TREASURE ISLAND

TREASURE ISLAND

Gold Gypsy pt4

Wow, my goodness, the replies I’ve had to the Gold Gypsy series I’ve recently done, especially part 3. I really had no idea how many of you are dissatisfied with life in general. So many emails explaining the ins and outs of their ‘mundane’ lives, I have to say they all moved me in one way or another, I felt like an agony aunt. Not that anyone of you lovely people wanted me to tell you what to do. I now feel sad at producing the Gold Gypsy series because of the hurt that I felt in your letters and emails. I did not realise that I was going to hit so many open raw nerves as I did.
But on saying all of that, most of these messages ended more or less with ‘Well done for taking that step, not many people can say that they enjoy their jobs,’ etc etc.
I closed last week with the loss of friends and loved ones who have passed away before their time. I do not want to depart this life feeling that I have under achieved. I want to live my life as though I only had one day left, because one day that will be true. As I lay my head down for one last time, I want to know that what I’ve done is what I’ve wanted to do. In today’s Daily Mail (29 Oct 08) cartoon strip ‘Chloe and Co’, one girl said to the other, ‘What’s the one thing you want to do before you die’? And the girl replied ‘Scream for help’
There is a cracking film with Jack Nicolson and Morgan Freeman called ‘BUCKET LIST’. The film is about two men who are terminally ill and they make a list of things to do before they ‘kick the bucket’. It is a very funny and thought provoking film and I would thoroughly recommend a viewing.
Since part one I’ve had emails saying what a good idea and how can I get started as a Gold Gypsy, and are there books on the subject, what books would I recommend. Well as far as I know there is no book on being a gold gypsy, or living a Kit life style.
Income is hard enough to come by and expenditure can be very very easy. Some folk have been described as miserly, with short arms and deep pockets. Others have more chance of holding vinegar on a fork than holding a quid in their pockets.
Not one of my income streams would make me a substantial living, but all my income streams heaped together is plentiful. I prospect, pan and sell gold. I teach gold panning and prospecting. I source and sell Wade porcelain. I sell eggs from my own chickens. I sell books on Amazon. I trade on eBay. I’m also a detector user. There are many things that I do that keeps my interest in life; there is an old saying that says ‘Variety is the spice of life’, and I have to say that this is true for me.
Prospecting and panning is what I do, but there are times when I draw an absolute blank and there is no gold to pay my expenses. There are times when the water is so high that I can’t get in the water. It is for these times that I need an extra income or interest that can and will fill that gap. I live off cash or debit card and it is amazing how many establishments still accept cash. I escaped from the realms of credit long ago. If there is a ‘wigget’ that I want, need or require I will use available cash. If cash is not available I get my income streams to work harder to bring in extra cash. I will NOT use a credit card or loan to satisfy that desire, for the simple reason if you use a credit card or loan it will cost you more for that item.

GOLD GYPSY pt3

In my early days as a treasure hunter I had a cheap C-Scope metal detector that had no discrimination, and was basically just one step up from a mine detector, but it was good tutoring time in search patterns, steadfastness, single minded purpose, endurance, discovering my machines capabilities, my capability, my short comings, and, …and this is a big and, knowing when it’s time to give up and knock it on the head. There is a time to stop.
It doesn’t matter whether I am metal detecting or in gold production, there is only a certain amount of produce to come out of a piece of ground in any given season. It is a waste of my energy and time to stay in an area once it’s cleared. Come autumn and a turn of the plough shear it is a different story, as more booty is brought within range of my metal detector. A few winter flood storms scours more gravel away revealing new bedrock or deposits more gold in known gold trap areas. Winter storms nearly always seem to upturn trees whether it is on dry land or on river banks. These trees will have their root systems exposed encased in a large volume of soil; these again need to be diligently searched, I’ve lost count of the amount of coins etc that I have found in such an exposed ball root system. You see I must do all that I can in my allotted time frame, I must endure the weather, sometimes I have been known just to lay down and take in the sunshine, but it’s time lost, never to be found again. The other week on the Afon Wen I had a whole day of drizzle and rain as the water table began to rise. I’ve had days metal detecting when I’ve had all four seasons in one day.
I may not have what is termed a ‘proper job’, but what is a proper job? Monday to Friday 9-5; or working those stupid continental shift patterns; or permanent nights. I’ve been there, done that, and got the tee shirt. I got to where I didn’t know whether I was on my base or my apex, and it did my health no favours at all. The two things that I now know is, 1). I know I am very happy. 2) I am self supporting in my various ventures. I may not be accountable to a company boss, as I am my own boss and tea boy. But I am accountable to myself, which for the best part is a harder discipline.
I do appreciate that my lifestyle is not, shall we say, the accepted norm. But what is the expected norm? In my circle of acquaintances, it is accepted norm, and within my family and friends they are very supportive saying, ‘Well that’s Kit, that’s what he does’. Outside of this circle I have been the butt of jokes and ridicule, and I feel that this has come about because I do have an envious lifestyle, like a number of gold gypsies that I have come across.
In the past long ago when I worked for some big companies, I saw people at sixty five retiring and two week later I was attending their funeral, not being able to enjoy the fruits of their labours in their retirement. I have even been to funerals where friends and acquaintances have keeled over before receiving their gold watch for services rendered. I grew older by the day both physically, mentally and emotionally and I had somewhere down the line lost my really enjoyable youth, and it was this that I wanted to recapture doing what I wanted to do and not what others expected or wanted me to do.
I am no longer restrained by this worlds constraints, as I shed those shackles that anchored me to the world’s accepted considered norm.

If you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always been getting.
To change what you’ve been getting, you have to change what you’ve been doing.

GOLD GYPSY pt2

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional, I’m not saying that we have to be childish but we do need to be more child like; to have that spirit of adventure, Swallow and Amazons, Tom Sawyer and Huckle Berry Finn, to have that get up and go; Most of our get up and go has got up and went long ago without our realising it, and we get caught on that treadmill we call life. If it is life it wouldn’t be a treadmill, a chore. A treadmill is being caught in a cleft stick, caught between a rock and a hard place. Life is waking up every morning feeling really joyous, with an expectation of grabbing the horns of life head on and wrestling the day into submission. Some have called us brave, courageous, steadfast adventurers. Some have called us nuts. But today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
In the past and just recently I have been described as a pirate, not that I wear a bandana, an eye patch carry a cutlass and go around saying ooo arrgh me hearties, far from it. I am not a lover of the briny as it changes my palour, I wear an African bush hat, wear specs and feel I have a better command of the English language than the average sons of Davey Jones.
The thing with proclaiming to be a pirate is that any officer of the law is still allowed to put a warning shot across my bows for my surrender. The modern day pirate would be quite unrecognisable from the captain Jack Sparrow stereo type. Ok we wouldn’t look much like a city banker, but we certainly wouldn’t look like captain Hook either, most would look like the average person you would pass in the streets. We don’t lure ships and boats to their doom anymore. But we do try to live of the land and the streams with the minimum of disturbance not only to the environment but to the general public as well. Most folk wouldn’t know that we’ve been wherever we’ve been except for the landowner who has given us permission to be were we where.
The purpose behind stealth and secrecy, being almost furtive is we don’t wont every Tom Dick and Harry coming over to us and saying ‘ere mate what you doing. Its not that we are unsociable creatures far from it, you ought to see us when we occasionally have an impromptu meet.
We tend to be loners and have a single focused concentration on our task at hand, and with every interruption comes a break in our concentration and a re focussing on our subject matter after polite conversation. This causes a loss of time we have set aside for our chosen foray and a loss of time means a loss of finds and ultimately a loss of cash at the end of the day. That then requires a period of forced overtime to make up time, finds and our required daily cash amount. When you work for someone else you get paid an hourly rate regardless of how many interruptions you may have. Us gold gypsies still have to put fuel in the vehicles, food on the tables and bills to be paid and a certain amount of monies need to be won daily to meet that criteria. Time lost is never recovered so make the most of all of your available time on your chosen subject.

“If you keep doing what you’ve always been doing-you will keep getting what you’ve always been getting. And to change what you’ve been getting you have to change what you’ve been doing”.

GOLD GYPSY pt1

I’ve been asked many times on how I got into gold prospecting, and the usual retort was, reading an article on ‘Gold in the UK’ in a monthly magazine I used to subscribe to. Although that is more or less the truth, it does go back a further few years earlier.
My very good friend Neil introduced me to the joy’s ‘treasure hunting’ through the use of a metal detector. I had something like 3,500 acres of Berkshire down for rough shooting and so it was a simple matter of approaching all the relevant farms for the permission for metal detecting.
To be successful with a detector a great deal of library research was paramount. Then there was the field research walking great tracts of ploughed fields for signs of habitation, outcrops of stones and pottery and the like. Talking to the old folk in the village for their remembrances also was a very great tool to be successful. This research probably accounted for maybe 75% of detecting with the final 25% actually swinging a machine in front of us for six to eight hours in all weathers come wind rain or shine.
In the very early 80s the ‘Treasure Hunting’ magazine had an article about gold panning in North Wales. Although I was very successful with my Whites Di series 3 detector at that time, the thrill of finding free gold was very very alluring, especially as the price of gold at that time was around $900 and ounce.
Neil found an article in the metaliferrous mining regions of the south west, briefly outlining the find of a one ounce nugget in the Carnon Valley in Cornwall. I had also come across an article of a few lines saying that a previous vicar of the parish (North Molton) had found numerous sizable nuggets along the River Mole. I had a friend who had moved to a hamlet north of there and so a quick phone call later, saw us motoring down to the West Country. Fortune upon fortune, when we told my friend what we were about he said he knew exactly where the mines were located. He continued saying that his house was the mines captain abode, and pointing over the road he said, and that is lower mines wood. The engine house is still there, and at the top end of the wood are the three mines we were looking for.
From then on, any spare time we had found us on the Mole prospecting. From the Mole we progressed to a lot of streams running south of Dartmoor, South Hams and a variety of other rivers and streams in the south west.
What with one thing and another my ‘gold fever’ abated and we ceased going out together; Even detecting took a back seat as I endeavoured to sort out a variety of personal issues, like moving house, the loss of a loved one through cancer, being made redundant from my job, and the list went on.
I eventually got my life back together and gathered funds from detecting here and there.
For many years now I have relied on this ‘Treasure Island’ to supply me with a source of income and I suppose I could be classified as a ‘Gold Gypsy’.
My original intent was to take a leap of faith and try to recapture my youth by fair means or foul. As a lad we lived a very Huckle Berry Finn/Tom Sawyer life-style, we would hunt and fish, collect nuts and berries, play over the fields, swim in the brooks, made bows and arrows, they really were the halcyon days of summer. As we grew older we fell into the trap of buying a car, a house, getting married etc which is all a drain on our very hard won income. We got drawn very easily onto the treadmill of life, and one day is just like the next, treadmill, treadmill, treadmill.
I heard a wise man once say
“If you keep doing what you’ve always been doing-you will keep getting what you’ve always been getting. And to change what you’ve been getting you have to change what you’ve been doing”.