An historical uncertainty from the Ferris archive ...

"In reply to Crickley Hill Man's elsan-based brain teaser I can only reply 'I'm not sure.' Exposure to the blue chemicals in my formative years may in fact have addled my brain. The Elsan Song was also performed on the Institute of Archaeology's West Heath Common training dig in 1974 or 1975 but whether it arrived there via Crickley or at Crickley via West Heath I don't know. You may recall that there was an Institute student contingent at Crickley from roughly 1974-1978 (at various times myself, Jeff Beech, John Boden, Simon Mercer, Louisa Gidney, Robert Roberts and Sara Roberts) who also had another fine musical number sung to the tune of 'Four and Twenty Virgins'-'Four and twenty diggers came down from Gordon Square and when the dig was over they wondered who'd been there' etc. It was from this comic meisterwerk that the lines of 'sniffer Boden he was there and he was getting paid for brandishing his Pentax and leaning on his spade', already quoted on your blog, originated."