2nd October 2010, 01:40 PM
Don't be too pessimistic, there are still plenty of good experienced diggers out here, but what is noticeable is that there is an age-gap opening up. Certainly in Northern England there seems to be a hardcore of diggers in their 40s and 50s, who've been digging for ever and have managed to make the whole digger-lifestyle thing work, and then at the other end there are the 20-somethings fresh out of Uni with rather rose-tinted expectations, most of whom seem to rapidly fall by the wayside (= go work for large southern units, get disillusioned and jack it in). The gap's a bit worrying since the older diggers are, lets face it, getting older.....:0