Antics on a dumper truck

C-H-M wishes all his readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy & Prosperous New Year and thanks all those who have contributed to the Crickley blog during the course of the year. Send me more photos, please!

The Christmas Special features three pictures of many of the usual suspects taken by Anna Behan (Collinge) during the 1979 season. It was obviously a slow day on the hill as we found time to devise a sketch involving the dumper truck to demonstrate various principles underlying Health and Safety at work.

Picture 1 shows Messrs Courtney and Noakes at the controls of the dumper truck, with Flight Lieutenant Southwood posing at the back. C-H-M is in the bucket of the dumper which is tipping forwards ... there is someone as yet unidentifiable lurking under C-H-M's rear.

Picture 2, taken a few seconds later from further back, reveals that Mark Spivakowski is also with me in the bucket of the dumper truck, which turns out to have a plank propped on the end of the bucket leading to an Iron Age rampart. As you do. On the plank (obviously) are Mr Bernard Dawson pushing a wheelbarrow and behind him Sarah. The person lurking behind C-H-M turns out to be Mike Taylor.

Picture 3 includes John Parry as well as the previously identified miscreants, and isn't posed at all ...

The Health & Safety Executive would be proud of us. I'm glad my mother never saw these photos, I think, but they have a suitably festive feeling about them and we were obviously having a ball. Until Anna produced these photos I had absolutely no recollection of this episode at all ...

Ritual sacrifice ...

Mark Spivakowski looks on as the Chronicler assaults the Great Whale with a catbasher. Perhaps Dr Phillpotts had not understood that normal religious practice does not involve endeavours to assassinate the deity. Is this the only known photographic evidence of Dr Phillpotts wielding an entrenching tool?

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.

From Bernard Dawson: line gang removing rocks from the ditch, cutting AXV, 1979

Another splendid shot, this time of the team removing large bits of rock from the bottom of the ditch on the outer side of the rampart in 1979. Bernie Dawson sent the photo and Dr Phillpotts identified far more people than Bernie and I did: L to R on the baulk: Malcolm White, ?, ?, Ken Collier, ?, Julie Fissenden, ?, ?, Paul Noakes, ?, ?, Julian Parker. In the ditch: Terry Courtney, ?, ?, Elsa Charlot, Gill Drury, ?, ?, Zoya Spivakovska, Mark Spivakovsky (in hat), ?, Dmitri, ?, Pete, ?, Penny Locke, ?, Training (blue top at right), Mike Taylor in the background.

What a cheerful crew...

Following a tipoff from Dr Ferris, I'm delighted to have found Bernard Dawson again: he's still teaching but now in North London rather than Coventry. Bernie has sent me the above gem from his 1979 archive with a challenge to name the guilty parties. So here goes: back row, L to R, Mark Spivakowski [update from Dr Phillpotts: it's not Mark, it's Dmitri whose surname escapes both of us] , Terry Courtney, Julian Parker, Bernard Dawson, David Southwood, middle row L to R, Training (sorry I can't remember your real name but I do recall that this was how you were known), the Skeleton clad in Randel Motkin's jacket, John Parry, Randel Motkin, Mike Taylor, front row, L to R, David Hole, Zoya Spivakowska, Ros Cleal and Anna Collinge. Hope I've correctly spelled all the names. Why is RM clasping a large slab of limestone? Can anyone help answer that connundrum? Was it the Personality of the Year award or some such oddity? That rings a very faint bell. It looks as though the Skeleton is also wearing trousers as I can detect a hand that appears to be holding them up.

Update from Iain: "Yes it was the investiture of the Crickley Hill 'Personality of the Year', with all nominees on stage together. The 'PotY' competition was, I recall an idea of mine probably after one too many Gold Label ciders at the Air Balloon, which was surprisingly taken up enthusiastically by all present. The inspired idea for the actual award being a lump of limestone came from Dave Southwood, I think. What I cannot remember is what on earth was the significance of the piece of paper that 'Training' is holding in his hands and what had brought about Randel Motkin's 'thousand yard stare'. I don't know if this competition was held in subsequent years."

Cutting AXV Rear August 79 ...

Left to right: Terry Courtney, Philip Dixon, Mark Spivakovski, Paul Noakes, Sarah Stevens, Nina Stoyan, Richard Potts, Mike Taylor and Anna Collinge.