What are these people doing?

Jane Dineen supplied this photo from her 1982 collection with the entirely appropriate question 'What are these people doing?' as the file name. C-H-M can identify Gail Boyle, standing on the left, the Chronicler, Dr Phillpotts kneeling to her right and, I think, Dr Nick Snashall second from the right. The location seems to be the Long Mound. There appears to be an unturfed portion from an earlier season in the foreground with one or two thistles growing out of the limestone. But what are they up to? Is this an impromptu rehearsal for the Below Average White Band? The cast list is not quite who one might expect but there are various shapes that might be (sub-) musical being thrown ...

Advice on snails

From Jill Hummerstone & Les Capon's collection: Terry Courtney introduces two young volunteers to Bob Alvey during the 1987 season. "This is the chap to ask if you have a problem with snails ..."

North western panorama

(Click on image to enlarge)

Panorama from last Sunday across the whole of the Severn Vale from the western tip of the hill. In the far distance you can just about make out Hay Bluff, I think, as well as the hills nearer in the Vale. Fabulous light and clouds. C-H-M wishes his readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. Not sure how we're all going to achieve the prosperous part of that wish in the current climate but the usual combination of perspiration and inspiration will doubtless apply.

Crickley New Year Prize Crossword

It's the time of year when newspapers produce their prize crosswords and C-H-M thought the Crickley blog readers, especially those of a strong constitution, might enjoy the crossword set out above.

I'm very grateful to Jane Dineen and Terry Courtney who tested it for me and have proved that it is (very nearly) soluble. They've got 3 clues to go ...

It is vital to have a working knowledge of the wit, wisdom and aphorisms of John Parry but many of those who dug at Crickley will have obtained the necessary familiarity.

Jane kindly points out that a better clue for 3 across would be 'Thy' rather than 'Thine' and also points out that there are 7 letters, not 6, in 12 across.

A prize will be offered at the 2010 reunion for the best solution submitted. Teams are permitted so that Jane & Terry have a chance of winning the prize, which will doubtless be food or drink related ...

Parry by Griffiths

Griff, whose photo this is, snapped this shot of John Parry "in classic pose" in 1984. Scrattin.

Cattle and hornbeam

Top photo: proof that Belted Galloway also come in dun and white as well as black and white; bottom photo shows the hornbeam that grows on the top of the hill taken looking south towards Barrow Wake and Birdlip. Any readers who are taken with the Belted Galloway breed can acquire their own from the members' pages of the Belted Galloway Society. They thrive on poor pasture.

Just beautiful ...

More views from Crickley yesterday afternoon, together with a couple of shots of the Belted Galloway cattle which are currently adorning the slopes on the approach road. There is clear evidence everywhere on the top of the hill that they have recently been carrying out the duties imposed on them there by the Cotswold wardens: keeping the grass down and preventing the spread of scrubland.

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.