Farmer Brown: “Oh dear oh dear oh dear!”

Dear Fellow Landowners,

Remember the free metal detecting rally I was going to hold at Grunter’s Hollow using  “the Surrey Council Premise“? …. “Applicants will be considered to be part of an ongoing archaeological survey and will in particular be expected to have a proven track record in reporting and recording. Finds would normally remain the property of the County Council.”

It was a total disaster. No-one turned up. Not even anyone from PAS. (My mate says they’re biassed against farmers but I suspect they only like people with tattoos). Anyway, I was left with scores of prawn sandwiches and not a history lover in sight. It’s a mystery. Like the Marie Celeste but less explicable.

I had such high hopes too. A proper archaeological survey along lines approved by English Heritage, lots of knowledge gained, perhaps an invitation to a PAS function in London to be fêted as an example of selfless partnership – maybe even a lecture tour of France to show them how foolish they are. Oh well. I think next time I’ll advertise it like others do – “twenty squid a day, undisturbed pasture, lots of crop marks, loadza dealers on site, teeth optional, no sharing finds with the farmer (unless you’re daft enough to admit to anyone you’ve found something worth more than two grand)”.

That way I’ll make oodles, the artefact hunters and dealers will make even more oodles and the PAS will claim they know for sure that nearly everything was recorded and nearly nothing was held back as they have X-ray glasses. And I can go on that lecture tour after all. Sorted. Everyone wins.

(OK, EH will be privately scandalised but they can hardly claim publicly  that PAS don’t have X ray glasses can they, so there’ll be no-one in the whole of bonkers Britain saying it except a few, and one of those is fictitious aren’t I?).

Silas Brown
Grunter’s Hollow Farm
Worfield
Salop

PS – Oh dear, oh dear – again.
People have started saying I made it all up – and indeed that I make myself up. Well no, the rally was real – see here –  and so am I.  It’s just that I and my whole world only take material form when an artefact hunter tells a fib to a farmer so the times when I’m not in material form are rare. In fact I haven’t de-materialised for forty long years.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting

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