Taking the baulk back to the bedrock

A 1980 slide from Dr Ferris's collection: when he and I were examining this digitised version a few weeks ago, he said he couldn't initially work out what I was doing - not an unusual conundrum about my behaviour, especially in those days - but then he realised the picture was taken just as I started stripping the baulk back to bedrock. I'm sure he's right: it was a cutting Iain was supervising - N7 - so I'll take his word for it and suggest that I was dutifully doing whatever my esteemed supervisor had asked me to do.  He must have taken this picture not long after I took this one which was posted on the blog in August.  

The trousers that I am sporting I, alas, no longer possess: a pair of cavalry dress trousers that were acquired in the Cheltenham Oxfam shop for a trifling sum. I think it was the red stripe down the sides that made them simply irresistible as digging regalia.  I'm also wearing a waistcoat from the same source. At the corner of the cutting, just above the pit that was F3833, Jane Fitt records some finds.  Phil's photographic paraphernalia, I seemed to recall, were kept in the box sitting by the wheelbarrow.

A much coveted oolitic limestone trophy ...

Dr Phillpotts's 1980 caption reads: "Julian Parker looks on as John Parry presents the piece of limestone to Mike Taylor as Personality of the Year".  Hmm... well I suppose it made sense to make trophies out of limestone, as it wasn't exactly in short supply.   

There are some details in this shot that bring back certain memories.  Not only do I still appear to have some hair to go with the beard in this photograph, but I am wearing evening dress: the wing collar and the bow-tie can just about be made out.  I now recall buying the dinner jacket, and other necessary items, at the Cheltenham Oxfam Shop.  I rather think I was accompanied by Jane Dineen or Ros Cleal, or both, on this particular shopping expedition. We swapped a pair of trousers, that were obviously far too big for me, from one hanger, which bore a jacket that fitted me, for the trousers belonging to an entirely different suit, which had a jacket that was far too small for me.  The resulting ensemble, plus dress shirt and bow-tie was acquired for £5.  I can only hope that a strangely-shaped customer with narrow shoulders, pigeon chest and an enormous waist came along and bought the curious combination dinner suit that was left behind after this feat of leger-de-main.

Mike Taylor, even indoors, is wearing his astonishingly long knitted scarf, a better view of which, on site, is to be found in the top photo here.  Mr Parry, meanwhile, is sporting a black shirt with extravagant cuffs and pearl buttons gleaming in the dim light.  I expect it was one of those evenings when John, with a broad grin, verging on a leer, had announced "I'm going to make myself pretty!".

Behind us is the ill-fated and long-suffering Ullenwood piano. Its debilitated state is hinted at by one or two keys that lie depressed unable to spring back into position.  The piano sustained ever greater damage down the years and, I see, from examining Dr Phillpotts's definitive history of the Below Average White Band, that it never featured as an instrument after the 1980 season.

But what I really want to know is why there are two bottles of GL cider, on top of the piano, conjoined by a pair of underpants or knickers, which bears what looks suspiciously like a representation of Donald Duck on the front ...

The Lardy Cake of Cheltenham recalled ...

Dr Ferris reminisces: "Crickley Hill man's memories of days off in Cheltenham fail to include obligatory trips to the Oxfam shop looking for what we now must call vintage clothes, though this does get a mention elsewhere on the blog, the bakers in Montpellier for excellent lardy cake and, best of all, hours of browsing in Alan Hancox's secondhand bookshop at the end of the Promenade. I learned recently that Alan Hancox was a very good friend of Colin Wilson and provided the great man with many obscure books on the paranormal to aid his increasingly esoteric research in the 1970s and 1980s. Another day-off staple for those who stayed in town for the evening as well was to go drinking in The Cotswold pub - still there but a shadow of its former self. Incidentally, the Sandwich Box moved location some years ago, and when I went there in 2006 I spoke to a lady who remembered the Crickley diggers fondly." I will see if I can find my grandmother's recipe for lardy cake, but I expect, given its ingredients, that I'll be committing an offence if I publish it.

Dr Ferris writes ...

I have received the following appetiser from Dr Ferris, edited slightly before publication to protect the innocent: "... I have two excellent pictures that would enhance Crickley Hill Man's current gallery ... but they are colour slides- do you have the wherewithall to deal with these? [Not yet: Ed - but it sounds as though finding the technology might prove worth our while, as I bet these aren't the only slides Iain's got] One shows a young Parker digging, resplendent in collarless white shirt, black waistcoat and dark serge army trousers with red material strip down the outer legs. Given our absurd obsession with novel clothing during one or two of the seasons it's a wonder we ever found time to fit in some digging. The other slide, again notable for its sartorial eccentricity, shows Phil driving a dumper truck while dressed in a brown velvet or corduroy suit - had he caught the dressing-up bug as well? ... last Saturday was most enjoyable: it would be good to see more diggers in 2009- hopefully your blog will bring them in." Let's hope you're right - I will liaise with Iain to see how we can get these (and other) slides into an electronic edition. PS: I recall that the cavalry trousers were acquired for a very modest sum from the Cheltenham Oxfam shop. In those days, it was a splendid place to acquire dinner jackets and parts of dress uniforms, probably because, as the retired military officers who lived in Cheltenham died, their widows and housekeepers sent their clothes to the Oxfam shop.