Wetter than an otter's pocket

We have a TV program over here in the UK called ‘MostHaunted’; I think that I've mentioned it before.  For those who don’t feel like clicking on that link, it’s about a group of friends and family who travel to old castles and pubs and disused military installations and try to interact with the spirits of the departed.  The sort of program that, if it were to have been made in the USA for instance, would have to have the words ‘For entertainment purposes only’ written in large, friendly letters somewhere in the titles, so that none of the viewers had to deal with any uncomfortable ideas or suddenly have the urge to ‘try this at home’. (Believe it or not, I've spoken to one of the cast of the show about this very subject – I shan't name-drop which one*, because I'm not like that, but she says that she hates that whole ‘For entertainment only’ thing)

The Most Haunted team

Anyway, last night, I had a dream where I was some minor member of the team, on an investigation (I'm a bit of a fanboy of the program, so this was only a matter of time I suppose – and if one of the production team are listening, I really wouldn't mind tagging along one night – you could do a ‘no-name blogger special', you've already got the Internet presence after all.) – But the odd thing was, I remembered it when I woke up.  So, in true Robert Louis Stevenson style, I wrote it down. We also have/had very similar moustaches you know, Stevenson and I, but that’s neither here nor there.

Bear in mind that it was a dream, so the details aren't going to be factual or accurate, and I've added some bits so that it makes a little more sense. I suppose I could have embellished it a bit more and saved it to be next years’ Christmas Ghost Story, but I’d probably have forgotten it. I hope you like it.

-oOo-

The minibus that the hotel had found for us was older than I was. I remember turning to Stuart, pointing to a hole surrounded by rust at the bottom of the door, and shaking my head, but he just shrugged and carried on resignedly loading the gear on to the rear seats as if to say ‘Yeah, but what’re you gonna do?’.  It was starting to get dark, but at least the rain had finally stopped.  Normally, we’d get there nice and early set up in the daylight, take a few readings, set up the radio mics and suchlike.  But our shiny new crew-bus had decided that that was all way to easy and had thrown a strop, as well as some vitally important part of the engine.  The guy in the garage said that the part had to come all the way from Germany, and it would be a couple of days at least, so that was nice.

Once we were loaded, the trip around the ring-road did little to lift our spirits, we’d hit Leeds’ rush-hour and everyone and their brother was wanting to go the same way as us.  At least it gave me some time to think about the job.  It was only my third gig with the team and I was still very much ‘back-room’ staff. I wasn't ruggedly handsome enough to be in front of the cameras I suppose; it didn't help that I wasn't much of a screamer either, so I had limited entertainment value – I’d had enough contact with disembodied voices and doors opening and closing on their own in my own home to let it shock me in a damp, disused factory by the river in Heckmondwike, which was lucky really, as that was exactly where we were heading.  We’d got the call a few weeks before, from the PR team of a development company that was converting said factory into flats. They asked us if we’d like to work on something a bit more ‘current’ than we’d normally been used to.  It seemed that they’d been excavating one of the buildings to see if the foundations were up to the change of use they were going to put them through and had found some strange ladder-shaped configuration of rotting railway sleepers about a metre down.  Then the County Archaeologist had somehow got wind of it and had wanted the chance to take a look before they all got dug up. Everything was going well until they found the first body and they'd had to call the coroner. The bodies weren't recent, probably dating from about when the factory was built, but their numbers, and the method of their burial was very odd.  They’d found seventeen bodies so far: two adults – A man and a woman, and fifteen children all of similar ages.  They were lying peacefully, no sign of foul-play or struggle, wrapped in the remains of Hessian sacks that were all neatly tied at the top with leather thonging. They had been laid to rest in the spaces between the rungs of the ‘ladder’; it’d given the construction guys quite a shock when they first found them, But it wasn't until the bodies had been taken away for reburial that things really started to get strange.  It was as if someone had opened the  ‘I-Spy book of Hauntings’ at page one and started ticking things off in order. 

There were cold spots, which you’d probably expect in a Victorian factory next to a river. The same could be said for the unexplained draughts and rattling doors.  Then the reports of half seen shadows and disappearing lunchboxes had started, then someone claimed that he had been reaching behind him for a hammer when someone had gently placed it into his hand, although he was the only person in the room.  It all came to a head when the Yorkshire Evening Post ran a story from a builder who had left the job after being followed around for his entire shift by the sound of giggling children.

I think the developers thought that getting us involved would give them a bit of positive publicity, maybe they were right, I don’t know much about that side of things.  The house I live in is haunted and I manage OK. Maybe they thought they’d get some free publicity.  When we got to site, the rain had just started again, you could see the mist of it blowing past the floodlights that were spread around.  A man wearing a hard-hat and a hi-viz jacket waved us through the gate and we parked up next to the other, working crew-bus that the talent had used to get there earlier in the day and made our way over to the group, who were huddled under ‘Most Haunted’ branded golfing umbrellas and looking into a hole.

“So, that’s where you found them?” Yvette asked the foreman who was desperately trying to look comfortable for the camera.

“Yes,” he replied, “we’ve extended the trench, but those seventeen… people were all we found. We’ve just had the go-ahead to remove the wood and check the foundations.”

“Well, we’ll do our best to find out why they’re still here and hopefully help them to cross over,” she turned dramatically, straight to camera, “on tonight’s Most Haunted.  OK, cut there, we’ll add the sting and that’ll do it I think.” Then she turned to me, somewhat less dramatically, “We’re set up in that building over there, the Foreman said it has all the mod-cons, which means it has a working kettle and a jar of instant coffee. Did you remember to bring the milk?” she took a sip from a large Starbucks takeaway mug.

I smiled and nodded, then started unpacking the gear from the van.  The room that she’d indicated turned out to be an old machine shop that had had most of the heavy machinery removed.  The walls were red-brick under a coating of grease and the steel tables were all welded to the floor.  It took me the best part of an hour to set up the desk and connect all the wiring and I was still hunched under the desk when Karl walked in.  He kicked the sole of my boot to get my attention and I cracked my head on the underside of the table whilst cursing his ancestry in Klingon.

“Oops, sorry mate. Just been talking to one of the site security guys.  It seems that the next building down the river is a bit of a ‘hotspot’ at the minute.  We want to setup some lights and stuff in there, but there’s no juice. Can you throw a cable down there?”

“Yeah Boss, no problem, I’ve got a reel in the van.”

I rubbed the growing lump on my head as he went outside and I muttered something unsavoury under my breath.  Grabbing the cable, I wandered down towards the building Karl had mentioned, bumping into Yvette, who was sheltered under an umbrella, looking down into the oily river below.

“Thinking about going for a swim?” I asked, trying to attract her attention without actually using the words ‘Can you move out of the way, because this reel of cable is really heavy.’

“No, I was just wondering why they were there, why they were buried and then had a factory built on top of them, why they were in sacks?”

“Cheaper than coffins,” I replied, “perhaps you’ll get to ask them later?”

She smiled and nodded, still looking into the water. She blinked and turned to me as if she’d just remembered something, “Let me show you where we need lighting.”

My million candlepower torch showed that the building was very much like the one we’d set up camp in.  A couple of the skylights were broken, letting the steady stream of rain make growing puddles on the floor. A bramble bush had made its way inside through a half-opened fire door and some of the heavier, cast iron framed machine tools were still there – More expensive for the previous owners to move than they were worth.  The main difference was the sound of a steadily ringing telephone.  I pointed at Yvette, putting my thumb and little finger up to the side of my head with a questioning expression.  She shook her head in response.  The sound echoed off the damp brick walls, making it sound like it was coming from everywhere at once. We crept around the darkened room, tripping over the corners of lifting tiles, the sound getting louder as we headed away from the door and towards the furthest corner.  Even when there was no further to go, the ringing still sounded wrong somehow, like it was muffled or I was wearing earmuffs.  But it was still urgent, the ringing bells demanding to be answered. I scanned the torch backwards and forwards over the wall, but saw nothing except a single 1940’s metal sign, advertising that ‘Careless talk costs lives’ with a child-like drawing of a busy train carriage.  I gently touched the sign and pulled my finger away with a yelp as it vibrated at the same time as the phone rang.

“It’s behind there,” I whispered, as I took a screwdriver from my belt and slid it behind the sign, easily levering the rusty screws from the brickwork.

In an alcove, completely covered by the sign, was what seemed to be an old army field telephone with a mouldering canvas cover.  I tipped my head towards it and pointed again at Yvette, who shook her head and took a step back. The phone rang another four times before I plucked up enough courage to pick it up. At first I could just hear the wind, then faintly, but getting louder as if the person on the other end was getting closer, I heard a calm, male voice.

“Tell them it’s all right, I’m the first one here, but it’s all right. They shouldn’t be scared.”

Then the line went dead.  I lowered the handset, constantly looking at it as if I expected it to turn into a snake in my hand at any moment.  When I put it back onto the cradle I realised that the braided cord coming from the box ended abruptly in a knot of corroded copper wires about an inch away.  There didn’t even appear to be a cable that the phone could have been connected to in the past.  Then the realisation hit me just as the phone began to ring again...

*  *cough* It was Yvette that told me *cough*

2nd Century Roman, or possibly 21st Century Taiwanese

Have you ever dug a hole?

I must have, quite literally, dug possibly as many as five holes in my life.  Most of them in various gardens, sometimes my own garden, sometimes whilst sober.  But there's always that feeling of wonder you get when you start.  Will I find anything interesting? maybe a potsherd (the proper name for a bit of broken old pottery) or a coin or a water main, or the holy of holies for us hole-diggers... A skull!

Doesn't matter what species it is... Human would be coolest, obviously, because your day gets instantly more exciting when a big white tent appears in your garden and you have all these people wandering around in paper suits, treading mud up your stairs when they go to the toilet.  The least cool.. I suppose that would have to be digging up what seems to be an Ancient Egyptian burial site (Momentarily forgetting that you're in Walsall) and then suddenly remembering that this is where you buried Mimsy the cat some years before.

Anywho, digging a big hole, finding something even remotely unusual and identifying it. There's a name for that - It's called ruining a perfectly good garden... But the professionals, the people who've spent time at University drinking cheap cider in the SU bar and fumbling inexpertly with girls called Sophia behind the curtains at the Socialist Worker Christmas Marxist fundraiser call it Archaeology.

Nothing has done more to promote modern archaeology (Yes, Oxymoron, I know) to the masses, than the most wonderful of wonderful programs involving diggers, the one that introduced the word 'GeoFizz' (Yes, I know, I spelled it wrong - Comedy Blog, remember?)

'Time Team'

It is / was brilliant.  Simple premise, a group of lovable, heavily personalitied, professionals, and Tony Robinson, go to various places and dig them up.  I don't mean they just throw a dart at the map and then wander across the pitch at Wembley and start digging up the touchline, they often get invited by people who've found something interesting in their garden, or by a local archaeology society who thinks that the interesting lumpy bit in the field down the road might be the remains of the only known prehistoric branch of Greggs the Bakers or Poundstretcher.

They'd arrive in their big 4x4s, Tony would say that he couldn't see anything, the professionals would smile knowingly and pinch the little scamp's cheek, then send him up in a helicopter to look for interesting lines. Then John would come out and start walking around the place with an array of increasingly Heath-Robinson contraptions to map out what lay below the soil.  A map would be produced which, much like the ultrasounds that pregnant women often bring into work, only looked like something if you already knew what it was that you were looking at.

JCBs would then arrive where blobs of coalesced GeoFizz had indicated the presence of walls or floors or waste pits and then Phil would stride onto the scene with his trademark west-country accent and feathered hat, gesticulate wildly and describe in glorious technodetail, what would be happening on the site some thousand years previously, he would include the names of the people involved, their favourite colour and their inside leg measurement.

In the background, gently shaking his head, would be a shock of wild white hair connected directly to an improbably knitted stripy jumper - The One, The Only, The Occasionally Quite  Grumpy, Professor Mick Aston.

Once they had bundled Phil off to make a pot or smelt some bronze or catch a rabbit with only his  hat and a replica of a roman toothbrush (I'm reliably informed that this is actually how the Romans caught rabbits - They called the process captas lepus dente dignissim et galeam - I believe I remember from school)  Mick got down to the actual work, watching the digger take the top layer of grass and soil off, then directing trainees and archaeology students to get busy with their badger-bristle brushes and Barbie sized trowels.  Within minutes, the hole is nine feet deep and they've got Iceland ice-cream tubs full of broken tea service all over the place.

Then Tony walks over again and asks how everyone's doing. Mick indicates the wall of the ditch and points to a selection of, to the casual observer, completely fictitious stripes which seemingly delineate where they've cut through an ancient river bed and and area decimated by a forest fire.  There's a single piece of gravel pointing to the fact that the area was once rife with charcoal burners and a patch of earth on the floor telling him where there used to be a hole.

So, just rewinding a little, this chap could identify, at the bottom of a deep, freshly dug pit, an area where there used to be a hole, but there isn't one now - How good do you have to be at your job to be able to detect something that no longer exists, inside a large version of the same thing, that has only just been called into being? - I mean, that crimped my gourd just writing that, let alone being able to do it.

I think I remember one time (Although in fairness, I've probably made it up - But it's the sort of things that could well have happened) where Mick was explaining that a flat rock that they'd uncovered in a pit was actually from the bottom of a post-hole and had been used as a foundation for a wooden post some 4,000 years ago.  Tony indicated another, incredibly similar rock a few inches away and asked if that was another one and Mick had said 'No Tony, that's just a rock.' And looked at him as if he may have been a bit simple.

Then they'd cut to the lab, where a half-inch square of grubby pot rim had been identified, and the viewer was treated to a CGI image of a five foot high carboy that had once contained olive oil or vinegar, or both (for Pre-historic salad dressing presumably), decorated with complex swirls and impressionist pictures of antelopes and rhinos (Still possibly in Walsall).  How can you possibly do that? it's physically impossible.  It's like a Chinese bloke taking a single blood cell and making a frog out of it... (What? No... I haven't read the news? A whole frog? 140 frogs? from one drop of blood? really? - Bugger - No, I can't take it out, they've read it now.  Yes, I'll do more research next time before I go shooting my mouth off.)

Then someone would suggest digging another trench, although they didn't really have time.  Then Mick would have an argument with John, Phil would proudly return from his reconstruction of life as a beaker-person or whathaveyou and proudly show off whatever it was that he'd not quite had long enough to make properly. Victor, the resident artist would show us scenes that he'd drawn depicting the buildings and artifacts that we'd seen. There'd be a shot of them all down the pub, showing that they were all great mates in real life and then Tony would do a piece to camera about what they'd achieved, there'd be an aerial shot of the dig, pulling out to the picturesque village that they happened to be in (or a rain soaked car-park in Walsall - poe-tay-toe / poe-tar-toe)

And then the spell would be broken - And you'd realise that you'd been sat, spellbound, in front of the TV watching some odd old geezers and the straight-man from Blackadder poddle about in the mud and spin you a yarn about the history of the country that we all love so much.

They'd brought history alive.  For that hour every week that I, and hopefully thousands of other people spent absorbing our past, I thank you Time Team.  I for one, hope that the cancellation of the show gets repealed.
I learned a lot.



This post dedicated to the memory of Professor Mick Aston - 1 July 1946 – 24 June 2013.
A native of Oldbury, not a million miles from where I'm sitting now, the archaeological inspiration of a generation, and wearer of some deeply awful jumpers