THOSE who know me well will appreciate it when I say that I have a keen interest in financial matters. Too keen, John thinks. This interest is limited by purely domestic boundaries; a brief flutter on the stock market in the '80s resulting in burnt fingers and a determination not to let anyone else handle any savings I may have accrued again. I save small change, probably contributing to the national shortage of one pence and two pence coins, and have even tried aiming for the new two-pound coin. That particular piggy bank has been raided so many times, however, that it resembles not so much a piggy bank as a sausage machine.

John's interest in coinage is limited to the odd coin that he digs up, or that comes to the surface when ploughing, and is usually discovered when he is in the field at a later date crop-walking. He has a tin of coins or tokens from the Middle Ages, through Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian times, and a jar full of silver sixpences, three penny bits and other 20th century coinage. We often consult our local museum service or various books on coins. It is fascinating to think of all the farmers and peasants that have been on the land we think of as 'ours'. A lot of old coins turn up near a seven-acre wood in the middle of our fields. It is at the crossing point of a bridle path and a right of way. I keep hoping that rather than the odd coin, John might find a bag of silver concealed from highway robbers, or even by them. John's mum Rose is always telling him that he ploughs too deeply, but he is hoping that it may pay rich dividends one day and turn up an ancient leather sack bursting with silver or pieces of eight.

Now I must admit to a passion for trivia, information and following up on an area of interest. For example, I have recently read 'The Song of Troy' by Colleen McCullough. After finishing the book, a history of the Trojan war told through the main characters, Helen, Achilles, Hector, Priam etc, I could not wait to get out the encyclopaedias and find out more about all these long-dead heroes and warriors. And villainesses. Especially Helen - the strumpet. So when John brings a coin home and we have gone through our books and made an initial identification, I tend to read on and bore the whole family to death with fascinating titbits of information.

Several months ago, after identifying a sliver of copper as a chewed-up half penny coin that had lost out to a power harrow, I was flicking though our coinage books whilst listening to the Brain of Britain quiz on the radio. They invited listeners to send in a couple of questions to try and beat the team. So I did. And I have. And I've got the book token to prove it.

"There's no getting away from it," John said with deepest irony. "I always knew you were a clever beggar." Half an hour after receiving my letter, I was completely stumped by the task of having to reverse a corn trailer under the shed to get it out of the rain as quickly as possible. No point in waiting days for the weather to clear up and the moisture content in the corn to drop, only to have it rained on when it is in the trailer. Viewing my desperate attempts to work out which way to turn the wheel to get the trailer to go in the opposite direction, John fell about laughing. "That's a good one for your team to answer," he said. "Ask them to tell you what to do to get that trailer to go where you want it."

I feel another book token coming on.

Updated: 10:42 Wednesday, September 04, 2002