Interview with a Roman Sewer Expert

A few years ago I interviewed Erica Rowan, an archaeobotanist who has excavated Roman sewers around the world. Erica grew up in Toronto and studied Classics and Health Science at McMaster University in Canada, graduating with both a BA and BHSc. She then read for an MSt in Classical Archaeology at Oxford and was later awarded a DPhil in Archaeology, also from Oxford, with a specialisation in Roman archaeology and archaeobotany. In September 2014 she took up the two year post of Leventis Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and then spent a year at Exeter as a teaching fellow. She is now a lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. 

exhibition poster from 2015

I first met Erica at the Corinium Museum in May of 2015 when she participated in a fascinating exhibition called Food for Thought. Wanting to know more about Roman eating and toilet habits, I lured her to an interview in London by promising lunch in the members’ room of the British Museum. The interview took place in October 2015, but ancient toilets and sewers never go out of fashion so I thought I would post a slightly edited transcript as a New Year’s Treat. 

Caroline: So, Erica, you’re an archaeobotanist, which basically means you study plant remains and especially food remains. Are you happy to be doing sewers? Is it quite fun?

Erica: It is quite fun. You get to see what people actually ate. 

Caroline: Is being an archaeobotanist a separate thing from being a ‘poopologist’? Or are they essentially the same career description? 

Erica (laughs): They’re slightly different. Human waste only survives in limited number of contexts; latrines, sewers and the like. Archaeobotanical remains, and especially carbonized material, tends to preserve at almost all sites. 

Caroline: You’ve been on digs at Aphrodisias in Turkey, Herculaneum in Italy and Utica in Tunisa, a Phoenician site. So what were the Phoenicians eating? 

A New York Sandwich... with pepper! 

Waiter (interrupting): One New York sandwich and one Middle Eastern Salad. 

Caroline (laughs): I’m the Middle Eastern Salad. 

Erica: And I’m the New York Sandwich. 

Caroline (looking at the newly arrived platter): So which of these things would the Phoenicians have been eating in Utica, in Tunisia? 

Erica: Not potatoes, tomatoes or cauliflower. 

Caroline: But they might have had a balsamic vinaigrette? And chicken?

Erica: Yes. Chicken, bacon, cheese… But the earliest material I have from Utica is Roman, not Phoenician.

Caroline: Ah! What sort of remains tell you it’s Roman? Fragments of fish sauce jars for example? 

Erica: No, we dated the site from the context. Its hard to tell Roman influence from food remains because the whole Mediterranean had the same staple foods. 

Caroline: What do you mean by staples? Is fish sauce a staple?

Erica: A staple food would be anything they depended on. In the Mediterranean the three main staples are grains, wine and olive oil. 

Caroline: Is there any evidence of food fads?

Erica: Not in Utica, but in Herculaneum black pepper was very popular. The people eating it were not necessarily upper class but they were willing to pay. It comes all the way from India so is expensive. 

Caroline: So it was a status symbol. 

Erica: Yes. 

Caroline: Speaking of black pepper, may I grind you some? And smile! I’m taking a picture. 

(Erica laughs and submits to having her photo taken.)

Caroline: So what got you interested in Classics? What was your spur moment?

Erica: My friend made me go see Gladiator and I really liked it, although it’s not historically accurate... Also, we were studying the Romans in high school. 

Caroline: Fun! So Tell me a bit about being an archaeologist. Are you out in the sun and the rain? Under a tent? Or is it mainly lab work in a basement?

Erica: It depends on the site. If it’s a small section I’ll excavate it myself. When I was in Aphrodisias I excavated a section of a drain. 

Caroline: With a trowel and everything?

Erica: Yes. I take my samples and then do flotation and process them on site.

Caroline: Flotation?

Erica: It’s a method used to identify plant remains using buckets of water and sieves. You put the material in agitated water. The soil and sand sink but seeds, grains and lighter objects float to the surface. 

Caroline: What did you find at Aphrodisias? The staples? Anything remarkable? 

Erica: I’ve found wheat and barley, and also grapes, olives and peaches.

Caroline: Do you remember your first dig? 

Erica: I was in Jordan for seven weeks. It was an amazing experience. The site was Humayma, about an hour north of Aqaba, and very dry. There were about a dozen of us from Queen’s University on this particular dig. 

Caroline: Describe an average day?

Erica: We would drive up there every day. We would get up at 5.30 am, pile into a minibus at 6am and get to the site around 7am. We were working with Bedouin. They would make us extremely sweet black tea when we arrived. It was really good. Then we would dig until about 10am and stop for breakfast, cooked in a frying pan over a file kindled by the Bedouin. I was excavating part of a bath complex.

Caroline: What did you eat for breakfast?

Erica: They would bring fresh flat bread baked by their mothers or wives. And we would bring food, too: canned tomatoes, corned beef and peas. They would heat the food in frying pans over a kindling fire and we ate it with the fresh flatbread. Then we would dig again until 1pm when we finished for the day. We would go back, have lunch, sort and wash the pottery and then leave it on the roof of the building to dry. Once that was done you had the rest of the afternoon free. 

Caroline: What was Aqaba like? 

Erica: It’s not too big. A fort town. Pretty modern but with a few old buildings including a fort and giant flagpole. I really liked it. I liked Tunisia, too. 

Caroline: When were you in Tunisia? What period was the site?

Erica: The site was Utica, so about 30 minutes outside Tunis. It was a Punic, then Roman, then Islamic site. I was there from 2013 to 2015. 

Caroline: I love going to places like that. Sometimes I think it’s the closest we’ll get to travelling back to the past. 

Erica: In Tunisia you go to these outdoor barbecues in a big group and they cook freshly slaughtered meat for you. If you drive past at a certain part of the day you often see an animal they’ve slaughtered just hanging there. There’s no blood so they must have drained it before they hang it outside underneath a tent. They put the head on display. There are often live sheep tethered to the tent near where they cook the meat. 

preparing to slaughter a ram in Morocco 2006

Caroline: A dozen years ago my husband and I saw a ram slaughtered, inflated, skinned and dismembered at a Berber village outside Marrakech, Morocco all in the space of about half an hour. It was like a scene out of the Old Testament: Genesis book 22, the binding of Isaac. There was a thorn thicket and everything.

Polite Woman (interrupting):  I wonder if we might borrow your salt and pepper; we seem to be in rather short supply.  

Caroline (laughs): Sure. Here’s our luxurious pepper. And salt. 
(to Erica) Have you ever been on a dig here in Britain? 

Erica: Yes. An Iron Age and Roman site called Marcham near Oxford. It was a rural sanctuary site. 

Caroline: What did you notice about the diet there? 

Erica: Cereal and chaff. I was doing flotation. In the Iron Age, people were bringing their crops and processing them there. 

Caroline: When you process grain its like a biblical threshing floor, correct?

Erica: Yes. You often find burnt chaff nearby, which shows it was used for kindling. 

Caroline: Did they dedicate some of it the grain after threshing? Or just take it back home? 

Erica: They ate it.

Caroline: What evidence do we have for a Roman presence at Marcham?

Erica: There were a lot of oysters, even though Marcham is quite far from the coast. Experts can tell which coast an oyster comes from by the markings on its shell. 

Caroline: What’s the most memorable revelation you’ve had digging through sewage material? 

Erica: The diversity of their diet. That particular sewer at Herculaneum served Romans from the lower and middle classes. It was below an apartment building with shops at ground level and people living behind and above. There were a few independent apartments on the upper floor, but nothing elite. From that one sewer we catalogued 114 different types of food including fish, shellfish and plants but not including other animal meat. They didn’t seem to have any food taboos; privately they would just eat anything. It’s often assumed the poor would eat cheap bread and wine but they’re eating a huge variety of things, and seasoning their food with dill, coriander, fennel…

Magna Roma menu cover

Caroline: sometimes when you read their recipes they really seem to overdo it, with up to a dozen spices. I once ate at a short-lived restaurant called Magna Roma near the Colosseum in Rome. The owner tried to replicate authentic Roman dishes. But the food tasted so strange that the restaurant folded after just a few years.  

Erica: Some friends and I tried to recreate some Roman dishes and I think it’s actually more like Asian than modern Italian food. 

Caroline: Yes! They say that garum is more like Thai Fish Sauce than like Worcestershire Sauce. It’s pretty revolting.

Erica: The fish sauce is essentially salt because they didn’t add salt. And although there were often lots of spices the quantities were quite small, so the taste was hidden. My friends and I made a lentil dish with chestnuts, honey, red-wine vinegar, and Thai Fish Sauce. Within those ingredients you can’t identify any one thing. It’s a good holiday dish for winter. Feed it to people and don’t tell them what they’re eating. Then afterwards you can mention it had fish sauce in it! 

Caroline: It sounds delicious!

Erica (nodding): We also made a dish of pork and figs. We boiled the figs to make syrup and then cook the pork in that. It was the moistest piece of pork I have ever had. 

Caroline: Fascinating. They found an ancient Roman amphora in the Thames full of olives preserved in sweet grape syrup!

Erica: Columella talks about olives in honey and how it’s both salty and sweet. 

Caroline: That would be such an alien taste.

Erica: When you cook these dishes it doesn’t taste like anything you’ve tasted before. 

Caroline: Thanks for sharing all that, Erica. Do you have a photo of you on a site that I could post?

Erica: Sure... 

Thanks, Erica, for letting me post this interview. Good luck in your future adventures and research! 

Roman Roads and Modern Bandits

It’s not every day you come to the rescue of Robin Hood’s mum… especially not on the Appian Way.

It all started with a tweet.

Agnes Crawford runs a bespoke tour company – UnderstandingRome.com – that takes people to the places she herself would like to see. Agnes grew up in London and studied Architectural History in Edinburgh. After university she travelled to Rome to teach English as a foreign language. She found a room in the fascinating part of Rome called Trastevere. One day she went to a friend’s birthday party and met an attractive Roman physicist. They married and she has now been in Rome for a dozen years.

Agnes first heard of me when some clever British children on one of her tours told her about my Roman Mysteries books.

She tweeted me and we became Twitter pals.

Ristorante Flavio al Velavevodetto

I’ve been to Rome at least half a dozen times before in order to research my books. This time I’d been flown over courtesy of the American University of Rome to be their Writer in Residence for a week. I wanted to do something I’d never done before, so I tweeted Agnes and asked if she could give me a sample tour in return for lunch and a review. She replied with an enthusiastic yes.

We decided on the Appian Way and the Aqua Claudia. She calls this tour Roads and Water and it is one of her most popular itineraries.

Agnes usually gets a driver with a luxurious Mercedes but for our unofficial tour she picks me up in her sturdy range rover.

We go for lunch at a restaurant at the foot of Mons Testaccio, a mountain of broken potsherds located by the ancient docks of Rome. Amphoras which contained oil and wine could not be reused as the clay goes rancid. So they broke them up and made a big pile of them here. A BIG pile: Mons Testaccio means Potsherd Mountain.

Along the back wall of the Ristorante Flavio (what a good name!) are half a dozen glassed-over arches that let you look at a section cut into the mountain of shards. How fun is that?

After lunch of uniquely Roman food, we’re off to the Appian Way past the baths of Caracalla and the first milestone out of Rome. There’s a slight traffic jam here, for the ancient road is still in use, so Agnes takes a shortcut above (not through) the catacombs.

Finally we get away from the crowds to the part you always see on telly: the dove grey paving stones polished smooth by age, the flame-shaped cypress trees that always speak of graves and the lofty umbrella pines which host the creaking cicadas. Agnes is full of interesting facts and has all the dates at the front of her brain. She tells me the Appian Way first laid out by a guy called Appius Claudius (who should be far more famous than he is) and that it’s famous for being the route along which thousands of runaway slaves were crucified in the time of Spartacus.

Agnes is also an excellent source of fun gossipy facts, describing what the garden in an ambassador’s house looks like or revealing that another fabulous mansion was the setting for a scene of a recent movie. Someone who knows lots of Roman facts plus movie trivia is my kind of guide.

Agnes shows me the tomb of Metella, ruins of the bath house of Maxentius and the vast grounds of the Villa of the Quintilli which was so fabulous that Commodus confiscated it (Remember him? He was the evil Emperor from the movie Gladiator.) At one point we stop for photo op where you can see original Roman paving stones and cartwheel ruts.

We are back in the car and going slowly on account of the ancient and uneven nature of the road, when someone taps on the car window.

Agnes stops the car. It is a distraught German family consisting of a middle-aged father and mother in normal clothes, and their grown up son dressed as Robin Hood!

‘Scusi. Do you speak English?’ asks the mother. ‘A car came and took my handbag with my money in it.’

‘Was it just now?' asks Agnes.

‘Five minutes ago. They were in a small silver car.’

‘I saw him!’ cries Agnes. ‘We were driving and he came very fast. I thought: he’s going to have an accident. They were going towards Rome. The driver had very short hair.’

‘That’s right,’ says the father, who is on the phone to the police. ‘Is there a police station nearby?’

‘Yes,’ says Agnes. ‘Hop in and we’ll take you to Carabinieri at Capannelle, where my mother-in-law lives.’

Gratefully, the three Germans pile in the back. I turn to the son.

‘Why are you dressed up?’ I ask.

‘Just for fun.’

I nod sympathetically. Some of my best friends are re-enactors and I have been known to put on a stola and palla myself.

Agnes drives Robin Hood and his parents to the Carabinieri and points them in the right direction.

Our good deed for the day accomplished, we drive on to the Aqua Claudia – a stunning stretch of aqueduct famous for appearing in the first scene of the most famous Italian film ever made: La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) by Federico Fellini.

What used to be fields of wildflowers at the foot of the aqueduct is now a golf course. ‘Fellini appreciated the surreal aspects of Roman life,’ says Agnes. ‘He would approve.’

I am content. Agnes’ tour Roads and Water was all I hoped it would be: peaceful, atmospheric and fun. 

Even if you don’t usually do guided tours, this one is worth it because you will visit places difficult to get to without a car.

And in Agnes you will have the perfect guide: one not only versed in fun facts and gossipy trivia, but a Good Samaritan as well.

A Dirty Dozen Roman Artifacts

by Caroline Lawrence
(this is a longer and "Americanized" version of an article I wrote for the Classical Association Blog)

Whenever I visit schools to talk about my books set in Ancient Rome, I bring along some of my favorite artifacts. Most of these aren't real antique objects, but convincing replicas made by my re-enactor friends or bought in museum gift shops. But they are close enough to the original to give children a visible, tangible idea of how 1st century Rome differed from 21st century Britain or America. I let the kids look at them, sometimes handle and sniff them, even taste them. The Roman poet Martial mentions some of these artifacts in his fourteenth book of Apophoreta, poetic Saturnalia gift-tags. In these charming two-line epigrams the gifts sometimes speak in first person. e.g. the bedroom lamp which promises that no matter what it sees, tacebo: 'I won't talk.'

These artifacts help me get a little closer to the mindset of a first century Roman. Quite a few of them end up appearing as clues in my Roman Mysteries series of books. Here are a dozen of my favorites.

I. Clay oil-lamp

A clay oil-lamp like this reminds us that Romans had no electricity. Roman houses would have been dimly lit at night and smoke-streaked during the day. Fire was a constant risk. This fun oil-lamp in the shape of a sandalled foot is a replica of an oil-lamp found in Londinium. I bought this particular lamp at the Museum of London and as you can see from the scorched big toe, I've tried it out. It even has hobnails on the bottom. In my third Roman Mystery, The Pirates of Pompeii, Jonathan tells oil-lamp jokes (the ancient equivalent of light-bulb jokes) to cheer up children captured by pirates.

II. Strigil

This strigil or scraper reminds us that Roman bathing habits were very different from ours. They didn't use soap, but oil (hence the bottle) in a public ritual of oiling up, exercising, steaming, sweating and then scraping with the strigil. As you pulled the strigil across your sweaty skin, it would remove the oil, and along with it the layer of dead skin cells, dirt and sweat. You would get a bath attendant or slave to do your back. In Martial 14.51, a strigil tells us that if you regularly use him you won't have to take your towel to the cleaner's so often. Even more exciting is the claim by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History that some gladiators collected their scrapings (charmingly called gloios) and sold the disgusting mixture to rich Roman ladies.
To find out how rich Roman women used gladiator scrapings, read the sixth Roman Mystery, The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina.

III. Wax-tablet

Wax tablets like this one remind us that Romans didn't have email or text messages, or even a cheap version of writing paper. You had to use parchment, papyrus, thin sheets of wood, or re-usable wooden tablets with wax in a shallow depression. You would use a tool called a stylus with a sharp end for writing and a flat end for rubbing out. The wax on the famous tablets from Vindolanda has long gone, but clever archaeologists can still make out traces of letters and words in the wood underneath. In my fourth Roman Mystery, The Assassins of Rome, my mute character, Lupus, figures out how to retrieve a life-or-death message which disappeared after blazing summer sunshine melted the wax on an open tablet.

IV. Bleeding cup

This large bleeding cup (they also come in small) reminds us that Romans had a different concept of medicine and health. Bronze bleeding cups were used for both ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ cupping. In dry cupping, a flaming piece of lint was put in the cup and then applied to skin. The flame immediately went out and a vacuum sucked out the "bad humor". In wet cupping the doctor made an incision in your arm and drained a cupful of blood. This was the Roman equivalent of taking two aspirin. There must have been some benefit, people have been doing this since Roman times. A few years ago, the actress Gwyneth Paltrow was seen with distinctive marks of 'dry cupping' on her back. In my seventh Roman Mystery, The Enemies of Jupiter, there is a plague in Rome. Nubia and her friends see first-hand how bleeding is done by both experts and quacks. Not for the squeamish!

V. Roman spoon

A spoon like this reminds us that food was a constant preoccupation of the Romans. The strange kink in this spoon is a relic of spoons that could be folded in half for easier carrying in a belt-pouch. If invited to dinner, you took your own spoon. Some Romans took their own napkins, too. As well as dabbing your mouth, you could use it to carry home leftovers as a sort of 'doggy bag'. The sharp end on the spoon is for spearing goodies previously cut into bite-sized pieces by helpful slaves. Some spoons had little hooks on this end; they were snail-spoons. Martial's snail-spoon says, "I'm useful for eggs as well as snails, so why do they call me a 'snail-spoon'?" (Martial 14.121) There were no forks in Roman times, apart from the big ones used by gladiators, that is. I had fun with a dinner party scene from my first Roman Mystery, The Thieves of Ostia.

Alma proudly carried in the first course and set it on the table: sea snails fried in olive oil, garlic and pepper. The snails had been placed back in their shells and Alma handed each diner a special spoon with a small hook at one end to extract the snail...Flavia showed Jonathan how to extract a snail and then watched as he gingerly picked up one of the shells between finger and thumb and hooked out its contents. He paused to examine it: the snail was small and twisted and rubbery and brown. Jonathan closed his eyes, took a deep breath and put it in his mouth. (The Thieves of Ostia, p 37 )

VI. Nuggets of gum mastic

These little nuggest of mastic resin from the Greek island of Chios remind us that in many ways the Romans were just like us; this is their version of chewing gum.  I bought these in a small shop on the island of Kos, famous for its medical sanctuary. To me, mastic tastes like a combination of cumin and carrot, only sweeter. Pop one of these in your mouth and chew for a few minutes then take it out. It will have gone white, just like modern chewing gum. In fact you can still buy mastic gum today in Greece or in specialist shops. They say chewing it is good for stomach complaints. And of course it freshens your breath, like the fennel seeds in the bowl above. We know from Martial 14.22 that you could even get toothpicks made of gum mastic. In my ninth Roman Mystery, The Colossus of Rhodes, Flavia meets a good-looking, rich Roman patrician on his "gap year". He makes a bad first impression by ignoring her and also by chewing gum:

Gaius Valerius Flaccus rested his forearms on the polished stern rail and chomped his gum. 'My father left me a nice legacy,' he remarked, 'and I thought I'd see the Seven Sights before I begin to practise law in Rome.' (The Colossus of Rhodes, p14)

VII. Phallic amulet

This fascinum or charm reminds us that the Romans were deeply superstitious. This little willy flanked by two big ones wasn’t rude; it was designed to avert the evil eye. You can see a few tiny phallus amulets in the Roman Life Room of the British Museum, they were specially for babies and young children, who were particularly vulnerable. You can also see bigger "wind chime" versions with wings and bells on, to protect the whole house. I bought this particular replica at a Roman site (Empúries) in Spain. I had fun introducing this on the very first page of The Colossus of Rhodes:

Lupus stared in amazement at the little bronze pendant hanging from its linen cord. 
It was shaped like a part of the body. 
Part of a boy's body. 
A very private part of a boy's body. 

VIII. Glass ‘chariot beaker’

Beautiful glass beakers like this remind us that Romans had the ancient equivalent of souvenir mugs. This authentically-made mold-blown cup by Roman Glassmakers David and Mark is a replica of one from Colchester in Britannia (known as the "Colchester Cup"). Although none of this exact type have been found in Italy, versions of it must have been sold in the Circus Maximus, for it shows the spina (central barrier) of that arena in the middle band. Below the spina are four quadrigae. Right at the top, the charioteers are named: Antilochus, Hierax, Olympas and the winner Crescens, who holds his right hand up in triumph.
Naturally this beaker makes an appearance in my chariot-race-themed Roman Mystery, The Charioteer from Delphi, where Flavia and her friends meet an ancient Roman version of David the Roman Glassmaker. And of course all the charioteers named in the beaker make appearances, too.

IX. Wooden dice

Dice remind us that the Romans adored board games and games of chance, even though gambling was illegal apart from during the Saturnalia. When I visit schools, I bring cheap wooden dice in a wooden shaking cup. What I'd really like to bring is this beautiful rock crystal die from room 69 – the Roman Life Room – in the British Museum. I love this artifact so much that I made it a vital clue in my first book, The Thieves of Ostia, about dog-murder in Rome's ancient port. Martial's die claims to be better than knucklebones, which were also used for gambling (Martial 14.15) I also have an amusing scened at the beginning of The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina, where the Geminus household are throwing dice to see who will be crowned 'King of the Saturnalia'. When Flavia's turn comes she uses one of Lupus's special 'shaved dice' to ensure that she wins. Cheat!

X. Brass seal box for wills

This little teardrop-shaped bronze seal box reminds us that Romans were concerned with law, order and munus (duty). It was every Roman’s duty to make a will and have it properly witnessed and stored. Wills were written on wooden wax-tablets, then bound and sealed, often with a small bronze box like this. You dripped sealing wax into the open box and it would stick to the wood and twine wrapped around it. There would be no way of opening the will or altering it without disturbing the seal. In this picture we see the underside of the seal box with holes for the wax to leak through. My unlucky thirteenth Roman Mystery, The Slave-girl from Jerusalem, has lots to do with will-making, death and funerals.
You can buy a seal box like this and in different models online at Armamenta.

XI. An ‘as’ of Domitian

This bronze coin reminds us that Romans were among the first to use the idea of a product brand in the picture of the emperor… on money. This as (a coin worth a fourth of a sestertius) is a genuine first century artifact. I bought it at the antique dealers opposite the British Museum. I'd prefer a coin of Titus who was the emperor when my books are set, but he reigned for a brief 26 months, so coins with his face are quite hard to find. In the final book of the series, The Man from Pomegranate Street, I try to solve the mystery of whether Titus's sudden death was natural or not. And if not, was he murdered by his younger brother Domitian?

XII. Sponge-stick

This delightfully disgusting object, a soft sea sponge on a stick, reminds us that the Romans were both fastidious and revolting to our modern sensibilities. This was a spongia, a bottom-wiper. You can read more about it HERE. The sponge-on-the-stick appears at the beginning of Lupus's special book, The Dolphins of Laurentum, and also features in the first of my new spin-off Roman Mystery Scrolls for early readers, The Sewer Demon. 

Golden Treasury Champagne Party

David Schofield

On a cold, clear December night (2004), I went along to a champagne drinks party to celebrate the re-opening of the new enlarged Golden Treasury in Southfields, a suburb of London. You can see more info about this independent children's bookshop at www.thegoldentreasury.co.uk

I chatted with my author friends Cliff McNish, Marcus Sedgwick and Graham Marks and met authors Rose Wilkins and Mary Hooper. Ian Beck was there, too; he's an illustrator. You can see them all pictured below.

I also met an actor who was in the Oscar-winning film Gladiator! David Schofield (above right) played the part of Senator Falco. He told me some great stories about filming with director Ridley Scott. He and I are both huge fans of that director, so that was fab! David told me that when Oliver Reed died unexpectedly in the middle of filming, they had to change the end of the story. So they flew in a top Hollywood script-doctor. Now I can't confirm this, but David said he was there for a week and they paid him $150,000... per DAY! No wonder lots of my writer friends want to become screenwriters.

Golden Treasury Southfields 

above: kids' authors at the re-opening of the new improved Golden Treasury in Southfields. From top left clockwise: Ian Beck, Marcus Sedgwick, Graham Marks, Cliff McNish, Mary Hooper, Rose Wilkins, and Caroline Lawrence. Sadly, none of us earn $150,000 per day.