Treading her way along the muddy banks of the River Thames, Lara Maiklem spots a 16th-century clothespin which she wipes and adds to a row of others puncturing her coat pocket. She treasures these handcrafted metal pins and other discoveries along the shore for the insight they give into those who walked there before her. `Mudlarks` have scoured the foreshores of London`s rivers for centuries, searching out lost or discarded items to sell, and the tradition lives on today in a small band of devotees. Over the past two decades, 48-year-old Maiklem has found pottery, a silver coin from the 1600s from the era of king Charles I, ivory combs and 18th-century clay pipes, some still bearing the makers` fingerprints. `These little snapshots of everyday London life, that you find coming out of the mud, every tide -- it`s like a giant history book,` said Maiklem, who works in the publishing industry. Many of the rivers, streams and brooks that cut through London
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