Fossils are the imprinted remains of ancient creatures, forgotten about by the world, hidden in rocks under our feet.
My name is Mary Anning, and just as fossils are forgotten for many years, so too was I.
As a child I walked the seafront with my father and brother to find what we then called curiosities.
My father taught us how to patiently and carefully free these strange things from the rock.
We were very poor, so we sold what we found to people on the beach.
One customer, Elizabeth Philpot, knew so much more about my curiosities than me, so she gave me a book to help me study them.
From these books I discovered that my 'curiosities' were actually fossils; ancient creatures whose bodies were imprinted in what would become stone.
This brought to life the seafront and the cliffs that we searched with my father.
But, when my father died, we were left to search by ourselves.
One day we saw something different.
With patience and care, history began to reveal itself before my eyes.
Elizabeth brought a scientist from London who proclaimed "all science will be amazed”.
It was, and I found more amazing fossils as I grew older.
Men of science would visit, listen to my ideas, look at my finds, but most of their books never mentioned me.
What I found helped change the way humans think about the world.
But, because I am a woman, and because I am poor, I didn’t get the credit for my discoveries.
Over the years, men and women slowly became more equal, and I became celebrated as one of the greatest fossil hunters that ever lived.
