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6th January 2011, 07:32 PM
I started out as a subsistence volunteer as I was too young to get the dole, we used to have plenty of MSC diggers work with us, some good, some bad, some never there! Nowadays MSC is apparently some kind of degree?
We're planning a series of articles on the history of digging for the Diggers' Forum newsletter, including on the MSC, subsistence volunteering, the old style circuit, the fashions..... If anyone has any memories they'd like to share we'd love to hear from you, especially if you have any truly terrible photos! PM me through this site.
Its still important that we understand how we got to where we are now, for everything that could be better, we've come a long way.
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6th January 2011, 08:57 PM
Quote:Dinosaur...There was certainly a perception around the circuit in the late 80s that MSC was funding well over a half of British archaeology - anyone got any figures on expenditure still floating around or has all that sort of stuff long since been shredded?
There might well have been a lot of archaeologists employed through MSC in the late 80's but I doubt it would have constituted the 'majority' of funding for British archaeology - I think the Museum of London units, DUA and DGLA - employing well over 400 archaeologists during that period, mainly on developer funding, would have constituted a large proportion of the money coming into UK archaeology.....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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6th January 2011, 09:11 PM
[quote=Dinosaur]
- there certainly seemed to be more diggers with driving licences in those days (what is this thing with people not being able to drive, am sure a disproportionately small number of diggers hold a licence compared to the general population
just off topic but this situation seems to be getting worse, come on it ain't hard to pass a driving test..........................
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6th January 2011, 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 6th January 2011, 10:01 PM by kevin wooldridge.)
monty Wrote:[quote=Dinosaur]
- there certainly seemed to be more diggers with driving licences in those days (what is this thing with people not being able to drive, am sure a disproportionately small number of diggers hold a licence compared to the general population
just off topic but this situation seems to be getting worse, come on it ain't hard to pass a driving test..........................
I am guessing it has something to do with the cost, not just for the lessons and test but owning a car, insurance, parking, etc etc.....why don't employers pay for staff to take lessons if a driving licence is such an important part of the job these days? I am guessing an intensive driving course wouldn't cost much more than some of the conferences or IT training courses that staff do get sent on.....I am sure that some contractual arrangement (similar to that that bus drivers have) could be made to recompense the employer the cost, if the individual clears off (of their own volition) within a certain qualifying period.
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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7th January 2011, 06:53 AM
From the pen of Kevin ' I would imagine that the county archaeologist/local archaeology society negotiated access to one site but were either refused (or couldn't be bothered!!)'
There was a lot effort put into have some archaeology carried out on this Medieval town i mentioned, i was working on a site just out side the last year the county arch was tell me that when he was doing research about the area before that job he found a file relating to the site which just contained letters from the local university and other academics basically begging to have some access to the site even on weekends just to take photos and pick up pot, its a sad thing to see.
The support was there but they where just knock back there must have been some one who they could have gone to , or am i just being a bit young and naive about it all, were there bench mark criteria, or was it all on the whim of the building contractors and the local planning.
About the driving thing i've noticed less more recent graduates that can drive as well, i have no explanation, i was told by a commercial digger who was a paid supervisor on a volunteer dig i was before university, that driving and computer skills (illustration) where the way forward this in 1999 good advice which i pass on
It good to hear that the Diggers Forum are covering this subject and i look forward to them
Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been.
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7th January 2011, 03:13 PM
People who say that teh test is easy usually took theirs a very long time ago. The pass rates vary between 30% and 55% http://www.driving-test-success.com/dsa_..._rates.htm which suggests that it is hard. I took mine while working as as digger, but as it usually takes 40 lessons to pass, it is a significant amount of money. I had to keep stopping lessons while I did away work or 13 hour door-to-door days. Each test cost ?70 (I think), plus an unpaid day off work. It is not surprising that driving licenses are not as common as they used to be.
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7th January 2011, 05:09 PM
Happy to chip in with my memories of nearly 5 years working on a variety of MSC schemes in Glasgow in the early 80s, Chiz. The cold, the mud, the flares... I'm not sure that it did much good for the vast majority of unemployed youth and adults who passed through our sites. Very few of them stayed in archaeology. Pay and conditions were poor, the quality of the archaeological work was variable, and access to specialist advice virtually non-existent. And yes, we left behind backlogs. There were some positive aspects - if you could stick working as a supervisor, promotion was rapid - I directed my first site at 21 - and it was a great introduction to public archaeology. The period also saw an expansion of urban archaeology into towns such as Glasgow and Ayr that had never really been explored before. I wouldn't want to go through all that again though...
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7th January 2011, 06:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th January 2011, 06:32 PM by Dinosaur.)
kevin wooldridge Wrote:There might well have been a lot of archaeologists employed through MSC in the late 80's but I doubt it would have constituted the 'majority' of funding for British archaeology - I think the Museum of London units, DUA and DGLA - employing well over 400 archaeologists during that period, mainly on developer funding, would have constituted a large proportion of the money coming into UK archaeology.....
Yes, but there were probably thousands employed on MSC projects at their height (again, does anyone have any figures?), and due to their nature they were generally 6 month-year plus sites, all the ones I worked on were multi-year projects with huge workforces and budgets to match, the first ?1m+ job I worked on was a 1980s MSC scheme, for instance. Due to the restrictions (eg the need to be able to 'employ' people for a minimum of 6 months) there wasn't any such thing as a small job in the MSC circus....none of those pesky watching briefs and trial trenching, just medium to big excavations. And I might point out that most of the archaeological units that I worked for during those years usually had one or more big MSC projects running alongside their 'normal' stuff - one that springs to mind is WYAS who were running Pontefract Castle and Castleford simultaneously 1984ish with huge MSC crews (Cas ran for years, don't know about Pontefract), suspect that was a really large part of their turnover during that period? Most/all of the other county units were doing the same, eg. the Worcester site I mentioned dwarfed the rest of the county unit's workload certainly in terms of manpower (around 50ish) while it was running
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7th January 2011, 06:56 PM
50 ? The rumour mill round here has it that the Manchester unit had around 200 staff and workers at the height of the MSC. All working in and around the city. Do not know how true this is
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8th January 2011, 01:33 PM
The Raunds Area Project of (much of) the 1980s also had 200+ on various sites at its height (assorted sites in Raunds, Stanwick Villa, West Cotton, the Irthlingborough Barrows, fieldwalking team etc) run by the Central Unit and the Northamptonshire county unit - as far as I'm aware that was all central government funded, either DoE (the Central Unit bits and some of the Northants stuff), the rest MSC (most of the Northants sites and fieldwalking team). Am not aware any 'private' money got ploughed into it at all, the whole thing must have cost ?millions - indeed presumably central government money has continued to be spent on the PX, or has it been funded through the ALF?
Of all the myriad sites that I worked on during the 1980s I've only been able identify about 6 (some uncertain additional ones) where I'm aware that there was any 'client' funding involved at all - 5 of those were tiny, the sixth was a real biggy but the staff were mainly MSC so still only a limited 'commercial' input.
On the driving licence thing, what happened to people passing their test age 17-18 before going to Uni? Discussed it with my (non-archaeological) drinking crew and 80% of those quizzed had one by age 18, I actually let the side down by finally passing the test age 23 (and 100% hold one now, including partners, total sample size 28, varied employment ranging from unemployed/housewives etc through plumber, NHS etc, up to 'chief software architect' and a managing director) - although admittedly the age range interrogated was 35-50ish, and I do agree that I wouldn't fancy having to re-take mine these days, those roads are getting scary!
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