Quote of the week: Farmer Eric Robinson on the people who found the Crosby Garrett helmet

I just know about sheep and cattle, I have no idea about what happened to the Romans or any history whatsoever. So I left it in their hands to do whatever they thought was the right way to go about things. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-12662829

Well Eric, it was your helmet by law, absolutely no-one else’s, what a crying shame for the public you didn’t hang on to it like glue and not let it out of your sight and simply ask the local museum or the Portable Antiquities Scheme what THEY thought was “the right way to go about things”. 

Were you advised not to?

 

 

But the far bigger question is this:

How come every farmer isn’t very well aware permission to detect should only be given to those who report every find straight away?

We taxpayers have spent the best part of £20 million and many years educating, persuading, cajoling and flattering detectorists to do just that yet most of them don’t – whereas a double page spread in the Farmers Weekly explaining it to farmers (as we first suggested more than five years ago) would work straight away and far better and would cost just £6,750.  

Until that has been done (a few times) there’s little point in the archaeological establishment saying it is “very regrettable” the helmet wasn’t reported (and indeed delivered) to them the moment it was found. The owner of the helmet says he was unaware of what was the right thing for him to do with it – and that is entirely their fault, not his.

In the spirit of the Big Society give us £15,000 (1% of PAS’s annual budget) and we’ll make sure every farmer in Britain gets the message and that the amount of non-reporting plummets.

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More Heritage Action views on metal detecting and artefact collecting

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