Telling stories on the barrow

Dr Cleal, hearing C-H-M's appeal for more material, has emerged from hiding, blinking into the light and very kindly sent C-H-M this picture. She writes "... at some time in the 80s, I think after your time but I may be wrong, we started going to sit on the top of Crippets long barrow in the field next to Ullenwood, usually after we'd been to the pub (strange, that). This is an occasion in 1984 and the protaganists are from left front clockwise : I'm afraid unknown (or forgotten on my part), Julian Thomas (now Professor Thomas, University of Manchester), Clive Anderson, Nicky Snashall, Clare Milroy, Julie Lancley, Simon (help - have temporarily forgotten his surname) [Figg? Ed.], self, Dave Southwood (Biggles). We certainly did this on more than one occasion and I've since looked up Crippets in the 1920s volume on Gloucestershire long barrows by the well known field archaeologist O.G.S.Crawford in which he notes that there is evidence of some antiquarian activity - well, we should have recognised that, as we were sitting with our feet in the remains of the 'dig' - but I'm not sure that did occur to us (except perhaps to Julian!). If you're putting stuff on line you can mention that Nicky (usually 'Nick' now) and I now work for the National Trust at Avebury where we recreate, as far as is possible, the ambience of the CH finds and planning huts - all we lack is Corky to keep us in order."

To which Dr Ferris muses: "Oh, the youth of today thinking they invented everything-the jet engine, alcohol, cyber-sex, the wireless, pot noodles, sitting on Crippets barrow at night etc. I remember some splendid late night, GL-fuelled,ghost-story-telling sessions on the barrow in 1976 and 1978, the latter being my opportunity to reveal my strange experience with the ghost of a miner encountered in County Durham. And I wasn't making it up." How much GL had you had when you met the miner?

Excerpt from 1975

From the Boden studio, 1975. Andrew Powell, planning as ever, has spotted JB, Pentax in hand, whilst Clive Anderson faces away from the camera in the check shirt. Others unknown to C-H-M.

Crickley crew 1990

Fiona Wilkes sends this 1990 photo: "back row L to R: Beth, Alex, Guy, Neil & Emma; front row L to R: Sarah, Cilla Wild and Abigail Anderson. Alex used to visit Crickley with his 2 mates Neil and Guy and they all travelled down from Newcastle."

Perfect colour co-ordination

Mr Boden brandished his Pentax one day in 1975 and took this shot of Alice Pandrich and Clive Anderson in deeply colour-co-ordinated conversation during the 1975 season. Alice is probably wondering what's going on behind the shades ... I have suspicion that the man behind Clive whose left leg and arm can be seen may well be Andrew Powell.

Back to 1972 ...

A peaceful scene from 1972 on Clive Anderson's cutting, kindly supplied by Lydia Savage. This must have been exactly the phase when the large postholes for the Iron Age longhouses and roundhouses were emerging. Let's hope the digger sitting on the edge of the cutting wasn't as miserable as her hunched outline suggests. This picture is looking southeast towards the southern section of the Iron Age rampart.

One Thursday in 1985 ...

A day off in Cheltenham: this looks like a beautiful sunny day in the Imperial Gardens somewhere adjacent to the beer tent: amongst others, Corky Gregory, Rick Cleal, John Parry, Clive Anderson, Kate Heathcott and Ken Collier. Photo: Dr Phillpotts.

The 1990 team

Fiona Wilkes (formerly Sharpe) who dug at Crickley between 1989 and 1993 has kindly sent some photos: this is lunchtime or tea break on the hill when the Long Mound was being dug. The people from L-R are: back row Beth, Alex, Guy, Fiona herself, Neil, Emma. Front Row Sarah Ely, Perdita Chamberlain and Abi Anderson. It has the date 1990 written on the back.

Bernie's voyage of self-discovery ...

Whilst on the subject of cranial protection, or the lack thereof, Bernie Dawson writes: "C-H-M has managed to produce an exhaustive blog that pretty much captures most of the events that happened at Crickley Hill over the years. [How kind of you to say so, Bernie - there's a tale or two yet to come ...] However there is one important omission which you will forgive my indulgence if I attempt to rectify. I refer of course to the complete lack of risk assessment for activities that were undertaken on the hilltop. Circa 1980 to 81 -- I am not sure what year it actually happened, as I have since attempted to obliterate it from my memory, I was delegated to work with Mike the Whale in dismantling the observation tower.

You will remember of course that the observation tower was a series of scaffolding poles, or similar, culminating in a platform of horizontal planks upon which our esteemed leader would spend hours taking the occasional photo and musing over perceived patterns of wear in the limestone below (my take on that was always ‘differential trowelling’, but I digress). On the said occasion, Mike the Whale was removing the planks and handing them down to me. I would then take the plank and lay it on the ground before looking upwards to receive the next one. I had taken two or three planks when suddenly I felt a thud on the top of my head, coincident with a cry of ‘Bernie’ from above, closely followed by what I think was a comment along the lines of ‘oh sh*t’. As the plank impacted on my cranium, I collapsed onto the grass and felt a warm liquid trickling round my neck. Poor old Mike had accidentally let go a plank which had then made a beeline for my head below. I was clearly very lucky that it hadn't been a few inches further back or it would have hit my neck with possibly much more serious consequences. A quick dash to the local hospital courtesy of I think Mr. Anderson, resulted in four stitches for said cranium. Apparently young Mr. Courtney that night informed a distraught Mike that the news from the hospital was not good, and that I was unlikely to return.

Return I did however, to spend the next four or five days washing and classifying finds. I still bear the evidence to this day and the dent serves occasionally to remind me just how lucky I was. Nowadays of course there is no such thing as an accident and a risk assessment for the activity would have resulted in the wearing of hard hats. When I see Phil Harding on Time Team wearing such a hat in a cutting just a few centimetres deep it does make me laugh, little does he know the real dangers on a dig!"

I take the liberty of showing Bernie before the accident, a photo-reconstruction just after the moment of impact, and now, when the full effects have become clear ...

1975: Clive Anderson's cutting

The Boden archive produces this 1975 view of Clive Anderson's cutting, with L to R, ?, Martine (who was Belgian), Dave Southwood, two lads from Gloucester whose names escape JB, and Clive himself. Flight Lieutenant Southwood, as he then was, is sporting a plastic Roman soldier's helmet. As you do.

A 1985 medley

From the 1985 season, clockwise from the top left, Clive Anderson, Bob Hopegood, Katie Gold with David Griffiths behind her to the left, Ken Collier, Ken again and Bob again and finally Julian Thomas on his cutting that year dubbed 'Slot City'.

I know quite a number of readers like to download the photos which I publish: there are a handful of photos which have only been posted as part of a collage. If you would like a copy of any of the original component photos, please let me know by e-mail (link on the left approx 6th item down) and I'll send them to you.

Alice Pandrich in the kitchen at Ullenwood

This shot from Andrew Powell's album earned him gentle e-mail reproaches from Dr Ferris and Professor Dixon for his thinking that this might be one of the cooks: it is "the wonderful Alice Pandrich" who was "not a cook but a supervisor, who supervised in 1972 and 1973, and then dug at Guildford as co director with Humphrey Wood, and at Woolwich." Examination of this webpage from Greenwich Council reveals, in the annual reports and proceedings of the Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society 1958-1981 Vol. XXXII-XXXVII, "Excavations near Woolwich Old Ferry Approach; the 17th century kilns and later structures. By Alice Pandrich." I also spot "Excavations at the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich: a summary report. By Terry Courtney."

Dr Ferris writes "I am delighted to see the photo of Alice Pandrich on Crickley Hill Man's blog. Alice was the first supervisor I worked for at Crickley in 1972 and she taught me a great deal about the archaeology of the hill. When I arrived, rumour in the dorm had it that Alice had a trophy cabinet full of young men's underpants at home, hopefully not grollies as previously mentioned in another post, but I'm sure this was just a rural, rather than urban, myth.

Alice was supervising at Crickley again in 1973 and certainly again in 1974, as she recruited a lot of Crickley diggers to go and work afterwards on the site she was directing at Old Ferry Approach, Woolwich in London, mentioned on the blog by Crickley Hill Man. At different times in Woolwich, from Crickley, there was myself, Jeff Beech, John Boden, the wry and witty Alison Bell, Biggles, Clive Anderson, American Lisa, Paul Noakes, Jenny Tinker, Fachtna McAvoy and Liz organising finds. This was a great site to work on, with incredible evidence for early post-medieval pottery production, and the social life was fairly riotous too. It was at Woolwich that Alice met Vic the architect whom she eventually married.

As Crickley Hill Man knows, field archaeology still is, and generally always has been, somewhat of a male-dominated part of the overall archaeological profession. In the early to mid 1970s there was a notable number of excellent, strong-willed women excavation directors working in British archaeology, of whom Alice was one, alongside, to name but a few I'm sure, Kirsty Rodwell, Christine Collyer, Hazel Wheeler and Pat Losco Bradley."

Pub lore

Ferris on drink: "Given that the Air Balloon was the social centre for the Crickley diggers, it is surprising how little reminiscence there is on Crickley Hill Man's blog about the place. I suppose it's another case of 'if you were really there you won't remember'. Between 1972, my first year at Crickley, and 1983, my last short stay, the Balloon changed out of all recognition: from a small, run-down but homely pub filled with drinking locals to the much larger, day-tripper meal-and-a-dry-white-wine-or-spritzer clientele of today. The original pub was in fact so small that the only way for all the diggers to be accommodated was for most people to stay in the beer garden all evening, even when it was sometimes cold or rainy. The original, outside pub toilets for many years were home to successive families of nesting swallows. Maybe the sole remaining original interior feature today is the curved window seat in the front bar.

One particular visit to the Air Balloon sticks in my mind and followed John Boden and myself borrowing two bicycles from someone at Ullenwood one evening in perhaps 1974 and cycling to visit Great Witcombe Roman villa - we were very much archaeo-nerds at the time. The cycle back was exhausting, on a warm evening, after a hard day's work on the hill, and up that killer of a hill from the direction of Gloucester. When we finally reached the Air Balloon we headed straight for the bar and each had to rapidly order and quickly drink two or three pints of lemonade and lime to rehydrate before we could start on the GL cider. I haven't ridden a bike since.

As John Boden recalls, visits were only ever made to other pubs on very rare occasions, primarily because the Air Balloon was the only pub within walking distance of Ullenwood. On Thursday, as has been mentioned elsewhere on the blog, drinking took place at the Imperial Beer Gardens on Cheltenham Promenade and sometimes on Thursday evenings in The Cotswold in town. An evening visit by car to the White [you mean Golden. Ed.] Heart was, as John recalls, a great treat. I first went there as a passenger in Clive Anderson's splendid red MG sports car-this was in Clive's louche bachelor days-and was much taken with the excellent scrumpy cider and the general rusticity of the place at the time-there was no bar as such, simply barrels of beer and cider on the ground from which customers were served. I expect it's a little grander today."

While we're on Air Balloon memories, do I not recall that there was a very decent governor there in 1976 and 1977 who later fell from grace? I seem to recall he had a fling with one of the diggers (was her name Sandy?) and we all thought he was very nice. Later, it transpired he got bored with the locals one night and lost his job after discharging a shotgun into the ceiling of the pub in an effort to bring a lock-in to an end. This was at a time when the Gloucestershire Police would occasionally lie in wait up the road and look out for car headlights leaving the Balloon at hours later than legitimate and then pounce on the offenders. Hence, I seem to recall being told that they weren't far away and intervened rather swiftly. I think we were told the story when we arrived for the 1978 season and wondered what had happened to the nice bloke who used to run the pub.

I think it's conceivable that I may have attended the odd lock-in myself. Obviously only for the purposes of research, you understand. I think on one or two occasions the police may have joined us for a drink. Surely not? I'm damn sure Chipper joined us for a drink because he more or less lived in the Air Balloon.

It now seems mildly ludicrous, given the ubiquity of the mobile phone, that the Air Balloon porch contained the nearest and only payphone to which 100 plus diggers had access. There was no accessible phone at Ullenwood (though doubtless Lofty had one that could have been called upon by negotiation and in a genuine emergency). If you wanted to make a phone call you had to walk down to the Air Balloon armed with a liberal quantity of 2p pieces.

Many a digger, like me, found out their exam results, hanging on the end of that ancient payphone, desperately hoping the supply 2p bits would last long enough for the phone call home that boded either triumph or disappointment. I remember John Parry kindly bought me a tot or two of Southern Comfort to celebrate my A-level results. At lunchtime on a digging day, as well. What were we thinking, John?

What sort of hole might this be?

Back to 1975 and Mr Boden's activities with his Pentax. His description of this photograph was as follows: "Picture of a hole in limestone which some of the archaeologist types might have referred to as a ditch. Brushing is, I think possibly, Tim Allen (now an archaeologist as seen on TV). I think the blond youth watching was called Anders."

The Franco-Iranian representatives: 1980

Maryam Ghaffari and Elsa Charlot came to Crickley Hill for at least three seasons between 1979 and 1981 and various friends of theirs accompanied them: the main photograph in this collage shows Maryam and Marine with their post holes.  The other shots show Maryam with Clive Anderson in the background, Maryam and Elsa together, with Maryam resting on her friend Arnelle, and Elsa relaxing in Cheltenham and during a tea break.  All these shots come from Dr Phillpotts's 1980 collection.  In the shot of Maryam and Elsa together in the background can be detected Steve Vaughan, Joanne Milroy, Mike Adams and Dan Johnson.

Dr Phillpotts provides an erudite commentary ...

Dr Phillpotts has taken time out from his labours to tie together one or two strands that we might otherwise have missed.

"Really Julian, what's next? Left leg? Right leg? You must remember that you are a Delicate Critter and must take care of yourself. ... I was glad to see that Andrew Powell is sending in his contributions: I see that you have already worked out that no 3 is the CH72 season. The reason that the cutting is so close to the huts is that it was extended up to them to follow the lines of postholes of a 20-post longhouse. The strat was very shallow over the bedrock. I think I remember some of the postholes being hacked out by Cameron Moffet with a catbasher, which she broke. She too now lives in Shropshire.

Further to some other recent posts, the shot of Sylvie was taken up the photographic tower. I was also up the tower when I took the picture of PWD returning from the peeing tree, with a 200m zoom lense. As he heard the shutter click, Phil raised two fingers to me in jocular salute.

I much appreciated the shot of Jill Hummerstone in action on the serving counter, but I wonder if the double drainer metal sink is in fact a 1980s replacement of the original arrangement, which I fancy may have been single, deep and ceramic. Also in the 1980s refurbishment the whole stage and the piano was lost. Does no one have a picture of the mural that was on the back panel of the stage facing the kitchen? It featured King Kong holding Big Ben, and I believe it was painted by Pat Anderson's sisters c1972.

The unreleased Troubled Bridge over Water was from our GG and the Wart Removers phase, when we really were a duo and Andrew Powell was lost in space. It featured an extended cut of Jordanian Woman and our nod to the English pastoral tradition, Walking to Hampton Homosexual. Sadly the master tapes are lost, but perhaps if you can remember what BAWB sounded like, you weren't really in it."

Throwing a shape with a Killaspray

An early entry from the Boden catalogue? Well, Clive Anderson's shirt would have a sporting chance of making the catalogue in the modern era: in fact he is snapped for the Boden collection in 1975, complete with shades, Killaspray and splendid sideburns.  In the distance Andrew Powell trowels quietly away.

Another lunchtime portrait

Another 1980 picture from the Phillpotts collection: Maryam Ghaffari with one last bite of lunch left and behind her, looking as unflappable as ever, Clive Anderson.  I always enjoyed Clive's stories about him and his HM Customs colleagues catching smugglers trying to bring drugs or liquor in through Sheerness: tearing cars apart on the dockside after a tipoff. 

Personality of the Year 1982

The companion photo to last week's Mr Crickley shows Cecile at her moment of accolade as 'Personality of the Year' in 1982. Looking on, L to R, Carole Anderson, Dan Johnson, John Parry, Rhian Locke, Richard Savage, Cecile, Gail Boyle, Mike Taylor as compere, ?, Ambrosio, ?, and Angie.

Happy New Year! Even if it's a trifle chilly ...

Happy New Year to everyone. In London, it's distinctly "wrap-up-well-&-stay-snuggled-with-a-book" weather unless you are one of those hearty types who get a buzz from breaking the ice before going swimming. Which I'm not. Any more. Stood under a Lake District waterfall one New Year's Day - probably 1984 near Buttermere - and it was as startling as you might expect. 

From what I can tell by examining the weather maps of the world, my North American readers may well be shivering as well and the only person who's a regular reader of the blog who's got much of a chance of even some warmth today is probably Jane Lambert (nee Fitt) in Cyprus.  

So to remind us of what a warm day can feel like, here's a 1977 Crickley lunch break view of the Management sheltering from the blazing hot sun.  L to R Toni Webb, Terry Courtney, ? Carole Anderson, Philip Dixon, Robin Hall, ?, ?, Mike Webb in bandana.

Two men and a dumper truck ...

As so often, the end of the season in 1985 was a race against time, against ominous skies, to finish the work. Planning frames everywhere on "Slot City" as Phil Dixon, watched by Clive Anderson, begins the backfilling. Clive is presumably keeping a lookout to make sure that no diggers or tools get accidentally buried. On second thoughts, diggers we can easily get more of, but tools cost money ...