the staffordshire hoard

Walking through Birmingham town centre, I saw a good old-fashioned queue patiently formed. It was a bit cold, a bit wet; a typical Birmingham day. It was one of those queues you rarely see any more. It was an experience in itself. The people in it felt they had little prospect of reaching the front, and when there, they would have quite forgotten what purpose they had in mind.

I tried to work out what the queue was for. It could have been the post office, but the days of the really good post office queue are over. No one knows where their local one is, and the places are so forbidding and lacking in value that only those on a serious nostalgia trip would think of going there on a Monday morning.

No, it had to be something else, something really good. I carried on walking and saw a big sign advertising the wonders of Matthew Boulton. As a former employee of the Science Museum, my heart leapt at people from Boulton's home town still being so inspired by this titan of the industrual revolution, that they would wish to queue for several hours on an autumn weekday for a look at a steam engine.

I wandered round the corner and saw the queue was indeed leading to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I walked up to the entrance, a move which aroused some consternation among the queuing public.

"You here for the gold?" said the lady from the museum.
"I'm here for Boulton," said I.
"Well walk straight in, then, and keep to the right."
"What's the gold you are referring to?"
"It's the Staffordshire Hoard," said the lady, impatiently. This was clearly common knowledge.
"And how long is the queue?"
"About three-and-a-half hours."
"Is it always that long?"
"No, if you come at 9am, you might only have to wait for an hour-and-a-half."

I decided I was better off spending some time with Matthew Boulton, and walked into the desolate gallery. I reflected that this was one of those great British events, the one that everybody had spotted. It was the combination of the lucky find, the anglo-saxon hoard, much bigger and of more value than anyone had thought. Quickly dusted off and put on public display, the Brummies, seeing the Staffordshire hoard as a local history find of unparalleled importance, had seen that here was really something. Here was a once in a generation opportunity to queue.