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?

Max Glaskin & the Irvines in 1977

Jim and Kath Irvine pictured here by Becky Spencer (now Sanderson) in 1977 with Max Glaskin as the prime mover in making a hat appear to levitate in thin air above their heads. In the background C-H-M thinks he recognises the purple-adorned door of the lorry that was hired that year from Brockworth for transporting huts and tools between the hill and Ullenwood. Its presence means this picture was taken either right at the beginning, or more likely, I suspect right at the end of the digging season. Update from Max: "More likely the start because I don't think I was there at the end. Mind you, it's easy to forget minutiae after a gap of something like 32 years, 5 months, 11 days and 19 hours."

That long hot summer in 1976

Summer 1976 featured an exceptionally long heatwave with the daily temperature over 90 for weeks on end: the ground was tinder-dry and there was a fire in the woods behind Ullenwood. You can see how parched the top of the hill became in this shot of Arwell Barrett, sporting his famous beret, and Jeff pictured that year by Becky Sanderson (Spencer).

Cooks and diggers

Today's snap is a 1976 Becky Sanderson (Spencer as was) shot of cooks and diggers at Ullenwood: L to R, Arwel Barrett avec beard, Ken Fussell, Simon Mercer, Sandy and Dave who was Ken's fellow cook.

This brings C-H-M to the culinary tip of the week. Dr Ferris asked for one that might not involve eating industrial quantities of poached eggs. Mindful that Dr Mrs Dr Ferris, a.k.a Dr Lynne Bevan, is a keen fan of fish as well as being lithics and small finds specialist, there are two fish related tips this week. First, don't eat fish in a restaurant on Monday. Fishing boats tend not to go out on the weekend and fish served on Monday has probably been around for a day or two. Second, when preparing mackerel for cooking, trim off the fins but leave on the dorsal fin. When the fish is perfectly cooked the dorsal fin will easily come off when gently pulled so it's a good way of telling it's done. Oh and put enough sugar in to make the gooseberry sauce not too tart.

One Man and his Motor ...

When C-H-M was a very small boy his favourite car was the Ford Anglia: I think it was the styling at the back that appealed. No other car had quite that shape. The Anglia, according to Wikipedia , was manufactured, in various models, between 1939 and 1967. So C-H-M was delighted to receive this photo of Dave Butler, looking dead cool, leaning in a proprietorial manner on his Ford Anglia at Ullenwood, taken by Becky Sanderson (Spencer) one evening in 1976. Even then the car was at least 9 and it could have been as old as 17 (as this model was first built in 1959) - almost old enough to merit a finds card.

Dr Ferris dips his madeleine in his tisane and writes: "I am delighted to see that Crickley Hill Man has now posted Becky's photo of Dave Butler (Dave Parr) on his blog: I first saw this excellent picture at the reunion in July. Unless I'm mistaken, 1976 was Dave's last year at Crickley, having been present each year since the early 1970s, and being particularly famed for his party dj-ing. For some curious reason John Parry always used to refer to Dave, even to his face, as 'the hippy', even though, as you can see in the photo, he was not hippylike at all.
After I finished at university I went on what was then called 'the digging circuit', an all-year-round series of excavations on which the peripatetic could obtain paid digging work. Having worked in the west country for five months, in February 1977 I moved to Nottingham to work for the Trent Valley Archaeological Rescue Committee (TVARC) and was delighted to find that Dave was by then working there. The diggers lived in Brewhouse Yard, just under the bluff on which Nottingham Castle stands, and drank each night in the excellent pub 'The Trip to Jerusalem'. I stayed with TVARC until April that year; Dave had already moved on by then and I didn't encounter him again until the reunion on July 4th."

Crickley Hill Man, by a coincidence of Koestlerian proportions, paid a visit to 'The Trip to Jerusalem' a few years ago whilst spending a few days attending Nottingham Crown Court in the pursuit of some felons and ne'er-do-wells who had defrauded the general public. Still a decent establishment then.

The man himself writes: "Ta for the heads-up C-H-M. Unfortunately, I had to scrap the car in 1978 after I had a run in with a farmer whilst working on a Roman Villa at Long Bennington (I was still with the Trent Valley Rescue Group). I believe I drove the car with 8 other drunken diggers in the back from the Air Balloon one evening (the Anglia was built like a light tank!!). I now drive a modest Ford Ka but I can still get a ton out of it easy. [Surely you mean "I find, on occasions, that, with encouragement, my current vehicle will nearly attain the National Speed Limit"? Ed.] It was so great to see my old digging mates again in July but I wish I could have spent more time reminiscing with them. I didn't get to talk much to you all but it was nice to chat to 'hippy' John(?) and my old mate Iain Ferris. We must all do this again in 2010."

We will, we will ...

Mani puliti

Dr Ferris is on a retrospective cleanliness jag: "The recently-posted photo on the blog of Crickley Hill Man emptying the contents of someone else's bladders was worringly juxtaposed with a photo of a teabreak scene. Can Crickley Hill Man reassure his perhaps more sensitive readers that he thoroughly washed his hands after his Elsan exertions and before he began dunking and eating his rich-tea biscuits?

On the subject of teabreak differentials in biscuit provision, it may upset Becky to learn after all these years that Corky was not averse to sometimes slipping the supervisors a gingernut or two, on pain of death should they divulge the existence of these spicy treats to the blissfully-unaware, rich-tea-dunking, mass of diggers."

I would like to reassure Iain that I have a clear recollection of regularly washing my hands using the water straight out of the jerry-cans. I also managed to blag my way onto a diet of digestives, but I can't recall being favoured with gingernuts ...

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 ...

During the 2009 site tour after the picnic

During the picnic PWD took us on a site tour. This Dumycz shot captures just over 40 of the 60-plus who attended, grouped on the National Trust side of the hill. Apologies if I miss anyone in the following list: Jane Dineen, Ros Cleal, Marion Barter, Paul Noakes, Philip Dixon, Terry Courtney, Andrew Powell, Anna Behan, Chris Phillpotts, Nick Snashall, Bernie Dawson, Corky Gregory, Les Capon, Malcolm White, Alan Ford, Richard Ozanne, Rebecca Chambers, Jill Hummerstone, Emma Turner, Dave Foster, Penny Hart, Steve and Joanne Vaughan, John Parry, Julie-Ann Morrison, Penny Hart, Kate Dumycz, Lydia Savage, John Boden, Iain Ferris, Richard and Becky Sanderson, Lucy Loveridge, Dave Butler, Miriam Vallely and Mike Sims. Phew - who did I miss? PWD finished the site tour with a call "Back to drinking!"

On Simon Mercer's cutting in 1976

I think Becky Spencer must have been in the Girl Guides when she was little:  because here she is prepared for every form of weather possibility.  She is wearing a bikini but she's also got a green jumper tied round her waist, as well as gloves and a very fetching floppy hat.  You weren't going to catch this young woman out if it rained or if it shone.  I can't remember the name of the lad with a headband -- I don't know if Becky can help?  He is demonstrating a digging technique which I'd forgotten about, namely the excavation of a feature, probably a post-hole, whilst lying on one's front protected by a piece of foam rubber. I'd forgotten about the bits of foam rubber but they used to be quite keenly sought after because they made digging whilst prone much more comfortable for entirely obvious reasons.  I have a hunch that the left upper arm visible on the right of the photograph belongs to Mike Gething.

At last: a Definitive History of the Below Average White Band

Dr Phillpotts performed manfully (should that be tunefully or rhythmically?) in all bar one of the manifestations of the United Kingdom's most cacophonous and curiously talented band. He also lovingly recorded the identities of his fellow band members and the instruments they "played". This historical chart was originally created by Dr Phillpotts, with no little difficulty, in Word: I've reworked it in Powerpoint in order to get the whole history onto a single frightening page. It is perhaps too ambitious to write a commentary on all known performances of the band in a single post, so having published tonight the BAWB's DNA, I call upon other fellow band members to assist me in recalling its more memorable moments. Click on the image to get a larger and more legible version ...

The definitive list of instruments is: piano, kettle, hosepipe, guitar, percussion, clarinet, bottles, spoons, toys, dustbin lids, various parts of Mr Bernard Dawson too numerous to list separately, kazoo, recorder, harmonica, teapot, jug, cider jars, voice, short and long scaffold pipes, water tubs, furniture van, plumbing pipes, tin bowl, plastic bowl, kitchen scales, cups and anglepoise lamps.

Dr Ferris & I hope not to hear from your solicitor ...

Dr Ferris chides: "I hope Crickley Hill Man can excuse my constant pedantry, but I think the recently-posted photo of Becky and Mike is from 1977.

 

Mike, a very pleasant chap and a very good digger I recall, was also known as 'The Bolton Wanderer', for no other reason than he hailed from Bolton. Other good Crickley nicknames, or at least ones that Crickley Hill Man can print without fear of prosecution, were 'Biggles' (Dave Southwood), 'Mike the Whale' (already referred to on your site), 'The Tipton Slasher' (not Robert Roberts, but another Tipton digger named after the famous local pugilist) and, best and most obtuse of all, 'Training' who came from, I think, Derby but first appeared wearing a sweatshirt with TRAINING written across the chest. I don't think I ever knew his real name but he was amenable enough to be generally referred to by everyone as 'Training' and indeed enjoyed almost minor celebrity status because of this. You already have posted a photo of 'Training' on the blog.

 

Becky Spencer, really Carole Ann Spencer, came from Skipton and was at Crickley in 1976 and 1977. She went on to study archaeology at Cardiff, I think. She was a very charismatic character who in 1976 had had the opportunity to see many of the early Punk bands play in the north and in that respect was very much ahead of the rest of us in knowing what was going on musically at the time, probably with the exception of Simon Mercer." 

From summer 1976 ...

Iain's memory of the Sports Day posted here caused me to find this photo of Becky Spencer, with whom in the wheelbarrow he won the race. Here she is with Mike Gething, both happily pausing from their labours for a minute. The Neolithic ditch and bank is in the background behind them.

The speck of foliage visible on the right hand side of the picture is, I think, on a hornbeam in the shadow of which I put a trowel in the ground for the very first time under the kindly eye of Simon Mercer. On my second day I found what I now know to be a perfect flint arrowhead. I wasn't completely sure what it was so I showed it to a man I was sure knew more about these things than I did, Mr Robert Roberts.

The Son of Tipton's reply went like this "******* Hell! You ******* lucky *******! I've been digging for ******* years and I've never ******* found one of those.  You jammy ***! You turn up like the ******* fairy on the top of the ******* Christmas tree, put your brand new ******* trowel in the ****** ground ******* once and ******* pull that out! Why did I ******* give you that ******* strip to dig?"

I could tell he was pleased that I'd found the arrowhead.  My vocabulary grew by the hour.  I was pleased I'd found it too - I've never found another one!

Athleticism recalled by the Sage of Selly Oak ...

Dr Ferris emails: "Now that the Beijing Olympics are but a distant memory and London 2012 a matter of future concern only, perhaps it is time for Crickley Hill Man to enshrine on his blog the sporting achievements of those Crickley diggers who took part in the Sports Days held on the hill in, I think, 1974-1976 during an extended lunchbreak on each occasion. The events I can remember were welly wanging* (throwing a rather unsavoury old wellington boot the longest distance), shovel stropping** (hurling a piece of limestone off a shovel using a technique similar to throwing the hammer in terms of spinning around before releasing the stone, again achieving distance being the aim), the ranging rod javelin and, most gruelling of all, the wheelbarrow race.

The wheelbarrow race set off from in front of the finds hut and involved a barrower racing up from there to the rampart entrance, turning there around an upturned bucket and then racing back. It sounds simple, but each barrow contained a digger who had to hang on for grim life and distribute their weight from side to side as if on a bobsleigh run. In 1976 I won the barrow race with Becky Spencer riding in the barrow, but it was a close-run thing with Robert Roberts and his partner whom I cannot now recall. (Update from Iain: Robert Roberts's partner in the 1976 Sports Day barrow race was Angie - one of Phil's archaeology students from Nottingham for whom Robert carried the flame of love that season, I now recall).   About fifteen metres from the finishing post my legs started to buckle at the knees and I almost lost control of the barrow but somehow managed to steady myself and cross the finishing line. Heaven knows what health and safety implications such a 'sports day' would have now in this age of dangerous conkers."

* I have done some research on welly wanging or wellie whanging - there seems no definitive spelling-: here's an entertaining BBC piece about a mechanical welly wanging machine that can hurl several boots 80 metres!

** Shovel stropping seems to be a term we invented and applied to this activity: research on the web reveals the following interesting piece on how to coal a Royal Navy ship, should you ever need to organise it, or how to strop a razor, but nothing sensible connecting shovels with stropping.  The technique Iain describes obviously informed John Boden's and my endeavours to clear the cuttings of cowpats described in an earlier post here.

For those who have forgotten what the wheelbarrows were like, here's Jane Dineen examining one (and probably not thinking about volunteering to ride in it in the race!) in about 1980 while JP sets off toward the finds hut.