I was about to put this book into a pile to sell/dispose of, thinking I didn’t want to read it, but something made me open it up and I started reading – and basically didn’t put it down until I’d finished it (OK – I fell asleep with my thumb in the spine, but finished it this morning). It was both fascinating and lovely, as well as a book with high production values.
On Thursday 13 February 1997, a cargo ship laden with containers got caught in a storm somewhere between Lands End and the Scillies. Of the containers that got washed overboard in the storm, one which had been destined for the USA, contained nearly 5 million pieces of Lego, and weirdly, the majority of these pieces were sea-themed. Basically, they’ve been washing up on shores predominantly in the South West and South wales ever since. Some found its way to Devon, where the author’s parents lived and she became fascinated by her beach-finds. The most prized finds were wingless dragon bodies in green or black, and black octopuses.
Tales emerged of children filling buckets with dragons and selling them at car boot sales for 10p each. One beachcomber described how her mother had made her rummage through mounds of rotting seaweed for weeks, desperate to find one. Council vehicles were said to have mechanically raked them up from the strandline.
A former member of the coastguard told how – as a new recruit on one of his first call outs – he had been sent to search the coastline for lost Lego and missing shipping containers, later recording all the dragons he found on a databased before putting them in the bin, an action he now regrets.
The author made contact with Dr Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer who had mapped the spread of another cargo lost at sea a few years previously. You may recall a 1992 news story about a ship that lost a cargo of bath toys, including 7200 yellow ducks in the Pacific Ocean, currents taking them up to the Arctic and down past the UK to Spain where they turned to cross the Atlantic – they found some in the Gulf of Mexico, in Texas. Everyone remembers the ducks, but there were also turtles, frogs and beavers! Ebbesmeyer plotted their course, and when the Lego was lost, started to study where that was being found too. Having procured a manifest from Lego, he set about identifying the pieces found – most were floaters, it was trawlers that tended to dredge up heavier pieces like yellow liferafts (ironically).
The author talks to many other people, including the journalist who broke the story, the divers who discovered Lego in a 1758 warship wreck in the Solent, fishermen, collectors and marine biologists to name but a few. It’s an absolutely fascinating story.
Of course, the issue of plastic pollution is much wider than the contents of one container full of Lego, or plastic ducks, and Williams continues on to show some of the wide range of other objects found during beach cleans, which she joins in with regularly. As Dr Ebbesmeyer says,
“It looks like James Bond had it wrong. It’s not diamonds that are forever. It’s actually plastic.”
This small hardback book, published in 2022, is beautifully produced. It is full of wonderful photos of Lego, and other flotsam in situ, illustrated in full colour throughout. Many watercolour scenes also accompany the text – I presume these are by the author as I couldn’t find a credit for them. There are maps, a useful glossary – I now know that fykiaphobia is the fear of seaweed, a full index plus bibliography and list of websites to visit.
You can find the author on X at @LegoLostAtSea where she shares all the latest finds. It’s hard to believe that pieces are still being uncovered from 29 years ago, but such is the persistence of plastic in the environment, in spite of its usefulness as a material. There’s a lesson for us all there.
I’m so glad I read this book before I would have got rid of it one way or another. I enjoyed it so much, it’s going to be hard let it go now! And what a great start to my #20BOS26.
You may also like to explore another beautifully produced book about beach finds – this time pebbles – in The Book of Pebbles by Christopher Stocks & Angie Lewin – my full review HERE.
Source: Own copy. Unicorn hardback (2022), 144 pages. BUY at Waterstones or Amazon via my affiliate links.
I remember the ducks and the Legos (or at least reading about them). Yes, sadly, plastic is very much forever… I now regret a lot of the toys that I got for my sons, although we did try to recycle them via charity shops.