Jenny Lemm (07 May 2018)

My earliest memory is from 1911, in a place I was later told was called London.  Being so young and naive I found my surroundings quite terrifying as I emerged from the stamp and was scooped without the least care or tenderness into a large bag made of course cloth, where I jostled for space with many others exactly like me.  It was dark in the sack, but in the brief interval of illumination between stamp and bag I had observed myself and my fellows and realised that we were beautiful!

Bright, shiny and elegant, I felt privileged to be one of such a a handsome and illustrious family.

It took me many years to recognise the world which I had come to inhabit, for my surroundings were constantly changing.  My contemporaries were much more varied than the inhabitants of that first moneybag and I came to realise, to my dismay, that I and my fellow pennies were considered to be inferior and of quite a lower class than other coins we came into contact with.

From the mint, we were delivered to the bank and thence to the factory, to be paid at last into the eager hands of the humble labourers.  I found myself sharing space in the much darned and dirty pocket of a rascally fellow, who immediately traded me for a tankard of ale.

A whirlwind of activity followed, as I was passed from hand to hand, pocket to purse and from shop, to market stall to barrow boy.  During my very first day of circulation I had purchased not only a tankard of ale, but several loaves of bread, a length of satin ribbon, a neck of mutton, a large sack of potatoes (with a cabbage thrown in for good measure) and a small jar of goose fat.

I would have continued my hectic travels, but for the evening drawing in and the shop-keepers closing their doors for the night.  From the noise in the street, I could hear that the ale-houses were still open and I pitied my poor contemporaries who were still engaged upon their dizzying journeys.

I, myself, had been tossed into a wooden drawer with a great variety of other coins, where I was cruelly bullied all night by a very pompous sixpence.  Though considerably smaller in size than I, he was made of silver and worth a great deal more, so I was too cowardly and intimidated to stand up for myself.

Eventually, a groat spoke up in my defense and, though he was worth considerably less than the sixpence, he was far older, stamped 1836, with the head of a much earlier King adorning his side.  There ensued a heated debate between these two silver fellows, with the groat having the final word, which was only fitting for a venerable coin of 75  years.  The sixpence muttered that the groat was no longer even legal currency and should be melted down to make a couple of sixpences, but by now all the inhabitants of the drawer were thoroughly roused, and he made certain that only I could hear his remark.

I was very grateful to the groat and was delighted to find myself given as change alongside him the next morning.  We found ourselves in a capacious leather purse suspended from a chain around the middle of a corpulent lady.  Alongside our purse, a number of interesting articles dangled; a pair of scissors, a thimble, a lorgnette, a tiny silver pencil and, most intriguing, a fat bunch of keys which jangled musically, about whom we spent many fascinating hours guessing the nature of the various locks they opened, and envisioning their bold and daring adventures, until I almost wished I had been made into a key, rather than a penny.

As the years passed I drifted from shop to trader, to factory, and from rich, well appointed pockets, to the bowls of beggars, from church collection plates to the coffers of misers, and as I drifted from one master to another, I found myself moving away from the bustle of the city and out into the countryside, where the hands that clutched me and the pockets that housed me, were much dirtier, yet somehow smelled sweeter and I learned to recognise the fragrant aromas of moss, peat, loam, and all manner of wholesome, earthy things.

Life in this rural setting was much less hectic than my early days in the city and I sometimes found myself ensconced snugly in the same pocket or purse for several days at a time before being passed on.

I have had more masters than I can count, and I am good at counting as there are two hundred and forty pennies in a pound, so I learned my numbers very early in life.  I have never actually seen a pound, for paper money never seemed to find a place in the same pocket as we humble coins and I suspect a good many of my masters had never owned one. And I have seen many masters with vastly differing wealth, from blacksmiths, cobblers, cowherds and clergymen, to tinkers, peddlers, pick-pockets and cut-purses and, very occasionally, the well appointed pockets of dandies and gentlemen of leisure.

I seldom stayed for long in the possession of the gentry, who preferred coins of higher value, looking upon me with disdain, if not with distaste, for it was beneath their dignity to mingle humble coppers with their gold and silver.  But I have shared pockets and purses with many illustrious fellows such as shillings, florins and half-crowns, in whose presence I felt quite humble.

One braggardly threepenny-bit claimed intimate acquaintance with several sovereigns, and even a guinea!  None of us believed him, but we allowed him his small illusion of grandeur before he was gambled away on the roll of a pair of dice and disappeared into the capacious and clinking pocket of a wandering card sharp.

I must have been about three years old when I found myself in the crisply starched pocket of a young man who I later found out was called a soldier.  There were eight of us in his pocket, though I was the only penny, the others being sixpences and shillings.  They were all considerably older than I and much more valuable, but they were friendly enough and didn’t treat me with the contempt or indifference to which I had become accustomed, from both coins and masters alike.

They spoke animatedly of their travels and adventures and the strange things they had seen, and I was fascinated by their stories, none of which I could in any way equal, so I remained quiet and resisted the temptation to recount my own humble experiences.

I had traveled on horseback many times, and in carts, coaches and wagons, but I was astonished to find myself in an outlandish conveyance which a sixpence informed me was a train.  I thought this extraordinary transport would be the culmination of my traveling experience, until I found myself on board a very strange a frightening thing called a ship. A most incredible and disconcerting experience!

There were a great many other soldiers on board, all dressed in identical dull clothing so that is was impossible to distinguish one master from another.  They played cards and dice to while away the monotonous hours of travel, and as the stakes were a penny I was in constant use, passing rapidly
from hand to hand, rarely seeing the inside of a pocket.

Instead I could view my surroundings from the vantage point of the open deck and found, to my horror, that there was not a spadeful of earth in sight, just an unending vista of turbulent water whichever way I looked.

I had seen water many times, having been often dropped into puddles, or occasionally pounded in a dolly-tub if a master forgot to empty his pockets before his britches were washed.  Once I had been tossed into a fountain by a charming and aristocratic maiden lady  who made a wish, but was retrieved by a grubby young rascal as soon as her back was turned, so her covert wish for a handsome beau was superseded by his own, more realistic wish for a bottle of Codswallop, which came true.  But the water surrounding the ship, which I was reliably informed was called the sea, was more than I could endure and I longed for the sight of land, which a kindly shilling had assured me was our destination.

Had I but known what horrors that land would bring, I would have happily sailed the seas forever, or rolled overboard, to sink into the depths and remain peacefully among whatever coins and masters dwelt beneath the water.

I cannot now recall how long I was in that strange land, for I do not care to dwell on it, but the experience was the most dreadful any coin could endure.  I was told that we were in a place called France, and that my own home was called England, but they looked very much the same to me and I enjoyed being back on verdant land with all its familiar sights, sounds and smells.

But my happiness was short lived, for very soon the air was rent with the most dreadful cacophony of booms, bangs, crashes and rumbles, more dreadful than any thunderstorm I had ever experienced, and the hideous sound of masters screaming as the earth trembled and vibrated filled me with horror.

I only saw the light of day twice during all this time when I was briefly passed from one master to another, but the sight was the most harrowing I have ever witnessed, for there was nothing green left at all, just endless grey-brown mud, and dead tree stumps, with masters lying broken everywhere, so that I was glad to be dropped back into a pocket.

Eventually I felt myself catapulted through the air, still in my pocket, with the distressing sound of my master screaming.  When he wasn’t screaming he was praying.  I knew what praying was, for I had been many times inside churches, often finding myself in a collection plate.  But I never understood what praying was actually for,.  I still don’t.

I and my fellows were taken from our pocket and given to our master, who was now clothed in white cloth.  I had lost my beautiful bright shine many years before, and though I was not worn or chipped, I had become a dull and uniform brown.  Now i was sticky and stained with something that smelled vaguely of metal, but unlike any metal I had known before, or ever wished to again.

Eventually we found ourselves once more aboard ship and our master washed us in a cup of water from the sea.  I was fascinated to see that the water turn red, and a very old and experienced farthing, black, and worn with age,, told me it was blood from our master.  I did not understand him, but was too embarrassed to confess my ignorance and so I still have no clear idea of what it was, only that it was most unpleasant.

When we finally arrived back in England, which for some strange reason my master and his fellows now called Blighty, our happy, bustling, hectic lives began again, when our master traded us for pipe tobacco and barley sugar, and we coins bade each goodbye and went our separate ways.  But not before our master received three most handsome coins, adorned with ribbons, which I learned later were called medals.

I quite envied these stylish fellows and would have struck up a friendship during our time together, but they were haughty and arrogant, and scorned the friendly approaches of we lowly coins of currency.

My life assumed its bustling and hectic pace as I was passed from master to master, sometimes traded, sometimes swapped, often gambled and occasionally stolen, and I thoroughly enjoyed my adventures until one dreadful night when I was in my thirty second year.

I had been in a town beside the sea, with a great many ships coming and going, which I found remarkably picturesque and interesting considering the dread I felt at the prospect of finding myself once more traveling to that odious place called France.

I had been passed from pocket to tavern, then back to pocket and again to tavern until I became so accustomed to my surroundings that I felt quite at home in whichever hostelry I found myself.  I had just been given to a dapper young man who dropped me into his empty pocket and swaggered out into the night, when there was a tremendous whump, followed by deafening bangs, booms and rumbles coming from every direction, horribly reminiscent of that terrible place called France.

I could both hear and feel the rumbling and crashing all around me, but it became fainter as I felt myself being pressed down deeper, and still deeper.  I don’t know where I was, but it was colder and darker than any pocket, purse or moneybox I had ever been in.  Faint sounds still reached me, some the frightening sounds of France, but these were eventually replaced by other; the lazy rumbling of a cart or carriage, and occasionally the unmistakable thudding of galloping hooves.

Thinking back, I cannot now recall whether I actually heard them, felt them, or just imagined them.   I remained where I lay, quite alone for a very long time, longer than I can calculate.  I was neither happy, nor unhappy, I merely existed and my time was spent in memories, nostalgia and daydreams.

I was jolted from my reverie quite rudely by a sound like an angry insect, which buzzed ever louder as the earth around me trembled and shifted alarmingly.  Suddenly I found myself scooped up on a spadeful of earth and grasped eagerly by the chubby hand of a small boy.

“Look Grandad! Is it treasure?”  I heard him exclaim excitedly.  I found the eye on my Kings head looking into the kindly face of a gentleman, quite outlandishly dressed and not even wearing a hat!  He turned me over in the childs hand so that I peered at them both through the eye of my Warrior Queen.

“No,” the man replied with a chuckle, “it’s not treasure, it’s a coin from the olden days.  Look, it’s date is 1911, so it’s exactly a hundred years old!  That’s even better than treasure!”

I was astonished!  I was a hundred years old!  I’d never SEEN a coin so old, and yet I was almost as unmarked as the day I was struck, no doubt because I had been out of circulation for much of my life.  I had enjoyed my rest, but at times I had been quite unbearably lonely and looked forward to embarking once more on my hectic adventure of pocket to purse.

“Is it a fortune Grandad?”

“Not quite a fortune.” Came the reply. “A small fortune perhaps, a very small fortune.”

I was placed carefully into a small cardboard box with an odd assortment of rusty nails, screws, bolts, bottle tops and scraps of broken jewellery.  Borne in triumph into a large, elegant, if rather strange building I heard a woman exclaim.

“Toby, you’re home at last!  You’ve been ages, so you must have been having fun!  What did you find with Grandads old metal detector?”

I found myself tipped unceremoniously onto a shiny table along with the motley collection of bric-a-brac from the box, before being singled out and lifted reverentially from the pile by the little boy and presented to a pretty young lady I later learned was his mother (whatever one of those is)

“I found a coin.” He said happily.  “It’s a hundred years old. That’s even older than Grandad!  And it’s a very small fortune!”

“Why it’s an old fashioned penny!” Exclaimed his mother.  “It’s in very good condition for a hundred years old.  Let’s clean it up, perhaps you can start a coin collection with this very small fortune.”

I am polished now and look as bright, shiny and elegant as the day I emerged from the mint.  My home is a glass-topped wooden box which I share with several other elderly coins from what I have learned are ‘pre-decimal currency’  They are mostly of a higher value than me, many being made of silver, but for the first time since I was circulated, I find my provenance is of greater value than my fellows, for I have been labeled, albeit in a childish hand “The Very First Coin I Ever Found. The Coin Which Began My Collection.  A Very Small Fortune.’

I was much too modest to point this out to my fellows, but to my everlasting joy, our number was one day augmented by my old friend the 1836 groat, whom I had not seen since my first few days in circulation.

He was quick to point out the prestige of my being the coin which spawned the collection and I now enjoy a respect I have never before known.  We are a good and varied collection.  Though none of our number can be deemed valuable, we are a happy little family.  Just one thing would transform my happiness into ecstasy.  I often daydream that perhaps one day that bullying, pompous sixpence will be added to our collection.