What do you think of when you hear the word treasure?

In celebrating the cover-reveal of my new book Buried Treasure I'm prompted to reflect on what treasure means to us. 

I have two opposing elements in my personality, the realist and the dreamer. They were both present, even when young.  I was a prosaic, feet on the ground sort of child.  I wasn’t the cleverest, prettiest or most popular girl in the class.  In fact, to be entirely honest, I was awkward, a bit of a loner and an outsider. I wasn’t unhappy and there were advantages to being on the sidelines.  I was an observer.




The contradictory aspect to my make-up is that I believed in fairies, Santa Claus (until quite late on) and crocks of gold at the end of rainbows. I couldn’t help but dream how wonderful it would be if by chance I came upon a magic wand or a fairy godmother.  Then I would be transformed.  I would be the focus of admiration and envy.  How I longed to be envied.





The idea of discovering treasure was the most desirable thing I could possibly imagine. And where to find it was simple. All you needed was a magic lamp to transport you to Aladdin’s cave, that dark rocky place in a desert, illuminated just by the brilliance radiating from the gold and silver coins, the precious gems, the caskets and jewellery piled in breathtaking heaps on the cavern floor.  The only fly in the ointment - the rather disturbing presence of a giant, bare chested genii.

A little later, as my reading expanded, the fairy-tale image was superseded by the possibility of finding a pirates’ map.  A scroll of old manuscript on which a desert island was depicted, with a dotted trail leading from the sea’s edge to a red X marking the spot where the treasure chest had been buried.

The Count of Monte Cristo, was soon added to my list.  On holiday in Cornwall, I was always disappearing into caves in the hope that a treasure chest might still be tucked, undiscovered somewhere in the depths, behind a boulder.

When we were asked to produce a project in my final year at junior school, I decided upon archaeology, probably the nearest science to treasure-hunting that I could imagine. (My family also has a connection to the Mildenhall Treasure. The hoard of Roman silver tableware discovered – in his account - by my Uncle Sydney Ford).  I was very proud to win the project prize - a book token for W H Smiths – and I still have my project somewhere in the house.

My son, Tom, standing beside the Mildenhall Treasure 

My precis of the incredibly broad and complex subject ranged from cave paintings, through the Romans at Verulaneum, to Tutankhamen.  I still find it easy to imagine the visceral thrill that must have gripped Howard Carter and his team as they peered through that first hole punctured in the wall and saw the treasures inside King Tut’s tomb.
Forget the so-called Dark Ages in the history of the British Isles.  I'd probably not even heard of Celts and Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings were just those men with funny hats.

Archaeology remains a fascination, although I'm wise enough to know that looking for treasure (or indeed finding any) is not really the point. I have gone on digs and I have provided archaeological illustrations for several books, either written by, or contributed to by my son Thomas Williams. So, it was an obvious subject when I came to write my seventh book.



Although the title  accurately reflects a material element of my new book, it is also a bit of a tease.  BURIED TREASURE may largely be centred around archaeology, but the title is also a metaphor about the damage that burying the past can inflict on the present.  It is easier to suppress hurt and humiliation, and erect barriers against the world, but it is only by trusting again, and exposing your mistakes to the light, that you can rediscover the best of yourself.

 BURIED TREASURE 

isn't always what it seems

Their backgrounds could hardly be further apart, their expectations in life more different. And there is nothing in the first meeting between the conference planner and the university lecturer which suggests they should expect or even want to connect again. But they have more in common than they could ever have imagined.  Both have unresolved issues from the past which have marked them; both have an archaeological puzzle they want to solve. Their stories intertwine and they discover together that treasure isn’t always what it seems.