MEET THE AUTHOR

Rag and Bone by LISA WOOLLETT explores the history of our rubbish, recycling, mudlarking, beachcombing and her tree

How did you get the inspiration for the book? My previous books were about beachcombing. I’d always known that I had dustmen and scavengers in one particular branch of the family, so I was originally contacted by the publisher about it and came up with the idea of following that branch. The family didn’t know where they came from beyond my great grandfather, so I hoped for some connection with the River Thames. Fortunately my Tolladay line lived in Water Street right beside the river. Nobody in the family had any idea that this was the case, so I was really pleased with that. Finding that branch, and also because I’d grown up on the Estuary, it seemed a natural course to take from Central London out to the Estuary and then Cornwall, where I live today.

What was your favourite ‘find’?

I was most excited when I found the bone finds, partly because I found the same things in plastic in Cornwall. I took all of my finds from London to the science liaison officer at the Museum of London, so he could identify them. One of the things he said was that bone was the plastic of its age. I’m finding bone buttons and then

I’m finding similar designs in Cornwall – but everything here is plastic. I liked that in the Thames the bone comes out almost exactly as it came in – the preservation of the finds is amazing, because there’s no oxygen in the mud. In contrast, what I find here is obviously quite wave-worn and broken down.

We think of waste and the environment as modern concerns, but your book shows that they’ve always been with us. Do you think we can learn from our ancestors about how to deal with the environmental crisis?

I was amazed to discover during my research the salvage that they did in Victorian times. I was quite astonished at how little waste they were producing overall, because everything was being reused, and how different that is from today. That was a real wake-up call. There were a lot of things where it made me very, very aware of my own life – for example, every bit of plastic I might be touching that day, all those many conveniences. I didn’t do history when I was younger, so it was all quite new and quite exciting, both researching the family and researching the times that they lived in.