Feeding time

This murky photo from Anna Behan's collection (though not taken by her as she's in the picture herself) is the only one C-H-M has seen that shows the assembled multitude eating supper. Dr Ferris says it reminds him of the prisoners' meal scene in 'The Shawshank Redemption' ...

Discernible in the gloom are Julie Ann Souter, Mandy Hatherly, Anna, Training, Arwel Barrett and John Parry.

Dr Ferris has been inspired by yesterday's post to make the following observations: "It was good to see a photo of diggers drinking in the Imperial Beer Gardens in Cheltenham on the blog. I have already waxed lyrical on Crickley Hill Man's blog about days' off in Cheltenham and so won't go on too much more about the delights of this urban oasis; however, your picture brought to mind one extended lunchtime's drinking at the IBG, possibly in 1975, that was memorable for the appearance at the diggers' table of the improbably-named Sarah Goodnight, a model-tall, elegant and willowy American from one of the southern States. Spying us from the Promenade and coming over to say hello she surveyed the drinks table, groaning with empties and crowded with new pints, and the over-animated, dissolute diggers and asked 'Y'all jist sittin around here all day gittin drunk?', to which all happily replied 'yes'. Sarah then made her excuses and left. I just couldn't drink like that at lunchtimes nowadays; perhaps that's a good thing."

I don't think that Cheltenham Borough Council will thank you for calling them the Imperial Beer Gardens, Dr F ... binge drinking, broken Britain, mumble mumble, splutter ...

Cutting AXV, 1979: that ditch

This 1979 compilation of Phillpotts photographs has a slightly "morning after the night before" feel to it doubtless caused by the out of focus photography. Many of the usual suspects here and there including Pete, John Parry, Mike Taylor, Dick Potts, Zoya Spivakowska, Mark Spivakowski, Training, Rachel, Dmitri, Elsa Charlot, Julian Parker and Mandy Hatherly.

1979: the strain starts to show

Another collage from Dr Phillpotts's 1979 photographs: F3351 was clearly beginning to take its toll as you can tell from the look on my face as I come back down towards it with a wheelbarrow. Dr Cleal looks as though she's just been knocked out. On the right-hand side of the collage Matthew Wilkinson looks a bit cheerier, whilst at the bottom Randall Motkin chases a frisbee. At the top in the middle Marian Barter scratches her head with Matthew Garner and Dave nearby. At the bottom in the middle many people slave away in the bottom of the Iron Age ditch on cutting AXV, including Mike Taylor, Training, Gill, Pete, Zoya Spivakowska, Elsa Charlot, Mandy Hatherly and me.

Well it did get a bit messy at times ...

I have hesitated for some months, agonising about the advisability of posting this photograph: it shows, late one night at Ullenwood, why you might be chary about letting your child go and dig at Crickley Hill.  Left to right, Crickley Hill Man engaged in that evening's entry for a gurning competition, Mike Taylor, downing what was doubtless a bottle of GL cider or possibly some Newcastle Brown ale, Dr Phillpotts, serenading him with a kazoo, whilst accompanied by Mandy Hatherly and Randell Motkin.  The names have not been altered to protect the innocent.

Dr Ferris writes "I was shocked to discover, on close inspection, that this recently-posted photo of late-night carousing on Crickley Hill Man's blog was not in fact a still from Mickey Rourke's excellent film 'Barfly', as I had first thought, but rather a depiction of some sordid scene from Crickley Hill Man's dissolute youth. CHM, the gurning Charles Bukowski-type character in the forefront of the revels, and his inebriated cohorts had evidently failed to pay heed to Richard Savage's annual pep-talk about the dangers of drugs, drink and adders and were now paying the price. Perhaps it was the next day that Crickley Hill Man fell asleep in a posthole, as he has recounted elsewhere on the blog?"   Quite possibly so, Iain, but lost in the mists of time ...

Margi Hatherly at CH79

 Back to 1979: here by the camp wire at Ullenwood is Margi Hatherly, one of two sisters from Auckland in New Zealand who both dug at Crickley that year.  I haven't yet heard from the Kiwi contingent ...