What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?

The blue lias cliffs near Whitby in North East Yorkshire are full of fossils. The cliffs are very crumbly and made of a grey clay peppered with rocks and stones and things like Whitby Jet (fossilised Monkey Puzzle Tree).

One year we were on holiday and decided to walk along the pebbly beach. But parts of the cliffs had crumbled following winter storms and the debris was about 10 foot high and had fallen in large piles onto the stone and rock below.

On the first pile slightly embedded in the clay was a large rock about a12 to 18 inches across. It was roughly the size of a large quarter of a pie, and on its surface was the ribbed outline of a large ammonite.

We hid it under a bush and headed along the beach over the temporary headlands of clay. Walking up and over the landslips we managed to go about half a mile when we decided to climb up onto the coastal path because the tide was coming in!

I was quite scared, I’m not a climber, and as I looked down into the cracked surface I could see down into the interior of the material. Some cracks went all the way down to the beach. But I slowly got up the the top and then we walked back.

We found the ammonite again undisturbed. I took it home. I have other fossils but this is my favourite.