Matt Ballantine (@ballantine70.bsky.social)

Matt Ballantine So with a book launch on the immediate horizon, I’ve started to create a series of short video stories that illustrate some of the themes we explore in Random. This one is about the Suffolk town of Dunwich. I’ve know about the story for years, as my mum was brought up a bit further north in the Lowestoft suburb of Pakefield. We would have a trip up the A12 at least a few times a year. As a kid I once found an obviously ancient metal pin on the beach at Dunwich. At the time dad worked for the University of London at Birkbeck College, just around the corner from the British Museum. So one lunchtime in a school holiday he and I went to the museum to get the pin examined by an expert. The expert’s judgement? It was a shroud pin. So whilst not an actual bone, probably other detritus from the graveyard gently crumbling into the sea. The Dunwich story isn’t directly covered in Random, but stories of both survivorship bias and also the randomness of weather patterns most certainly are. You can pre-order a copy at securityblendbooks.com https://substack.com/profile/90626942-matt-ballantine/note/c-240576247