2005 WRITING COMPETITION - THE WINNERS
In our writing competition we gave visitors a a chance to win cash prizes by writing a poem or a short piece of prose about their favourite Senhouse treasure. There were three classes - for over 18s, age 12-18 and age 7-11. Here are the winning entries.
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"The Pin-up girl"
They’re not so clever, these historians: I’ve posed like this for well over a thousand years and now a museum notice has the cheek to tell YOU who THEY think I am - Venus, goddess of love, universal mother, creator of all livings things etc etc. I kid you not! It also says a similar figure was carved on the Antonine Wall. Similar figure... my arse! Excuse me, but that’s a bit of my anatomy that’s definitely unique — see for yourselves! And what’s this guff about me being “part of a gate structure perhaps with a similar figure (Mars?) carved on a block on the right.” Sentimental tosh. No Venus, no war god lover or gate post. Though believe me; the real story’s far more intriguing.
Around 250 AD a young girl called Regina was kidnapped and became a house slave when her Solway village was taken by the Romans. She was treated far better than many though and was never whipped or chained. Surprisingly this had a lot to do with her wondrous waist length hair. Her mistress, Popillia, had fair wispy locks, you see. She was wife to Lucius, a young tribune, one of the bigwigs at the Stenhouse fort. Now Regina’s beautiful black hair was her downfall at first but then turned out to be her success, for one day to Regina’s horror she was told it would all be cut off to make a wig for Popillia! It was the rage, you see, amongst the Roman ladies to appear in the forum in beautiful wigs, mainly made from slave girls’ hair. Regina wept and begged but soon she was shorn like a lamb and felt so ashamed she ran away.
But an amazing thing happened: none other than Lucius himself found her hiding in the stables and apologised! He gave her gifts as a consolation - a fine wool stola and some golden bracelets which she hid away He was a sensitive man for a Roman. Regina had noticed he loved art, sitting in his leisure hours around the villa sketching and making pretty mosaic pictures from coloured tesserae. He once gave her one of the little sea blue tiles which he said matched her eyes and she kept it in the bulla round her neck with other lucky charms. He taught her some words of Latin too and one feast day even smuggled her bits of roasted peacock and a dormouse stuffed with pine kernels! Lucius took to sketching Regina when Popillia had no need of her and had gone to the forum or amphitheatre to meet with her friends. And one day he asked to draw her naked. She was not ashamed, for she trusted him and was proud of her body. Regina stood confident in her beauty, one hand on her hip and one up to her hair, which had grown back thick and lush as a crow’s wing. Now when she accompanied Popillia to the market place and saw her strutting in the black wig, she just smiled.
Some time later, Lucius arrived at the villa with Topher, the stonemason’s apprentice who struggled wth a cart on which lay a heavy stone frieze. It was to be set in the villa’s fine new bathhouse wall and she could scarcely hide her shock when she recognised one of the figures on the frieze. It was of a naked girl with one hand on her hip and the other up to her hair, an exact copy of Lucius’ drawing! “Now you will be remembered for all time,” he told her later and she cried. But she cried more when soon after Lucius left the fort to help suppress an uprising of barbarous Picts that had swarmed down to Hadrian’s Wall near Vindolanda. He and many of the legion never returned and she learned later he’d been killed but had received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his bravery. Lucius, whilst sketching her, had sometimes talked of leaving the army and going south to Gloucester where there was a retirement colony for Roman soldiers. He said she would accompany him and when she was 30 would be made a freewoman. And then? All dreams.
But I am not a dream and stand proud here for eternity just as Lucius said. No Venus perhaps, but in future when people stop to wonder who I am, please tell them and those histonans the truth about “The Pin-up girl”.
Jenny Harrow
The Romans were invading. They had settlements all along the British coast. The Celts were fighting back, but they were not winning. There was one settlement that grew bigger on the north-west corner of England, and if you looked across the water you could see Scotland, on a good day. There was one family who had come across the seas to help the Roman army. The father of the family was Brutus and he was a main leader of the army. He had a wife called Octavia and a daughter Alauna. They enjoyed life in Britain and were planning on staying.
It was Alauna’s birthday. She was very excited because her father had promised her a present. The day came and she received a beautiful brooch. It was made of bronze and had scrolls and wonderful designs on it. It was perfectly round and she loved it. She wore it each and every day, to show that she was so proud. But it wasn’t to be hers much longer.
Alauna was out walking down the main road of the vicus, out to buy some fish. Suddenly, she thought she heard a stampede. She turned around. It was her father’s army heading towards her. They were near the edge of town and, when Alauna looked ahead again, she could see the Celts in the distance. She heard a voice call ‘CHARGE’ and ducked into an alleyway as the army ran past. She saw her father’s face. As soon as the soldiers passed, she ran after them. She was going to watch the battle from a safe place.
Alauna hid in a ditch just outside the vicus. It was not very comfortable because the bottom of the ditch was full of sticks and sharp stones. She watched and waited. She was looking at her father when she suddelnly noticed a man creeping up behind him with a sword in his hand. Alauna guessed what the man was trying to do and took off her shawl. She gathered together as many stones as she could in it and ran as fast as she could after her father. She hit the man on the head with the stones wrapped up in the shawl. The man fell down and lay on the ground, unconscious. By now, the battle had ended. Her father was so proud.
But while this was happening, her beloved brooch had fallen off and been trampled into the earth. As she put back her shawl back on she noticed it was gone. She felt sad but her father reminded her that she had just saved his life. She had lost something but saved someone!
Hundreds of years later, a group from the Roman Museum were searching in the fields behind the Museum. The Romans were long gone. Suddenly one of the searchers cried out ‘I’ve found something.’ They carefully dug up the little brooch and put it in the Museum, in a glass cabinet. It was catalogued and even written about. But little did they know that it had belonged to a young girl called Alauna who had saved her Roman father.
Lucy Smith