Jack Trelawny 'Story Detective'
On school visits, Jack tells children that half his job is 'finding out'. Below the 'Story Detective' is at Sutton Hoo...
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Story Detective at Sutton Hoo
Finding out is half the job of an author When I visit schools, I tell children that half my job is 'finding out'. Half the time I'm a 'Story Detective'. If I constantly find things out, I've always got something to write about. On 31 July 2014, I visited the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial site in Suffolk to find out as much as I could about the Sutton Hoo helmet object that has inspired one of the stories in my new series called Thirteen Things. The site is run by the National Trust. |
I started by looking at some school work pictures of the Sutton Hoo helmet that had been drawn by children from Melton Primary School, which is in Woodbridge, a few miles from the site.
There were lots of children visiting the site. Like me, many were 'story detectives', and they were finding things out with their parents. In 1939, just before the Second World War, the owner, Mrs Pretty, said she saw ghosts around the mounds on her property. She asked an archeologist to start digging to see if there was anything in the mounds. |
The archeology team found a huge ship buried in one of the mounds.
A very important man had been buried with the ship, along with lots of treasure, including coins and weapons. The man, the ship and the treasure were all from Anglo-Saxon times. I always try to take a lot of photographs as the pictures remind me of what was at a place. I found out as much as I could for the story I'm writing based on the real story of the Sutton Hoo helmet and treasure. |
To arrange a Sutton Hoo visit, click on this link: www.nationaltrust.org/sutton-hoo