Dawn was breaking as we met in the Community Centre car park and loaded the charabanc for our trip south west to the eagerly awaited Hucclecote Rally. There is something about this particular rally that everybody seems to enjoy. Wether it's the Air Ambulance charity, a well deserved cause in any case, the good humoured banter that's always present amongst all of the detectorists who attend or if if it's the thought of detecting on an incredible Roman field, I don't know.

We set off at a leasurely pace after guiding our driver Richard out of the car park and headed off in the general direction of Gloucester. We arrived an hour early, but the smell of bacon butties wafting out of the barn soon tempted us and before long it was time to start detecting. The main field was big and it wasn't long before the first Roman coins surfaced. I think most people got at least one during the day but yours truely found thirteen, Dave Wilcox six, Dave Mann six and Jason had to be different by finding a couple of hammereds.

At about 2.30 pm I decided to detect the small beaten track adjacent to the entrance to the field. It was obvious that a lot people had detected here by the amount of holes that had been dug and filled but it was one part of the field I hadn't tried. Sweeping the detector over a clear patch of soil I got an 'iffy' signal which was about a half to one inch down. Thinking it might be a bit of aluminium on it's edge I stuck the spade in, flipped out the soil and to my amazement out rolled a small gold coin about the diameter of a squashed pea. To be honest I don't know much about these types of coins but when I saw a runic cross on both of its sides I knew it had to be something special. By chance I showed it to a couple of the Hucklecote guys who identified it as a Thrymsa, a rare Anglo Saxon coin dating from 600-630 AD. After chatting to a friend Dave Phillips (Dunstable MDC) and the Hucclecote members I informed the FLO who was in attendance but as time was running short I asked him if it would be OK to get it logged into their database in Leicester. This he agreed to and this was done on Friday 19 March. Numerous comments were made, mostly unprintable, but in general most people were fascinated by this tiny coin.