best way to get rid of something that was broken, a plate, a mug, an old doll was just to chuck it in the river. So all of that detritus, or at least the stuff that doesn't get stuck in the riverbanks as treasure for the Mudlarkers, gets washed down to the Estuary.

So seaglass, pottery, bits and pieces, old toys, spoons, unusual materials were very common on the beaches where I spent my time. I didn't start collecting it in any earnest though, until much later. In between University Terms I lived at home with my parents, (this was back when we lived in Essex and the magical beach of Fife which so many of my online community are familiar with was unknown to us). My mum and I would walk our dog, Chester, a goofy delightful Staffordshire Bull Terrier, along the beaches in the area.

It was here that I started collecting it. Any glint or shine or unusual shape, in my pocket it would go. I found it quite meditative and a good way of decompressing from whatever stressors that were bothering me that year. Over time I amassed quite the collection, to the point where I started making jewellery out of it, and coined the name "Emily Dubious" for my online shop. I attended some local craft fairs and did quite well out of it. But the siren call of higher education would always summon me back.

After I finished my Masters, I ended up back at my parents, living by the Thames. Fuelled with the frustration and uncertainty that comes after spending five years on higher education qualifications that are increasingly undervalued by employers, I took to the meditative beach combing walks with extra fervour. On top of this, my dear momma had started her Art Degree, and had settled on a project that would involve large quantities of broken bits of ceramic.

She ended up making several pots from the various fragments I had collected. They were lit up from the inside, and displayed in a room playing music that had been made by slowing down footage of smashing ceramic vases. The end result was very cool, and was one of many art projects my now professional artist mother embarked on.

Fast forward several years. Mum and Dad move to Scotland. The beach by their house is an amazing place to beach comb and it is a regular pass time when I visit. Then, 2020 rolls around, I join Tiktok as a coping method for the isolation, I start garnering followers based off of my Wreck This Journal series, and (after getting stuck in Scotland for six weeks due to lockdown timing) I start making the beach combing videos that made me half a million followers.

That's pretty much it! In terms of events anyway. I'll write a post some day about WHY I feel such a pull towards seaglass and towards the discarded, broken, ephemera of the world. But not today.