ID the “MD Muppet”!

by Alan S

The Twittersphere was busy yesterday, trying to identify the ‘gentleman’ in a YouTube video, allegedly caught red-handed metal detecting on land without permission in the Purbrook Heath area nr Waterloovile, Hants (PO7 postcode area). PC Andy Long, Heritage Crime Officer for Essex Police (Twitter @PCAndyLong) is keen to speak with this individual if anyone knows who he is.

Apparently a complaint has been raised to YouTube, and the video may have been withdrawn by the time you read this, although stills from it are available on a number of websites. Interestingly, whether he was “dayhawking” or not there has been outrage from all camps over his yobbish behaviour and ignorance, an uncommon ‘coming together’ so let’s see if he can be identified and hopefully given some muscular outreach.

On the other hand it’s worth keeping in mind that thousands of detectorists get farmers to sign agreements under which they alone decide if tens of thousands of finds are to be shown or shared. If you think people who do that have the least right to lecture that bloke on treating farmers fairly we’d have to disagree rather strongly.

Update & clarification, 11 August 2014:
There really are none so blind as those who will not see. A detectorist has responded to the above article by writing:
“Some of the publicity the clip received from a certain few archaeo-bloggers is disappointing to read. It just seems that at any opportunity they will use something like this to make out that all detectorists behave like mindless, thuggish, oafs such as the chap on the video”.

He has it wrong, but not in the way he thinks. Our assertion is not that thousands of detectorists act like “The Muppet” but that a lot of detectorists act worse than him by treating farmers’ rights with the same contempt as him and in addition by collectively causing vastly more cultural damage than nighthawks through non-reporting. Deliberately contracting to give yourself the formal right to decide what you show and share with the owner and what you don’t cannot possibly be interpreted as otherwise. If it could be it would be but it can’t. Being “disappointed” about us saying it is neither here nor there. That must be clear enough to anyone that hasn’t a personal motivation for denying it is true.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting

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