The bucket hut builder

Another Rebecca Chambers shot of the 1988 sequence in which other people watch Steve Vaughan constructing the hut to keep the buckets. John Gale and Joanne Milroy supervise ...

What is Mr Motkin doing to Dr Cleal?

A 1979 assembly by the huts featuring, L to R, C-H-M (lining Anna Behan up through the viewfinder of a camera of a type which he has never owned and does not recognise), Ros Cleal, Marion Barter, Paul Noakes, Randal Motkin, Sarah Roberts and someone I'm not sure I can identify under a broad-brimmed green hat. But the main curiosity of this picture is figuring out what Randal is doing to Ros's footwear. He appears to be checking whether her foot is attached to the rest of her leg by jiggling the toecap of her left boot. I've enlarged the photo to a high magnification and it doesn't look like an optical illusion. But Dr Cleal's withers appear quite unwrung by whatever Randal is up to and she seems to be ignoring it.

Southwood by the huts

Flight Lieutenant Southwood looks characteristically cheery in this 1977 snap taken during a teabreak by Becky Sanderson (Spencer). Who's that sitting next to Terry Courtney in the background?

It was a shed for buckets, honestly, ...

Some time during the 1980s, Arwel Barrett looks on as John Gale, Steve Vaughan and Joanne Milroy construct what I was assured by Rebecca Chambers was a hut to keep buckets in, even if it does look like a privy. Well it actually looks as though Steve and John are building it while Joanne watches, sorry, supervises ...

Westwards into the rain ...

A rather beautiful shot across the hill to the west taken by Lara Unger right at the start of the 1990 season: it must have been the day the lorry was hired as the huts are lying agape unassembled on the hilltop. Rain visible just off the hill to the right.

A cheerful crew

A dumper full of diggers: Sue Bauman (was Lee Jeffs) sent me this shot of Naomi Jackson, Sue, Sonia and Dave Hollos, Kate Gilbert and Mike Taylor (complete with his exceptionally long scarf). The grey dumper truck tells me this comes from the 1980 season.

Lunch break 1972

A solitary figure could not bear to leave the cutting during this lunch break photo taken by Lydia Savage in 1972. The postholes of the Iron Age longhouses are plainly visible in the foreground.

Concerning my post yesterday mentioning Elsie Clifford, Lydia writes: "Mrs Clifford was a star. We used to take tea with her every August and explain the latest findings. She deeply wanted the Birdlip mirror to belong to a noble lady resident on the hill settlement but as you all have realised by now this was an impossibility. Her husband used to give her so many man hours of diggers as a present every so often and off she would go to Bagendon or Hucclecote. The Jane Marple of Archaeology, complete with garden and needlework. Two things which are probably not recorded anywhere on the Web: her ginger cake was unique and wonderful and extremely effective on cold days. Also her birthday was around the same day as mine. Only about half a century before. :) "

The management 1977

During a tea break in summer 1977, L to R: Cameron Moffatt, Terry Courtney, Philip Dixon, Robin Hall, Mike Webb and John Howell. Looks like it was one of the rare chilly days. From Anna Behan's collection.

Lunchtime portrait 3

Denise Gosling and Malc White in a lunchtime pose for Jim Irvine. Jim can't recall quite when this was - I'm guessing it's late 1980s or early 1990s. I bet Malc will remember ... clue in the camera model? Malc's beard length? Denise's shirt?

Malc says: "This would have been around 1990/1991. I remember Denise making the T shirt. I was either digging with MK arch. unit at the time or had just started at Cheltenham hospital. Probably the former as I may well have had shorter hair when I went to work at the hospital."

Wheelbarrow lunch

A 1980 Sunday lunch break. L to R: a wheelbarrow recently vacated by photographer Jane Dineen, Bernie Dawson (with newspaper), Ros Cleal (applying suntan lotion?), Anna Collinge and Melanie Cook (who know Jane's there with her camera), Frank Green, Rowena Dutton, Terry Courtney and Julian Parker (who don't all know she's there.) I look as though I've been decapitated and attached to the finds hut door.

I'm quite sure Jane is correct in identifying this as a Sunday lunchtime as it was the only day of the week when, feeling deprived of news and a good read, someone would whiz into Cheltenham and acquire the Sunday newspapers. We never did that on a weekday, as far as I can recall.

Oops! C-H-M has had an 'early-middle-aged' moment: Jane Dineen points out: "Pickings must be getting slim if you're reduced to repeating photos! [She's right - March 29th - tsk, tsk.] I have dug 1981 out from behind the furniture and will dispatch the few worth scanning (one a corker) as soon as I've excavated the scanner." Ooh, yes please, Jane - use a 4" WHS forged-tang trowel to excavate your scanner - and sorry, team, for the inadvertent duplication ... I'll fire the blog administrator.

The Open Weekend 1980?

From the angle of the shadows it looks as though Anna Behan took this photo during the afternoon teabreak during the Open Weekend in 1980. In the foreground, L to R, Philip, Dixon, Julian Parker, Jim Gale, Jane Dineen, Bernie Dawson. In the background I spy Richard Savage's Volkswagen bus of sainted memory, many grockles, a marquee (doubtless erected for a small exhibition and to provide refreshments to said grockles) a camper van with the roof up and the shelter. Behind the marquee is the hornbeam tree, unless I am mistaken.

Five women and a hut

Another 1982 picture from the Phillpotts archive showing, L to R, Rhian Locke, Gail Boyle, Penny Locke, Nick Snashall and Angie "the Superfinds Person". All looking very happy and cheerful: Nick tells me that Gail these days is Curator of Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bristol Museum. You can hear Gail's interactive tour of Pucklechurch which appears on the BBC website here.

Begin at the beginning ...

This must have been taken on lorry day or thenabouts in 1993 by Lara Unger, as she shows the site huts lying on the ground, just before being put up. On the right of the hut sections can be seen the tops of the blue posts, inserted into the ground to mark the position of the postholes of the Iron Age longhouses.

There were, in the end, 2.3 million-odd finds ...

... but there's only one of these: a photograph, believed, from her own testimony, to date from a season later than 1986, of Corky Gregory, wielding a catbasher, in oilskins, in the rain, dragging spoil into a bucket. "By then I had a full-time job in Plymouth, and so I could only be a weekend archaeologist," says Corky: having first dug at Crickley in 1976, from 1978 to 1986, - a third of the duration of the dig - Corky was the Finds Supervisor: there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of Crickley diggers who remember Corky's supremely calm and organised supervision of that hut. Unflustered charm, suffused with a backbone of meticulous method & rigour which meant that nothing was misplaced [OK, Corky, you can pay me later - Ed.!].Corky absolutely assured me at the reunion this year that this photograph was not posed ...

Tea break 1987

Framed by boots belonging to Steve Vaughan and Simon Bacon, John and Julie Gale look cheery enough in spite of the damp in this 1987 Phillpotts tea break picture. Even the find hut looks soaked through.

But where are the McVitie's Digestives?

Becky Sanderson has remembered something about which I'm entirely sure she's right: the hierarchy of biscuits:

"One bone of contention however was the biscuit selection for break-time on site. The ordinary sappers got Rich Tea whilst the elevated ranks of supervisors and above got Plain Digestives. Now I wouldn't normally get excited over Digestives (unless of the chocolate variety), I'm more of a Custard Cream girl, but, compared to Rich Tea, Digestives seemed like unadulterated luxury. The only way to get an occasional taste was to cosy up to said supervisors which is clearly what I am doing in this photo of me and Iain entitled 'Give us a nibble (of your Digestive!)"

But where's the biscuit? I think Ferris is smugly concealing the digestive somewhere out of sight ... or should that be out of site ...

Becky's quite right about Rich Tea - I wouldn't get out of bed for one of those ...

The happiness that tea can bring ...

A Rebecca Chambers portrait from 1988 of Terry Courtney enjoying a quiet cup of tea in the finds hut ...

Ah, the beds and mattresses ...

My thanks to Dr Griffiths for this heart-warming shot of some beds and mattresses, probably, from the absence of partitions, in the laundry opposite the mess hall. This was used as overspill accommodation when the dormitories and the tents were full. Taken, Griff thinks in 1984 or thereabouts. It brings back that luxurious feel, doesn't it?

Whoops! Misidentification by me of hut: Griff updates:"It was not the laundry but the hut right beside (left of as entering) the gate to [Ullenwood Camp], which was less noticeable as was surrounded by pine trees on 3 sides. The barred windows suggest it was originally used as a guardhouse or cooler but rumours (probably unfounded) persisted that it had been the mortuary of the USAAF hospital. It was an 'overflow' hut, which tended to be occupied once the other huts were full, usually by younger and less socially integrated males. I was in it in my first season in 1982 and also 1983 I think. It was less popular than the others because of its open plan, its generally run down, dark (because of the trees) unappealing and flyblown interior, and its distance from the 'brick shithouse'. There was a toilet cubicle inside the door, but it was a great mistake to use it because the flush was broken and it leaked badly."

There were less socially integrated males, Griff? Surely not?

OK, what are they up to?

Jane Dineen sends this odd 1982 offering. As she says, it looks as though the team are trying to find out how many buckets of rocks it takes to fill a site hut. On display Steve Vaughan, Arwel Barrett and John Parry, amongst others.

Does the clue lie in the padlock and the roof being folded back on itself? I think whoever had the padlock keys must have gone AWOL so the troops, ever keen to dig, took the roof off the toolshed and got their kit out through the resulting aperture. The fact that people are wearing pullovers and jackets indicates it's probably early in the day which is another circumstantial detail in favour of my theory. Anyone remember this episode?

Timing is everything ...

Jane Dineen says she cracks up every time she looks at this photograph. I can't imagine why. Southwood remains aloof from it all doing the crossword as Terry Courtney and Bob Alvey concentrate on Arwel's zoom. Noakesy doesn't look quite so enthralled. But at least the proceedings are screened from innocent eyes.