The Long Mound 27 December 2009

C-H-M's Volvo turned up the Hill of its own accord this afternoon on the way back from a splendid Christmas with friends in Herefordshire. This is the beautiful light and clouds looking along the Long Mound out towards Wales at about a quarter to three this afternoon. It was bitterly cold and windy on top of the Hill but nothing affects the pleasure that view always brings ...

A peaceful pose

A peaceful shot of a meditating Paul Noakes absorbed in observing the lie of the limestone before continuing to draw his plan. I think from the angle of the rampart that this may be the south west corner of cutting AXVII. Barrow Wake in the background behind the dumper truck.

Under the wire

This must be somewhere in Greenway Lane near Ullenwood camp, I think, and shows Sue Bauman (Lee Jeffs), whose photo this is, helping Lucy Loveridge under the barbed wire fence into the lane whilst Corky Gregory and Ros Cleal look on.

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 ...

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 ...

Married quarters ...

Another Mike Sims shot of the huts at Ullenwood in July 2004 as the wrecking took place. These are the huts at the top of the camp on the left that were sometimes allocated as married quarters. This picture could be an allegory for the state of the UK economy. Actually, come to think of it, the huts aren't in that bad a state ...

Alone they did it ...

On the left, David Whittaker and, on the right, Keith Wilkinson pausing to display the fruits of their labours in this Jill Hummerstone photo from 1987 of which she writes " ... last days on site in 1987: on our own we re-built the Long Mound". That must have been a fair job, at that. Beautifully raked, too by the look of things.

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."

Rebecca and Ros

Rebecca Chambers kindly sent this rather charming photo of her talking to Ros Cleal taken by Arwel Barrett in August 1984. For once a picture of Dr Cleal without either a planning frame or board in sight. Bet neither was far away.

Balancing act?

Lucy Loveridge sometime in the 1980s captured by Corky Gregory either moving at speed or scratching the back of her left leg with her right foot or performing a balancing act - who knows? PWD's beloved green van with doors flung wide in the background.

Ullenwood crowd

A group shot outside the mess hall at Ullenwood, belonging to Corky Gregory, taken during the 1981 season. L to R: Rowena Dutton, Terry Courtney, Julie Lancley, Jane Dineen, Julie Fissenden, Corky Gregory and Mike Taylor. "Is that Ros's mini in the background?", asks Corky.

What on earth was the occasion?

A curious pair of photos from either 1988 or 1989 from the Phillpotts archive. The team seems to have taken a break, or organised a party or decided in Arwel Barrett's case upon a nap in the middle of what is plainly an exhibition about the excavation featuring a hand-shovel and a catbasher pinned to the wall above Penny's head. Also featured are Ros Cleal and Bernie Dawson. Can anyone recall the event?

A collector's item from 1985

C-H-M thinks that this Phillpotts photograph from 1985 is rare indeed: Mr John Parry, of Ross-on-Wye, quite clearly wearing a tie. We never knew you possessed a tie, John ...

On a separate note C-H-M is relieved to say that he has passed his first term examinations for the diploma at Leiths School of Cookery and Wine. The practical examination was undoubtedly the toughest test C-H-M has ever undertaken including the Cambridge Archaeology Tripos and the attentions of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Essays don't burn irreparably if you stare out of the window and day-dream for 30 seconds but shallots can and do, but didn't, just ... C-H-M is off to celebrate.

No new road at the Air Balloon?

C-H-M notices a bit of a brouhaha about the A417 at the Air Balloon reported here in 'This is Gloucestershire' Some of the comments are reassuringly parochial ...

Update: the pressure group chaired by Mike Cuttell gives up in frustration at the behaviour of the Minister of Transport and the Highways Agency ...

Three cheers for JCB ( the real thing ...)

Dr Ferris writes: "Following on from all this manly posting about earth-moving machines, I don't think Crickley Hill Man is aware of my direct experience of working with JCB the company on an archaeological project in their home village of Rocester in Staffordshire many years ago. Between 1985 and 1987 JCB sponsored a dig on the so-called New Cemetery site there, smack in the corner of a three-phase Roman fort. They bought us a disused Methodist Chapel to act as our base, provided a yearly grant towards costs, of course laid on machines for us with expert drivers from their display team, and sponsored the eventual monograph publication. We got shown around the amazing factory complex there and on a few occasions I met with Sir Anthony Bamford to discuss the project. This all culminated in Sir Anthony getting nominated for, and presented with, an honorary degree from Birmingham University where I worked at the time. I have no Massey Ferguson tales to tell, though."

Big digger

When you need to shift a lot of spoil fast nothing better than a JCB. Which indeed is the caption on this 1983 photo belonging to Dr Phillpotts. But the Chronicler's evidence must be slightly re-interpreted: JCB is one of those brands which, in the UK at least, has become so well known that the manufacturer's name is used to mean the product itself e.g. Hoover. But just as there are vacuum cleaners other than hoovers, so there are front-hoe loaders that are not made by JCB. This particular effort is a Massey-Ferguson 50HX.

Gloucestershire shifts on its axis

A rather splendid view from the hill at a rollercoaster angle from Lara Unger's 1990 series. Makes one feel as though the ground is moving.

Apologies for the late posting today: C-H-M has been slaving over a hot stove to produce lunch consisting of Parmesan and chive scones with red onion marmalade, Mushroom roulade stuffed with cream cheese & spring onions, Marinaded prawn, mango and spinach salad, Cherry tomatoes stuffed with mint and cream cheese, Avocado rillettes with tarragon and Greek yogurt, Chicken with saffron and lemon, Pumpkin, butternut squash and brown lentil strudel, Quinoa and lime salad, new potatoes baked en papillotte with rosemary and garlic, Lemon meringue pie and Brownies. Serious quantities of yummy leftovers lurk in the fridges ...

Ullenwood deconstructed

C-H-M has a feeling that this building round the back at Ullenwood was used for training Gloucestershire Fire Brigade personnel but has no idea where that suspicion comes from. From Mike Sims's 2004 series as Ullenwood was under the wrecking ball. Update from Dr Phillpotts: "The Fire Brigade thing used to be part of the "Drains" lecture by Richard Savage - closely followed a dire warning to keep away from it and the radio tower."

Ditch digging in progress

The rampart cutting, AXV, in 1979 at an early stage in the proceedings. Most of the pictures that people took were much later in the season after an enormous amount of very hard and careful excavation had taken place to reveal the walls, gangbreaks and ditch that underlay this mound of largely undifferentiated tumble. Many days of back-breaking work were needed to clear this away. One of the tools of choice, a trusty pickaxe, lies behind Bernard Dawson at the front of the picture. Further up the cutting at the top Mike Taylor can be seen. From the Behan collection.

Hut circle

From Anna Behan's 1979 collection, though she cannot have been the photographer as she is featured. L to R round the circle Ros Cleal, Jo Bacon, Terry Courtney, Bob Alvey, Phil Dixon, Richard Savage, Frank Green, Jim Gale, Anna Collinge, and Paul Noakes. C-H-M assumes this must have been taken from part way up the photographic tower as the perspective exceeds any angle that could have been achieved from the top of a spoil heap.

The Ermine Street Guard ...

Alan Ford enlightens:

"The Elder and Younger Haines', who run the Ermine Street Guard, live in the farmhouse at Cold Slad, clearly visible at the foot of the western slope of the hill.

In 1991 the Guard found themselves a couple of chaps short for an important trip and a representative was sent to the nearest source of likely manpower. Hence Myself and Rob Knell volunteered to the last minute spaces on the Ermine Street Guard's 1991 trip to Martigny, Switzerland for the 500 year anniversary of the Swiss Cantons.

So it was that Legionary Ovinus Fordicus and Auxillia Rossisis Knellius came to march beneath the Eagles. And a right pair we were too.

I have recently found, in a long forgotten box guarded by a leopard, a small selection of photos taken by me in 1991. These include some splendidly Asterixesque shots of the unholy duo. I will forward these on as soon as I can get my scanner to work again.

I shall accompany the photos of Legionary Ovinus Fordicus and Auxillia Rossisisd Knellius with a thrilling account of the effectiveness of the Testudo."

Can't wait to see them, Alan ...

Scrub clearance planned for Crickley

I noticed this piece on the BBC website. Good to see that the National Trust have a maintenance programme to keep the hill beautiful.

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).

Doppelganger of the Month - December

--- Les Capon --- --- Jimmy Page ---

C-H-M wonders whether his readers have clocked the remarkable resemblance between Les Capon and Jimmy Page of 'Led Zeppelin' fame? Are they in fact related? I think we should be told.

The morning after the night before ...

This is just about how C-H-M feels in the aftermath of the post-practical-cooking-examination celebrations yesterday. Food was served on time and whether or not it was beautifully cooked and met the exacting standard will be revealed in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, a lie-down is in order and this Mike Sims 2004 Ullenwood dormitory photo seemed somehow appropriate ...

Was the Below Average White Band ahead of its time?

Joanne Milroy has had a fascinating item pop into her inbox. She writes:

"Dear Julian,

See below a news release from the government's recycling bods. Don't ask why in the course of my working day I am exposed to this sort of thing - I know it isn't good for me.

But the big question is ....is this a secret reformation of the Below Average White Band or just another demonstration that our most favourite popular music combination was so ground-breaking it has taken the rest of the world 30 years to catch up?

Joanne


December 03, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


WASTE ELECTRICAL 'INSTRUMENTS' TO ENCOURAGE GADGET-GRIPPED BRITONS TO RECYCLE

With the UK public predicted to spend £7.3bn on electricals in the run up to Christmas this year, a new survey from Recycle Now (http://www.recyclenow.com ) has revealed that more than a third of us (35 per cent) still believe we can't recycle the small electrical and electronic goods we are replacing, such as kettles, games consoles, phones and garden power tools.

But with 80 per cent saying we'd make more effort to recycle if we knew we could, Recycle Now is teaming up with The Really Rubbish Orchestra and BBC Last Choir Standing finalists Hear Me Now! on 1 December for a special concert in Covent Garden to raise awareness that small waste electricals do have value and can be recycled.

Recycle Now's latest survey of 1,500 UK adults reveals that just under 30 per cent of us - particularly young people and women - simply throw broken or unwanted items away in the rubbish, whereas if we switched to recycling these items we could divert over 100,000 tonnes of valuable waste electricals from landfill each year, weighing the equivalent of 14,000 double decker buses.

The survey also indicates that people over 35 are 50 per cent more likely than those under 35 to have recycled at least one small electrical item, and men are almost 20 per cent more likely than women. But despite the hundreds of recycling collection centres that are able to receive waste electronics, a staggering 41 per cent of people have never recycled a small appliance in their life even though almost a third of respondents changed their kettle in the past twelve months (29 per cent) and one in four swapped mobile phones (25 per cent).

With the UK population projected to spend £7.3bn in total, or £144 per head, on electricals in the last quarter of this year alone, there is an urgent need to raise awareness about the possibilities of recycling electronic waste, especially over the Christmas period when many of us will receive new goods to replace broken or unwanted items.

In this unique event designed to encourage more of us to recycle our old unwanted or broken small electrical goods this season, Hear Me Now! will perform carols accompanied by The Really Rubbish Orchestra playing a number of unique, electronic instruments that have been built out of electronic waste such as an old telephone receiver, a walkman and a computer scanner. The aim of the event is to highlight that broken or unwanted items are not just waste - they have a value and can be recycled into other useful items.

Maurice Cairnduff, co-founder of the Really Rubbish Orchestra said: "We are delighted to be able to use our expertise to help Recycle Now raise awareness about recycling electrical waste in a fun and creative way. It is quite amazing what you can make from very little. We are really looking forward to the gig and hope people will come down to support us and Recycle Now's campaign."

Gerrard Fisher from Recycle Now said: "Our aim is to inform people in a fun way how and where to recycle their small electricals. At Christmas and New Year many of us choose to buy new appliances, or receive them a gifts and don't know what to do with the old ones.

"The Recycle Now website is a fantastic resource with useful information on how and what to recycle. It also has a helpful postcode finder, which locates all the recycling facilities in your area, and a list showing which retailers take back old electrical goods. All the information is available on the website, and we are hoping that the Really Rubbish experience will get people in the festive spirit but also raise awareness and encourage more of us to recycle our electrical waste over the Christmas period and into the future."

To find out more about recycling in the UK including what you can recycle and where to recycle, please visit the Recycle Now website on www.recyclenow.com/electricals


- ends -


NOTES FOR EDITORS

Background to the survey:
The survey for Recycle Now was carried out online by Opinion Matters between 12/11/ 2009 and 18/11/2009 amongst a nationally representative sample of 1514 UK adults aged 16+. Opinion Matters adheres to and follows the codes of the MRS (Market Research Society) and are fully registered and compliant with the Data Protection Registrar.

Survey headlines:
o A 1/3 of people (35%) believe electrical goods can't be recycled
o Men are more likely to know that waste electricals can be recycled than women (71% to 61%)
o Older people are more likely to recognise that electricals can be recycled than young people (16-24: 58%; 25-34: 63%; 35-44: 64%; 45-55: 65%; 55+: 67%)
o 28% of people with broken or replaced small electrical items typically throw them away in the bin with their rubbish
o 41% of people have never recycled an electrical item
o Women are more likely than men to have never recycled an electrical item (45% to 35%); conversely, men are more likely than women to have recycled at least one electrical item (65% to 55%)
o Young people are more likely to have never recycled an electrical item than older people (16-24: 67%; 25-34: 58%; 35-44: 40%; 45-55: 36%; 55+: 34%)
o More than a third of people (35%) say they don't know where to take electricals to be recycled
o Kettle and mobile phones top the list for goods that have been replaced in the past year (29% of people have replaced a kettle and 25% a mobile phone)
o Women are slightly more likely to just throw away electricals goods in their rubbish than men (30% compared with 26%)
o 83% would make more of an effort to recycle electricals in the future having been made aware they could

Latest Environment Agency data on recycling small electricals:
Latest figures indicate that as of June 2009, 1.27 million tonnes of electricals were bought in the UK. Of these figures, 480,000t of the electricals bought were small items (irons, kettles, games consoles, hair straighteners, computers, electric hedge trimmers etc) and 70,000t was collected for recycling, which is 14.5%.

Christmas retail predictions:
Verdict report - UK Retail: Christmas 2009 forecast - what's in store?

Waste electrical instruments developed by The Really Rubbish Orchestra
o Plank/skateboard slide guitar and practice amplifier (telephone / portable tape / computer speakers)
o Scanner pianner (computer scanner and waste metal instrument tuned in the key of C (for Chaos!))
o Amplified drums (audio cabinet speakers and amplifier)
o Vocals microphone & stand (internal computer speaker and ex-office lighting standard lamp)
o Percussion (computer keyboard)
o Cuica (Brazilian friction drum) (electric kettle)
o The Really Rubbish Orchestra 'bandemonium' music composition environment (all the above plus walkman tape players, portable cd players, computer speakers, toy keyboard, electronic toy)
o Guitar amplifier, lesley speaker & spring reverb (domestic audio amp, music centre cabinet, record deck, car audio speakers, electronic packaging waste, internal computer speakers, hairdryer heating element, portable tape player, metal computer cabinet)

Recycle Now and WRAP:
1 WRAP helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.
2 Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
3 Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP's work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
4 Recycle Now is a campaign to encourage people in England to recycle more things more often. Six out of ten of us now describe ourselves as committed recyclers, compared to less than half of us when the campaign began in 2004.
5 More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk and for more information on the Recycle Now campaign visit www.recyclenow.com"

Priceless. I think Dr Phillpotts thought of, and played, much of this stuff many years ago. Perhaps he should get a commission?

The valley looking down from Birdlip

Another postcard, this time postmarked 1933, taken from Birdlip, looking across towards Crickley, before the road was widened and in the days when the lower slopes were not as well covered by the forest as they are now.

Feeding time

This murky photo from Anna Behan's collection (though not taken by her as she's in the picture herself) is the only one C-H-M has seen that shows the assembled multitude eating supper. Dr Ferris says it reminds him of the prisoners' meal scene in 'The Shawshank Redemption' ...

Discernible in the gloom are Julie Ann Souter, Mandy Hatherly, Anna, Training, Arwel Barrett and John Parry.

Dr Ferris has been inspired by yesterday's post to make the following observations: "It was good to see a photo of diggers drinking in the Imperial Beer Gardens in Cheltenham on the blog. I have already waxed lyrical on Crickley Hill Man's blog about days' off in Cheltenham and so won't go on too much more about the delights of this urban oasis; however, your picture brought to mind one extended lunchtime's drinking at the IBG, possibly in 1975, that was memorable for the appearance at the diggers' table of the improbably-named Sarah Goodnight, a model-tall, elegant and willowy American from one of the southern States. Spying us from the Promenade and coming over to say hello she surveyed the drinks table, groaning with empties and crowded with new pints, and the over-animated, dissolute diggers and asked 'Y'all jist sittin around here all day gittin drunk?', to which all happily replied 'yes'. Sarah then made her excuses and left. I just couldn't drink like that at lunchtimes nowadays; perhaps that's a good thing."

I don't think that Cheltenham Borough Council will thank you for calling them the Imperial Beer Gardens, Dr F ... binge drinking, broken Britain, mumble mumble, splutter ...

Relaxing in Cheltenham ...

It can't be December already, but it is. C-H-M enjoyed his Cooking Theory Examination yesterday and is looking forward to the Practical Examination on Friday. This involves cooking under examination conditions against the clock (no talking except about sharing ovens, no conferring, no asking the teachers what to do or how to cook it). If the food isn't served at the appointed hour you have to leave the kitchen and you fail. So served at exactly 1.30pm will be one loaf of Italian bread, one chicken sauté Normande with mashed potatoes, carrot batons and broccoli and one lemon meringue pie... And no, that's not a balanced menu: it's meant to test the skills we've learned this term, as indeed it will. Must go and write the time plan now. All good clean fun.

Also good clean fun was a visit to the beer tent on a Thursday off in Cheltenham. Pictured here in one of Corky Gregory's photos are, L to R: Paul Noakes, John Howell, C-H-M, Jane Charman, Ros Cleal and Jo Bacon. Judging from the immoderate amount of hair displayed by C-H-M this must be 1977. (C-H-M's hair featured for this season only as it all began to fall out the following year.) Dr Ferris remarked that I look as though I've walked into a Timotei advertisement: "Even now, people vividly remember the advert featuring a lady with wonderful long blonde hair walking through a sun-dappled meadow", says their website. Steady on, Dr Ferris ...