Outer Neolithic ditch

If you like your ditches Neolithic but not continuous, this one's for you: Andrew Powell, whose photo this is, thought this view of the outer segmented Neolithic ditch was possibly from 1972: Prof Dixon thought it might be 1974 or 1973 and then came down in favour of 1973. Cheltenham dimly in the distance.

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."

Andrew Powell muses ...

Professor Dixon illuminates this 1973 shot of Andrew Powell's: "the area to the south of the entrance. The square cut into the bank is cutting AIV of 1969, reopened in 1973."

Andrew himself says: "All this nostalgia gets me to reminiscing. Your blog says over 3000 people have dug at Crickley and while I am sure there is something about the Crickley Hill experience that most of us share - a common feeling about the place, the archaeology, the people, particularly Phil, even about the Ullenwood ablutions, I am also certain that each person has a different story to tell about what that experience meant.

When I first went to Crickley, for two weeks in 1971 (I think), I had just left school and was planning to study Scots law. This was my first experience of archaeology, and each subsequent summer while at university I came back to Crickley, where I met the likes of Ferris, Phillpotts, Boden, Roberts and many others, all of whom seemed to be having much more fun studying archaeology than I was, studying law. 

It slowly dawned on me that I was on the wrong career path, and after graduating I finally decided that a legal career was not for me (much to the relief I think of the Edinburgh solicitors who had offered me an apprenticeship – given my sober and respectable appearance at the time). 

However, with help and advice from Phil, including a very complimentary “To whom it may concern” reference (that I still have), I first got my first professional job in archaeology digging in Glasgow, and eventually a place at university to study archaeology. So Crickley was literally a life-changing experience for me – thanks to which I am a now highly remunerated, fat-cat archaeologist, rather than just another impoverished Scottish lawyer. Ho hum.

Has anyone mentioned the 1972 Fisher-Spassky World Chess Championship, which I remember being followed with great interest at Ullenwood? I recall there were a number of quite good chess players there; I was not one of them but I got quite interested. Or, a few years later, the group who, incomprehensibly (to many of us), would play Dungeons and Dragons every evening rather than amble down to the Air Balloon for a quick half of shandy."

May I apologise to Andrew for the delay in posting his amusing observations: he sent this note to me some weeks ago, but the after-effects of the general anaesthetic caused me to suffer from temporary amnesia?

There was no "Collated" button on the Savage Gestetner duplicating machine ...

In these days of image scanning and digital printing one forgets that it is only a very few years since the time when there was no easy simple and quick method of duplication: photocopiers did not exist, let alone digital photocopiers.  For an account of the history of duplicating machines, see here or a linked list of duplicating processes, here. 

Nowadays, no-one thinks anything of pressing a few buttons to specify number of copies, single-sided, double-sided, collated and stapled.  People even get slightly exasperated at having to feed the copier with paper, toner and staples.  Press the button, and off to the pub while the print run chugs through.

Well, it wasn't always like that, as Dr Ferris recalls:

"Crickley Hill Man has recently posted some excellent abstracts of information from one of the interim reports on the excavations put out in the early 1970s. I recall that during the 1973 season Richard Savage asked for volunteers to assist in collating and stapling one of the runs of interim reports one evening at Ullenwood - probably the 1972 interim you have been abstracting. A number of us volunteered for this task, not realising quite how long it would take and that we would be missing out on the chance of even last orders in the Air Balloon. 

Richard had the individual printed sheets laid out in huge piles on tables in the lecture room at the end of the mess hall and we had to move around the table picking up single sheets in page number order until we had a full report for passing to Richard for stapling, and then we had to start our circling route again and again and again and again until the hundreds of sheets had been totally cleared off the tabletops. It took about four hours and we were each rewarded with a free copy of the bound report. This struck me as really exciting at the time and I didn't regret missing out on all those undrunk pints of GL cider. So maybe Crickley Hill Man's copy of the interim when dusted for fingerprints will reveal the imprint of the Ferris dabs or those of Dave Butler who I think also volunteered for this Herculean task."

The report was available at the time from Richard at a cost of 25p plus 5p postage.  If we ignore the postage, a free copy of the report meant that Iain and Dave were remunerated in kind at the equivalent of a princely rate of 5¼ pence per hour.  Or slightly more than a 1973 first class postcard stamp, which was then 3½ pence.  Luxury beyond the dreams of avarice.  

Happy New Year!