Friday, October 31, 2008

The 7 August 2004 post-picnic hill tour


Two of mine from the 7 August 2004 reunion, less elegantly arranged than Phil's which is here

Top, L to R: Terry Courtney, Phil Dixon, Ros Cleal, Paul Noakes, Jim Irvine, Nick Snashall, Malcolm White and Chris Phillpotts's hand. 

Bottom, L to R: Paul Noakes, Malcolm White, Terry Courtney, Mike Sims, Unknown (who's that bending over in front of Mike examining a plant?) Jim Irvine, Chris Phillpotts, John Gale, Ros Cleal, Pauline Dumbrill, Lucy Loveridge, Joanne Vaughan's left arm and leg, Don Mickley's left knee, Corky Gregory.

Views from the hill taken the same day are here.
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Not Crickley, but a good castle never goes amiss ...


Modest prize at the reunion next year (I'll buy you a drink!) for the first Crickley person to identify this castle which I visited a couple of years ago on a tour of 17 cathedrals, 3 abbeys and 6 castles ... Update: ... and the winner, only 16 hours and 3 minutes after the question was posed, is a Professor Philip Dixon ... whose entry reads: Beaumaris .... 1293-9 .... !
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Sunday Lunch ...


A peaceful scene of rest. L to R: Phil Dixon, Terry Courtney, Rowena Dutton, Dave Southwood and Anna Collinge's left elbow. Beneath "Information"  it says "Crickley Hill Postcards 5p each" and "Illustrated Guide to the Site 50p each".  When I originally posted this I thought it was in 1980, but I'd failed to examine the back of the photo on which I'd actually written "CH79 Aug", which is a bit of a clue...
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Dr Ferris & I hope not to hear from your solicitor ...

Dr Ferris chides: "I hope Crickley Hill Man can excuse my constant pedantry, but I think the recently-posted photo of Becky and Mike is from 1977.
 
Mike, a very pleasant chap and a very good digger I recall, was also known as 'The Bolton Wanderer', for no other reason than he hailed from Bolton. Other good Crickley nicknames, or at least ones that Crickley Hill Man can print without fear of prosecution, were 'Biggles' (Dave Southwood), 'Mike the Whale' (already referred to on your site), 'The Tipton Slasher' (not Robert Roberts, but another Tipton digger named after the famous local pugilist) and, best and most obtuse of all, 'Training' who came from, I think, Derby but first appeared wearing a sweatshirt with TRAINING written across the chest. I don't think I ever knew his real name but he was amenable enough to be generally referred to by everyone as 'Training' and indeed enjoyed almost minor celebrity status because of this. You already have posted a photo of 'Training' on the blog.
 
Becky Spencer, really Carole Ann Spencer, came from Skipton and was at Crickley in 1976 and 1977. She went on to study archaeology at Cardiff, I think. She was a very charismatic character who in 1976 had had the opportunity to see many of the early Punk bands play in the north and in that respect was very much ahead of the rest of us in knowing what was going on musically at the time, probably with the exception of Simon Mercer." 

Thursday, October 30, 2008

From summer 1976 ...

Iain's memory of the Sports Day posted here caused me to find this photo of Becky Spencer, with whom in the wheelbarrow he won the race. Here she is with Mike Gething, both happily pausing from their labours for a minute. The Neolithic ditch and bank is in the background behind them.

The speck of foliage visible on the right hand side of the picture is, I think, on a hornbeam in the shadow of which I put a trowel in the ground for the very first time under the kindly eye of Simon Mercer. On my second day I found what I now know to be a perfect flint arrowhead. I wasn't completely sure what it was so I showed it to a man I was sure knew more about these things than I did, Mr Robert Roberts.

The Son of Tipton's reply went like this "******* Hell! You ******* lucky *******! I've been digging for ******* years and I've never ******* found one of those.  You jammy ***! You turn up like the ******* fairy on the top of the ******* Christmas tree, put your brand new ******* trowel in the ****** ground ******* once and ******* pull that out! Why did I ******* give you that ******* strip to dig?"

I could tell he was pleased that I'd found the arrowhead.  My vocabulary grew by the hour.  I was pleased I'd found it too - I've never found another one!
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Athleticism recalled by the Sage of Selly Oak ...

Dr Ferris emails: "Now that the Beijing Olympics are but a distant memory and London 2012 a matter of future concern only, perhaps it is time for Crickley Hill Man to enshrine on his blog the sporting achievements of those Crickley diggers who took part in the Sports Days held on the hill in, I think, 1974-1976 during an extended lunchbreak on each occasion. The events I can remember were welly wanging* (throwing a rather unsavoury old wellington boot the longest distance), shovel stropping** (hurling a piece of limestone off a shovel using a technique similar to throwing the hammer in terms of spinning around before releasing the stone, again achieving distance being the aim), the ranging rod javelin and, most gruelling of all, the wheelbarrow race.

The wheelbarrow race set off from in front of the finds hut and involved a barrower racing up from there to the rampart entrance, turning there around an upturned bucket and then racing back. It sounds simple, but each barrow contained a digger who had to hang on for grim life and distribute their weight from side to side as if on a bobsleigh run. In 1976 I won the barrow race with Becky Spencer riding in the barrow, but it was a close-run thing with Robert Roberts and his partner whom I cannot now recall. (Update from Iain: Robert Roberts's partner in the 1976 Sports Day barrow race was Angie - one of Phil's archaeology students from Nottingham for whom Robert carried the flame of love that season, I now recall).   About fifteen metres from the finishing post my legs started to buckle at the knees and I almost lost control of the barrow but somehow managed to steady myself and cross the finishing line. Heaven knows what health and safety implications such a 'sports day' would have now in this age of dangerous conkers."

* I have done some research on welly wanging or wellie whanging - there seems no definitive spelling-: here's an entertaining BBC piece about a mechanical welly wanging machine that can hurl several boots 80 metres!

** Shovel stropping seems to be a term we invented and applied to this activity: research on the web reveals the following interesting piece on how to coal a Royal Navy ship, should you ever need to organise it, or how to strop a razor, but nothing sensible connecting shovels with stropping.  The technique Iain describes obviously informed John Boden's and my endeavours to clear the cuttings of cowpats described in an earlier post here.

For those who have forgotten what the wheelbarrows were like, here's Jane Dineen examining one (and probably not thinking about volunteering to ride in it in the race!) in about 1980 while JP sets off toward the finds hut.



A sad sight and then a sadder one ...


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The gradual decline and demolition of Ullenwood can be seen here: (© English Heritage.NMR) thanks again to English Heritage for the top picture from Michael Hesketh-Roberts's July 1999 "Cold War project" series. The dining hall and kitchen block are still just about standing but becoming gradually shabbier and more derelict. The last coat of paint was a rather splendid blue.

Bottom picture taken by Phil on the day of the 2004 reunion about five years later towards the end of the demolition: the remains of the kitchen step are shown: you can see the same bricks at the corner. A few weeks ago, I posted a different perspective taken by me on the same day in 2004
here.

The 2004 reunion ...

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Phil has very kindly sent me this one from four years ago: L to R: Don Mickley, Mike Sims, Malcom White, Nick Snashall, Jim Irvine, Ros Cleal, Julian Parker, Pauline Dumbrill, Joanne Vaughan, Lucy Loveridge, Terry Courtney, Corky Gregory, Paul Noakes, Julie Gale, John Gale, Chris Phillpotts. If you click on the photo you'll get an enlarged version for closer inspection. A careful examination of Dr Phillpotts will reveal that he is carrying a length of hosepipe in the hope that there might be a brief reunion of the Below Average White Band ...

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Party evening 1979 again ...


Top, Corky Gregory facing camera, Kathleen Scott walking away from camera, bottom, Marion Barter and Gill Drury just outside Dormitory no 3. I'm pretty sure that this was the same day as these photos and these were taken of the Dorm 4 party. 
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Dr Ferris writes ...

I enjoyed Crickley Hill Man's recent elegaic posting about his most recent visit to the Hill. I too have experienced similar feelings of tremendous and transcendent well-being when visiting Crickley on a number of occasions in the past few years with parties of students. Can one die from an overdose of nostalgia of this kind or would Crickley Hill Man recommend that I seek professional medical advice? (Seek psychological help, Iain - Ed. But keep on taking the hills)
  
Crickley Hill Man's recent mention of Cold Slad made me recall that when I first came to dig at Crickley I was told that this was the village of Slad featured in Laurie Lee's 'Cider With Rosie'. It was only in 2002 or so that I learned that this was not the case and that Laurie Lee's Slad was in fact close to Stroud, though still in Gloucestershire. I wonder if Crickley Hill Man or any of his dedicated readers have laboured under this same misapprehension? (Like you, I was misled into believing that Cold Slad was the Laurie Lee one - you just disabused me of the notion.)
  
I note in Dave Butler's recent posting on Crickley Hill Man's blog that he had not remembered the names of the three cooks he referred to as having done the dig catering. I recall that 'the Chinese cook' was Aileen (or Eileen), while the 'two Geordie cooks' were Ken and Dave who did the catering two seasons' running.  (Ken Fussell is now in South Africa here)

Dr Phillpotts recalls Tony being the cook in about 1972.

Friday, October 24, 2008

News from Dr Phillpotts ...

Dr Phillpotts and family are on a visit: he tells me having seen the post about the mortuary trolley here two fascinating things: first that there was a hut opposite the front gate in the barley field that was called the mortuary because it had slabs in it (though he personally never saw them). Secondly that he remembers Fachtna McAvoy being ferried down to the Air Balloon in a wheelchair acquired from one of the other huts in about 1975! Dr Phillpotts also alleged that he used to dig catseyes out of the road with his trowel, but that was presumably on the way back from the Air Balloon. 

Steve Vaughan writes: "re: "The Mortuary" - one afternoon Joanne and I spent time with Mike Cuttell who has an excellent collection of photos of Ullenwood when he first took it over. His view, based on testimony from returning GIs was that what we described as The Mortuary was in fact the VD ward. How apt ..."

The huts near the top at Ullenwood


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© English Heritage.NMR. More huts and more long grass. I have a vague recollection of these 
huts sporadically in use as "married quarters" but I'm not sure if I've imagined that. Luxury, no doubt. There may even have been running water...

From the July 1999 Michael Hesketh-Roberts "Cold War project" series for English Heritage
National Monuments Record.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Lunch 1977


Another sunny lunch break: Corky Gregory, Kate Gilbert, Ros Cleal and just behind her Jo Bacon. The hill was so dry that very hot summer that the grass just all turned to straw. There was a forest fire just a short distance from Ullenwood that year and we all scrambled to put it out. Water was not the only liquid that was used to quench the flames... Update: think I'm wrong about the year of this photo: not the scorching year of 1976 but actually from 1977. 
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Monday, October 20, 2008

Crickley & Credenhill: I've been both faithful & unfaithful last weekend ...

Posts non-existent in the last few days as I have been away in Herefordshire visiting friends. I've been carrying out the important role of Roman sentry/centurion, being attacked regularly by Celtic spies. During the course of my duties I died several times on the astonishing oval rampart, round the whole of which you can walk, at Credenhill. I cannot recommend a visit enough.  Jonathan (10) and Holly (very nearly 6) had a splendid time constructing Celtic ambushes on the top of the rampart: their mother and I carried out heroically incompetent defensive patrols!  The cleverness of the digital camera means that our rolling about was captured for posterity on film.  All blissfully fun. 

But in the wrong hillfort.

Wishing to be "wright and wromantic" as opposed to "rong and repulsive", I thought, as I drove home, that I should stop by a certain hill.  The Volvo got to the Air Balloon and guided itself left towards the top of the hill as opposed to straight ahead towards Oxford and London. 

Between 3.45 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. this afternoon Crickley was heartbreakingly beautiful, even in the pouring rain.  Visibility north was between 10 and 20 miles maximum, depending on the wind and the rain, down over Cold Slad towards Shurdington.   I met 4 other people on the hill set for Shurdington but was otherwise alone.  Visibility was good towards Barrow Wake. 

The leaves are all on the turn: the rosehips are a beautiful bright red and the hawthorn berries dark.  A few sloes.  The Long Mound has many more thistles at the eastern end as opposed to the western, I suspect because the turf shrank all those years ago and we returfed west to east.

I did something I've never done before and drove back down towards Gloucester and into and through Cold Slad: sitting quietly below the quarries looking up at the top of the hill.  As I write now, I remember Flt. Lt. Southwood, so many years ago, in late July 1976, playing "The Last Post" on a scaffolding pole in the quarry  for Sir Mortimer Wheeler, with a platoon of diggers standing to attention. 

Very peaceful and beautiful even on a rainy day.  Reluctantly, I turned for home. 

Friday, October 17, 2008

1980 from top of the photographic tower

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A rather inexpert photo of a well excavated posthole - very good definition round the top of the hole! As the seasons went by the photographic tower became harder and harder to assemble as its members went slightly out of true and proved difficult to fit into their appointed sockets. JP and I spent a while hammering and bending various pieces straight on odd occasions. Think this is probably Cutting O7 in 1980.

Half a posthole: F4264 Crickley Hill 1980

 
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Posthole F4264 exactly half dug during the 1980 season. It's easy to see from the undug section why it was not too difficult to spot the feature because of the obvious differentiation of the fill from the surrounding surface. The upended packing stones round the edge of the fill as compared to the flat jigsaw of the surrounding rock are the giveaway.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Lunchtime 1980

Anna Collinge and Jane Dineen enjoy their sandwiches one beautiful day during the 1980 season. What they were eating is probably discussed in this recent post on sandwiches.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The serving range and the sink at Ullenwood

© English Heritage.NMR. Another from Michael Hesketh-Roberts' series fom July 1999. 
Roof doesn't look too good and I can't see any bowls of banana custard or any fish cakes.
Dr Ferris comments: "I had assumed that the photograph of the wrecked kitchen at Ullenwood was taken shortly after the inevitable and terrible gastric explosion suffered by Crickley Hill Man following his extraordinary eating exploits recently chronicled on his site. Or is my memory simply playing tricks on me again?"

Monday, October 13, 2008

Marvellous light from the North as we look from the South ...


© English Heritage.NMR. Wingham Collection: Sqdn. Ldr. Harold Wingham had a very steady hand on the shutter and a fine camera: the definition is remarkable. The Long Mound is clear, running, on the left side of the photo, to the west, from the quarry pits (slightly below and to the left of the centre of the photograph), just above, and not quite parallel to, the line of the drystone wall. (Try punctuating that sentence, at this time of night, after three glasses of vino). The Neolithic bank runs north east, from the junction of the quarry pits and the Long Mound; the Iron Age rampart shows up quite beautifully on the right, in an arc from south to north, or vice versa, depending upon the direction from which you begin. This is the kind of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put.  Churchill fans, please click on the link.
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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Another "Cold War project" photo from July 1999


© English Heritage.NMR Thanks as ever to English Heritage for this view of Ullenwood from the gate straight up towards the back of the site (Lofty's house and the mess hall and the other parts where we spent nearly all our time are out of sight to the right). From the "Cold War project" series taken by Michael Hesketh-Roberts.
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A Tale of Youthful Excess ...

Dr Ferris has persuaded me to give an account of a somewhat excessive day in my then youthful existence. At the end of the 1978 season the excavation of the eastern end of the long mound was incomplete.  It was decided to place layers of plastic sheeting over the excavated surface, backfill the cutting and re-turf the area with a view to reopening the cutting following year.  

At the beginning of the 1979 season the spoil that had been used to backfill the part-excavated cutting needed to be removed.  The crew that set themselves to this task, which was hard physical labour, consisted of myself, Robert Roberts, and John Boden. Even though the backfilled spoil had only been there for a year, it was quite compacted by its own weight: Mr Roberts, being a bit of a beast with an entrenching tool, volunteered to hack and wrench up the compacted rocks.  Mr Boden, being something of a specialist in using as well as leaning on spades, (and a shovel being close enough to a spade for him) volunteered to do the shovelling.  That left the small matter of removing the dirt in wheelbarrows.  That fell to me.  

For inexplicable reasons now lost in the mists of time, we decided that the 1979 spoil heap should be sited at least 50 yards away from the cutting which we were digging out. Up hill. On the top of the slope above the long mound. 

Well, we got going.  Robert dug like a maniac, John shovelled like a lunatic and I ran up and down the hill with wheelbarrows.  We did that, without cease, all morning.  The sweat ran in rivers off our brows and backs.  After a while, we appropriated our own jerry can of water since there was no way we could keep going at that pace without keeping the fluid levels high.  The work went well. Somebody mentioned that the previous record on the site for the number of wheelbarrows emptied in a day by one person was about 50.  I thought I'd go for it: the conditions would never be better for breaking the record.  In normal circumstances, the output from the diggers is nothing like enough to create the need for a large number of wheelbarrows to be emptied during the course of the day. We weren't stopping to look for finds or record anything because we did not need to: it was simply a labouring job.

To help increase the output we recruited another man whose name escapes me to help with the shovelling.  I was using a line of four wheelbarrows and as fast as Robert could tear it up, John and this other fellow were hurling it into the barrows.  It was a magnificent exhibition of shovelling spoil.  It takes a great deal of strength and skill to hurl a shovelful of rocks 10 or 12 feet into a wheelbarrow placing it with such accuracy that it does not bounce out the other side onto the ground.

I took a brief breather where I can remember standing with my hands on my knees, panting with my head down, watching a continuous stream of sweat run on to the ground. The barrowing record went by lunchtime: we just carried on and on and on until by six o'clock I'd pushed 136 wheelbarrows full of spoil up that hill. We worked out that there was probably getting on for 2 hundredweight of rock in every wheelbarrow and that the weight of spoil we had shifted was between 12 and 15 tons.

Job done.  But it is prone to make a chap peckish.  After we'd got back to Ullenwood a spot of refuelling was needed.  I was on form and so, thank heavens, were the cooks.  I ate, in rapid succession, and to the consternation of those present ("Keep your hands away from his mouth!"), 4 bowls of vegetable soup, 23 pieces of liver, a dozen rashers of bacon, 8 or 10 potatoes.  I then raided the kitchen directly and sucked down 5 pints of banana custard out of an enormous bowl. I seem to recall a mild protest about the last bit from the cooks: they appeared to have other intentions for the bowl of banana custard, but it probably wasn't sensible to get in my way at that point and so they retreated.

Plainly, after you've eaten, you're thirsty.  A trip to the Air Balloon was therefore in order. I acknowledge that it may have been a slightly odd thing to do (given that I hadn't yet had a drink), to decide to put Mr Robert Roberts on my shoulders and carry him to the pub, but I'd just had a fair amount to eat, so there was still some strength left for just such a task. It's about a mile from Ullenwood to the Air Balloon, so that was fun and I was even thirstier on arrival.  A swift 6 pints of cider was followed by the trip back to camp, this time carrying Mrs Roberts on my shoulders, she being rather lighter than her husband. I'd given him a lift to the pub so it only seemed fair that she should have the lift home!  

I don't think I could do all that now and live, but it was highly entertaining then.  I slept for 10 hours... Happy days! 

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Sandwich update ...

Dr Phillpotts's note on the sandwiches: "As I recall the leftovers from the cooked breakfast could also be used for sandwich fillings at some periods. Sausage sandwiches were relatively popular; cold bacon perhaps less so. Sometimes the accounting in the sandwich manufacturing division was a little too tight, or failed to account for new arrivals, resulting in a shortage and emergency dashes back to Ullenwood for more supplies."

Dave Butler writes: "All I can remember of the lunchtime sandwiches was you could have any combination of cheese and branston pickle. Also, I seem to recall a Chinese cook one year who became a good friend and two Geordie chefs and an end of dig party that got slightly out of hand and cars were covered in eggs!! Savage got me to clean the camp and de-louse all the mattresses AGAIN! Afterwards, the pig farm smelt like roses. I believe that was the exceptional summer of '76 when we all melted."  Ah yes the sweet smell of the pig manure when spread across the fields...

Tea break 1979 ...


Another contribution from Bernie Dawson: identifications with assistance from Dr Phillpotts L to R: ?, ?, Corky Gregory, Paul Noakes, Rowena Dutton, Terry Courtney, Dave Southwood, Anna Collinge, Arwel Barrett, Randel Motkin, Mike Taylor, Frank Green, Ken Collier?, Clive Anderson?, Ros Cleal, Marion Barter, Julian Parker, and others.
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Life at Ullenwood 5: doing the chores ...

Every morning four people did not go to site but were kept at camp for the course of the morning to do the chores.  

The chores for a hundred people take a reasonable amount of  effort and were extensive: 

washing up after breakfast;
making the sandwiches for lunch;
vegetable prep for the chefs: ceaseless mountains of potato peelings (Crickley diggers will remember that we had to pay £10 a week for food);
cleaning the mess hall;
sweeping the dormitories;
beating the mattresses which were horribly dusty; 
washing the basins showers and lavatories; and
sweeping the ablutions block. 

It is sobering to think in these days where en suite bathrooms are commonplace, not just in hotels but in private houses, that between more than 100 of us we shared (I think!) 7 basins, 5 lavatories and 2 showers.  

I do recall a two day period, I think in 1979 when the drains blocked a long way down Greenway Lane, the gradient of which is minimal, which mean that occasional obstructions did occur. I assisted in the rodding out of the drain and it took a couple of hundred feet of rods screwed together before we managed to clear the blockage. 

In the meantime, we could not even use the ablutions blocks which lead to me and Flt. Lt. Southwood throwing buckets of cold water straight from the standpipe outside Lofty's house over one another and anyone else who was up for this rather spartan form of washing.  Needs must but I'm not sure I'd be up for such a bracing method these days.

A number of us of both sexes were engaged in this activity when Richard Savage arrived knowing that some parents were about to heave into view delivering, with some hesitation their 17 year old daughter to Ullenwood. For reasons that I can't begin to understand Richard thought that a clutch of naked, semi-naked, wet and muddy diggers might not give quite the impression that we wished to project to the parents: so he bundled about six of into the back of the Landrover and threw a tarpaulin over us while he greeted the 17 year old and her parents and welcomed them to Ullenwood, showed them round and assured them that no harm would come to her.  I don't think they noticed the shaking of the Landrover as a motley pile of wet diggers suppressed their giggles.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Life at Ullenwood 4: the lunchtime sandwiches ...

The sandwiches for 100+ people take surprisingly little time to make if you set up a production line. One person armed with stacks of sliced brown bread, stacks of sliced white, and margarine spreads the margarine at great speed onto the bread before passing slices down the line to the 2 people on filling duty. They or a 4th person would then cut diagonally, wrap, stack and pack the sandwiches into the large plastic crates in which the bread was supplied, ready for transport up to site. The ration was two rounds plus a piece of fruit, usually oranges, apples or bananas, (presumably chosen for being self contained and easily portable fruits).

Sandwich fillings that I could initially recollect included:

Egg mayonnaise.  Cheese.  Peanut butter and marmalade.  Ham and tomato.  Cheese and tomato.  Banana.  Cheese and Branston pickle.  Ham.  Peanut butter and marmite.  Egg mayonnaise and tomato.  Ham and mustard.   Peanut butter and strawberry or raspberry jam (or jelly as our Americans called it).  Ham and cucumber.  Cheese and onion.  Egg mayonnaise and cucumber.  Strawberry or raspberry jam.  Ham and Branston pickle.  Banana and strawberry or raspberry jam. Rarer combinations included: Cheese and cucumber. Banana and peanut butter.  

I knew there were more but could not think of them and so I consulted Iain Ferris whose reply wittily read:

"Crickley Hill Man has obviously not benefitted from the increased brain and memory power brought about by the regular ingestion of Omega 3-containing oily fish, otherwise he would have remembered the sardine and chopped onion and tuna mayonnaise sandwiches." 

I'm grateful to Iain for jogging my memory: I've never been that fond of sardines or tuna in a sandwich, for some reason I can't quite recall, which may have resulted in a not-virtuous circle of self-fulfilling amnesia ...

That results in further choices: Tuna mayonnaise.  Sardine/Onion.  Tuna mayonnaise and tomato.  Sardine/Onion and cucumber. Tuna mayonnaise and cucumber. Sardine/Onion and tomato.  

So 26 combinations, at least, from 13 or so pretty basic ingredients (tuna, sardine, egg, mayonnaise, cheese, onion, tomato, peanut butter, jam, marmalade, ham, mustard and cucumber)...  

It was the Americans who asked that peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter and banana became part of the mix: this struck some of the natives as rather an odd combination which simply shows how backward and conservative we were with our sandwich fillings in Gloucestershire in the late 1970s. 

I became rather fond of the peanut butter and marmalade combination.  I did not then realise that I was being educated in a culinary tradition that was capable of producing the deep fried peanut butter & banana sandwich.   But then again Scotland, it is alleged, is the inventor of the deep fried Mars bar... here or here

P.S. I spell-checked this post before publication and am delighted to tell you that the Google Blogger dictionary queried "Branston" and suggested "Brownstone" or "Brainstorm" as possible alternatives!

Jim Irvine writes: "And both of you have forgotten my particular favourite - seldom seen though it was.  And that was the cold, leftover from breakfast bacon or sausage sandwich. Yum Yum!"

How could I have forgotten the sausages - I was very adept at splitting a sausage in two lengthways to make a sandwich!  

I've also just remembered that there was a phase where a big jar of Branston pickle was kept up on site and it acted as a serious wasp attractor: they absolutely loved it and were hard to fend off.

Crickley Hill 1980 looking across the cutting towards Barrow Wake ...


The end of the 1980 season went at a very fast pace as we rushed to finish the cuttings on the National Trust side of the fence. Here Ros Cleal and Jo Bacon plan against the clock, with the planning frames propped up on buckets. The frames are 2 metres square steel strung every 20 centimetres. Wearing the boiler suit in the foreground is Robert Roberts: is that Lucy Loveridge in the headscarf behind Ros?
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Saturday, October 4, 2008

Life at Ullenwood 3: breakfast

Excavating a hillfort can be hard physical labour and a good breakfast was essential fuelling for the work that lay ahead.  Some exceptionally peckish (or greedy) people even occasionally went for three courses at breakfast. The menu varied little: the first would be a bowl of cornflakes with milk and sugar.  Then came the cooked second course: sausages, bacon, fried or poached or scrambled eggs, plum tomatoes, baked beans, and, very occasionally, mushrooms.  Any remaining hunger could be assuaged with bread or toast, brown or white, accompanied by marmalade or jam from catering tins. All washed down with tea, coffee, milk or water swigged from ancient mugs, both plastic and china, and duralex glasses. The metal sinks and drainers would ring with plates and cutlery being stacked for later washing up by the chores team.

Thus fortified it was time to get up to site.  The usual method was a lift in Lofty's bus with "Swanbrook Coaches" emblazoned on the side. He'd signal imminent departure by shattering the peace of the morning with a long blast on the horn. This was the cue for last-minute-bolting- down-of-breakfast followed by a mad scramble to get on the coach. 

Sometimes Lofty's horn would be the wake-up call that dragged a few exhausted or hungover diggers from their slumbers and you would see the odd unhappy face contorted with the effort of finishing getting dressed while running for the bus. Experienced practitioners could incorporate a spin through the mess hall swiping a couple of slices of bread and marmalade into the dash for the bus. The less practised went hungry.  

In the early years there were relatively few people who had cars, so anyone who missed Lofty's bus had to throw themselves on the mercy of a car owner or have a half hour walk and be late for site.  PWD used often to take pity on a straggler or two and give them a lift in whichever van or Landrover he had at the time.

Steve Vaughan writes: "Far be it from me to contradict Crickley Hill Man, but this posting fails to bring out the key point of Ullenwood breakfast - it was back-to-front. For those who had not gone to bed unreasonably early, getting-up was delayed to the last possible moment. This meant that, to guarantee cooked breakfast, one joined the queue for that first. Cereal then followed. Fishcakes and baked beans was always my selection.... "

Contradictions abound in this world: surely my memory is at fault - I had overlooked and indeed cannot remember the fishcakes, which is strange as I am rather fond of fishcakes? Perhaps I was better at getting up than Steve as I have no memory of reverse order breakfasts or maybe I put all of mine in one bowl to save washing up?  Ugh... then again maybe not ...

Friday, October 3, 2008

The long grass can rarely have looked more attractive ...

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© English Heritage.NMR - thanks again to EH National Monuments Record for this verdant shot of the huts up to the left as you came into Ullenwood camp. From the series taken by Michael Hesketh-Roberts as part of the "Cold War project" in July 1999.  The long grass, inevitably, leads me to recall Richard Savage's periodic impassioned public appeals in the evenings after supper to the female diggers entreating them, at Lofty's behest, not to leave their contraceptive pills in the long grass. Lofty's fear was always alleged to be that the foxes would find the pills and eat them and then there would be no more fox cubs and that would be a sad thing.  Not sure about the science there.