Transcript
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Speaker: Hello and welcome back to Watching Brief for the week of the 1st of November 2021. I am joined as ever by my co -host Andy Brockman. Remember, remember the 5th of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot. Although it's actually not much treason going on at Westminster this week, more venality and utter incompetence. There's that old saying, where's Guy Fawkes when you need him?
Speaker: Well, explosive rebellions, or not I suppose, may be efforts, but regardless of our treacherous status, we are continuing with our watching brief in the context of our ongoing mission to discuss the archaeological news of the week and present it here for you guys to discuss and augment below.
Speaker: And this week, I'm going to lay my cards on the table. I have not got my laptop in front of me. I used it yesterday in a school workshop, and it's currently in the back of the car with Mrs. Soup. So I'm going to be taking more of a sort of an inquisitorial role today. I'm going to be the voice of the people asking you, Andy, questions. And today we have a couple of main focuses, don't we? We have a focus on the National Trust and the so -called Restore Trust movement.
Speaker: along with some, as you described it, tectonic plates shifting in the world of metal detecting. So I'm intrigued by both of these. Well, the tectonic plates will come to that later, but in the way of tectonic plates, they're shifting quite slowly, but I think it's noticeable movement. But as you say, that's our second item. Our first item on the agenda is something that has been causing eruptions for some time in heritage world, which is the culture wall.
Speaker: The so called culture war, which has been driven by parts of the governing Conservative Party in Britain, and elements of the media, particularly the Daily Mail and the Telegraph group of newspapers which have got behind this idea that
Speaker: academics and cultural organisations are basically bastions of woke, which is, although it's actually originally a phrase that was designed to show that people were
Speaker: awake or woke to the ideas of racism and inequality and with a view to trying to combat those in society, it's now become a pejorative term, at least on the right wing of politics and a label to do people down with. This particular part of the culture war, it broke out last Saturday, 30th of October.
Speaker: people might be familiar with a program called Today, which is a long running agenda setting news magazine program on BBC Radio 4.
Speaker: 30 October the Today programme ran an interview prompted by the fact that on that day the National Trust had its annual General Meeting. Now there is a, again our viewer might be familiar with the controversy around a report that the National Trust commissioned a while ago,
Speaker: into colonialism and historic links with slavery in its properties. This was seen as a piece of political politicized history and woke propaganda by certain elements of the media arty. As opposed to the established narrative of increasingly rumbunctious land grabs and holdings by the nation's wealthy and aristocratic
Speaker: That's not remotely a political narrative, is it? Absolutely not. The idea that somebody could take over a vast way of the landscape, build a dirty, great big house on it, and then move the local village out of the way, spoiling the view, is completely not political. Yeah, not at all. Nothing to do with people. It's basically land management. It's really simple.
Speaker: But no, cut to the chase. The report was highly controversial. It was created by Professor Corinne Fowler of the University of Leicester and a group of very highly qualified national trust curators.
Speaker: most of them with PhDs. So it was an academically driven piece of work. Therefore, it's rife with cultural Marxism, I mean, fairly.
Speaker: Well, that is the argument put forward by people like a group, a self -appointed group, a pressure group called Restore Trust. Restore Trust, get it? They don't particularly have much trust in current leadership of the National Trust, so they want to restore trust.
Speaker: Now, okay, most pressure groups are self -appointed. People come up with an idea and they put it out in the public space, and if people want to support it, they do. This one has gained a lot of coverage, mostly on the pages of the Telegraph group of newspapers in the mail.
Speaker: And it is headed up by the former city editor of the Telegraph who's now the chief executive officer of a public relations company called Maitland, a man called Neil Bennett. On Saturday, on the state program, Mr Bennett
Speaker: was booked to talk about a series of motions that his organization had put to the annual general meeting and also the vote for members of the National Trust Council, of which Restore Trust was endorsing six. The National Trust Council is an advisory body. It doesn't actually run the National Trust, but it has an influence on National Trust policy. Yeah.
Speaker: Now, all well and good, it's a piece of cultural current affairs, so the Today programme might be expected to cover it, particularly on a Saturday programme which tends to have a less political agenda than the Monday to Friday version of the programme.
Speaker: The problem came with the way the interview was conducted because although the National Trust and authors of the report were invited to take part in the programme and chose not to, now it's probably understandable given it was the day of the AGM, it might have been seen as politically unacceptable and biased even to have a platform outside of the
Speaker: the meeting. I don't know that that's the case. What we do know is that the BBC has said that they were approached to take part and chose not to. So rather than just interview Mr Bennett in an inquisitorial way, the presenter Justin, sorry, Justin Webb. Nailed Justin Webb. Justin, Justin is Justin.
Speaker: The producers booked Sir Simon Jenkins. Now, Sir Simon Jenkins is a very distinguished public servant and former newspaper editor, journalist, he's currently a columnist in The Guardian, but
Speaker: He also wrote a critical column recently which was much about the colonialism and slavery report which was seen as very anti the colonialism and slavery report and in fact the Guardian had to print two amendments stroke corrections to the online version of the article after complaints and in fact after a response from National Trust itself.
Speaker: So you have a BBC journalist conducting an interview on the day of the National Trust AGM with the leader of a pressure group which is highly critical of the leadership of the National Trust and a journalist and commentator who has also been critical in particular of the colonialism and slavery reports. So balance went out the window.
Speaker: you might say that the BBC probably wouldn't. But yeah, I mean, when the interview went out, and if people are interested, I just this morning published a piece on the pipeline with a sort of annotated transcripts of the entire interview, so people can make up their own minds how the BBC handled it. Just to pick out a number of potential problems.
Speaker: obviously, the most fundamental one is that if you've got two people where there's a broad agreement on one particular contentious area, then you might expect the presenter to try to moderate or inform or discuss that.
Speaker: and put accounts of you. For example, put the view of the report, put the review of the trust as to why it commissioned the report. That didn't happen. Then the later in the interview, it went down as some strange little byways such as
Speaker: at one stage that Justin were picked up on a comment by Bennett that they would love to have Sir Simon Jenkins back as chair of the National Trust, which he had been in the, about 10 years ago, and say, oh, this is wonderful. Sir Simon, would you go back? You know, it's, he was trying to do a sort of,
Speaker: radio gotcha moment, you know, and to his credit, actually, Jenkins said, that's not the point. That's not what we're here to discuss. And again, to be fair to him, although he did, again, criticise the report, which has particularly angered the report authors. He also put the point of view of the trust that
Speaker: was true when he was chairing it and is certainly particularly true now, which is that the Trust has to try and develop its audiences, it has to take note of current scholarship and current trends and interests in scholarship. The idea of decolonising history is one that is absolutely current and right in current academic history.
Speaker: It's interesting, I'll give you some idea of where Restore Trust are coming from. The website of Restore Trust.
Speaker: It's quite plush, clean, crisp, a lot of wordage. But one of the things that happens, and this might give you an idea of where they're coming from, they complain that Professor Fowler and her team came up with a report that didn't cite the work of various authorities in colonial history.
Speaker: And they particularly regret that Professor Neil Bigger of Oxford University and his ethics of colonial history project aren't cited.
Speaker: Now what they don't mention on the website is that 58 Oxford historians wrote an open letter criticising the ethics of colonial history project and saying it asked the wrong questions using the wrong terms for the wrong purpose, however seriously intended, far from offering greater nuance and complexity, Bigger's approach is too polemical and simplistic to be taken seriously.
Speaker: So we're actually right at the heart of a very serious historical debate here, really cutting to the chase. The Today programme did not do that debate justice in any way or form. I think most people looking at the transcript would probably agree.
Speaker: I mean, the thing is, I might be wrong here, but I seem to recall that an awful lot of this gathered traction not that long ago with a suggestion that the Charities Commission was going to be investigating the National Trust for its, quote unquote, agenda, and that this not only was a bit of a non -story, but also that it was more or less based on the complaints of a handful of people.
Speaker: I mean, Restore Trust claims to have tens of thousands of members and tens of thousands of pounds in the quote -unquote war chest on the spectator article that I saw a little earlier. How correct is this? I mean, you've just said that they are
Speaker: They're complaining that a simplified version of colonial history isn't being used for this National Trust project. But how big is this complaint? How big should we consider this complaint to be, given that, for example, Restore Trust seemingly failed to get their point voted through at the AGM, didn't they?
Speaker: They lost two out of the three motions that they were endorsing, and three out of the six people that they were endorsing were elected to the council, although a number of the people they were endorsing actually said, wait a minute, we are standing on behalf of Restore Trust. I think there was a sense that that endorsement was actually seen as toxic.
Speaker: in some parts of the trust. Look, when it comes to numbers, I think that that's one of the biggest things, you know, news programs, not just today program, but many news programs are criticized often for creating false binaries, that rather than put somebody up to have a detailed in depth debate interrogated by an informed presenter,
Speaker: they stick the presenter in as a referee and have two people beating seven shades out of each other intellectually supposedly and that's supposed to drive audiences and make good radio or good television.
Speaker: This really was a very damp squib of the same idea, I think, but there is a certain laziness about wanting to go after controversy because again it drives interest.
Speaker: When I was writing up the article that was just gone up, I did the maths on, Restore Trust doesn't actually publish its membership figures on the website. But the Mail published an article claiming that Restore Trust has around 6 ,000 members altogether. Now, that doesn't mean that all of them are necessarily members of the National Trust.
Speaker: It claims the support of a lot of backbench conservative MPs in particular, and particularly a group called the Common Sense Group. In terms of mass membership... Sorry, and just to be clear, I was quoting the spectator where they claim 20 ,000 members, but on the 6 ,000 in the mail, yes. Yeah, the mail claims 6 ,000, the spectator claims 20 ,000.
Speaker: I think, first of all, we always have to remember Mr Bennett, Neil Bennett, who was on the Today program is a PR man, a journalist and a PR man.
Speaker: The second thing is, if you take the lower figure, the one that was in the mail, and that article was published before the one in Spectator, 6 ,000 members, even if they are all members of the National Trust, the National Trust claims something like just shy of six million members nationally. So therefore, do the maths, Restore Trust represents
Speaker: one tenth of one percent of the entire membership of the organization. And yet their talking points are almost unopposed on a national radio station.
Speaker: Absolutely and are promoted by members of the government even. Yeah, interesting, interesting. Where does this go next then? Do you think a restore trust have made their point or do you think they're going to continue and it's convenient for some people somewhere to have this this distraction of the so -called culture wars? Look,
Speaker: Restore Trust doesn't say where its money comes from. It doesn't publish its membership figures. In that sense, it is typical of a lot of what are sometimes called last term groups, which are groups set up as you know, they set up as pressure groups or think tanks. They are funded in ways that are not subject to things like the Freedom of Information Act or political funding rules where you have to declare donations if you're a political party.
Speaker: It's a very American model, in fact. Restore Trust, arguably, is one of those. In terms of media coverage, they punch well above their weight. Some people might think the links with particular media groups are no accident.
Speaker: But there's no proof of that at the moment. You know, they put forward a point of view, they put forward a highly partisan point of view. I suspect they're not going away anytime soon, as long as it suits the particular current government that the
Speaker: so -called cultural war is seen as advantageous to their political programme. And in terms of this particular interview, it may be that it's been subject to complaints from the BBC, I'm not sure about that, in terms of fairness and so on.
Speaker: One of the things that prompted me to write the article was a tweet by Professor Fowler who said, capital's help needed to defend the national trust report from unjust attack by Simon Jenkins and the store trust on Saturday on BBC Today programme, just repeating the smears of the last 12 months.
Speaker: And she's absolutely right. In terms that the project has been smeared as being poor quality and so on. Jenkins himself gave it a gamma minus, which I mean, if you read the thing, I think is unfair. The thing is, it was stepping into a very contentious area quite consciously. And, you know, did a responsible job on that. It has riled certain people that those kind of issues can even be raised.
Speaker: Yeah, wow. Being aware of and apparently awake to the civil struggles of other people. How despicable.
Speaker: Obviously, we'll probably return to this or this story will continue as time goes on. But now it's probably a good idea to move on to our second focus of the week, and that is metal detecting. And as you were just saying, these slowly shifting sands or the slowly grinding tectonic plates thereof, what has been going on? What have our friends in the metal detecting sector been up to?
Speaker: Well, I think this item is a little bit chicken and egg and it's a little bit sort of Indiana Jones and it's a little bit, oh God, what are the media doing now? But basically what prompted me to suggest we discuss this this week in watching brief is a press release that came out two days ago on the 3rd of November from Channel 4.
Speaker: And the headline is, and we'll link to it below the line,
Speaker: more for links up with the British Museum to learn more about our hidden history. And it basically goes on to say Channel 4 has commissioned a new series, Great British History Hunters. Everything these days has to be Great British. So we've got the Great British, ever since the Great British Bake Off, everything has had to be Great British. There's not a saying about Hollywood. There's the Great British flying shows, yes.
Speaker: Exactly. It reminds me of two of my favorite quotations about Hollywood. One is from the late great screenwriter, William Goldman, who said that nobody in Hollywood knew anything, so they were constantly trying to remake the last hit. And the other thing that is often said about Hollywood is that Hollywood has no beliefs and no morals and doesn't believe in any isms except plagiarism.
Speaker: Anyway, be that as it may. The series is from a production company called Tuesday's Child, which is actually up until now. They're not known for historical content. They're more known for things like Ghost Bus Tours, Cannabis Cafe Pitch Battle, and Britain's Biggest Superyachts.
Speaker: And also the Royal Television Society nomination series, Superstar Dogs, got nothing against them for that I have to say. But in this case they're taking on the coverage of the British Museum possible antiquity scheme and the treasure process that is also administered at the British Museum.
Speaker: The Treasure Process isn't part of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, it's separate, it's a legal entity. But the Portable Antiquities Scheme does use its expertise and the expertise of its regional finds liaison officers to inform the Treasure Process and write expert reports for coronets.
Speaker: So what's interesting for me here is we seem to be entering a state where the lexicon surrounding metal detecting has reached a point where they don't even have to describe it fully. So in that first paragraph
Speaker: because commissioned great British history hunters from Tuesday's Child following the real -life detectorists and the journey their fascinating finds make through British museums, the British Museum's possible antiquity scheme and treasure processes. Britain is a land of rich history hidden beneath our feet where millions of artifacts are yet to be found and can reveal the secrets of our past.
Speaker: It's following detectorists, apparently. It's a subtle thing, not metal detectorists, not even hobbyists. I've seen them described previously detectorists. There's also a slightly cliched photograph that accompanies this release.
Speaker: uh where there's a guy dressed in a somewhat indiana jones -ish kind of costume he's got a bag over his shoulder his shirt and a sort of fedora hat and brown trousers don't tell don't tell steven spearberg it happened for copyrights he's even got he's got even got something that looks like a either sand brown belt or a shoulder strap with a yeah a bag on it so yeah i mean the next uh uh is that a land rover um yep it's a land right it's a landy yep outside the british museum in front of the british museum it's it's yeah
Speaker: Okay, go ahead. Light little blue touch paper retreat, given we go with the November the 5th analysis today. Yeah, no, I'll happily light the blue touch paper. This second paragraph is the giveaway about where this is coming from.
Speaker: It says in part, this series will tell warm, characterful stories about ordinary people that are out and about all over the country making extraordinary discoveries every day. Whether metal detectorists, mudlocks or amateur archaeologists, they all have a passion for finding the missing pieces that help tell the story of our past.
Speaker: So basically, they're saying it's not entirely about metal detecting. And the mention of mudlarks is significant because the Thames mudlarks in particular, have been tied into the archaeological process for much longer actually than mainstream metal detecting in many respects. It's a very high mudlarky on the Thames is highly regulated. You have to have a permit to do it. And you are required to report your fines.
Speaker: So it's not like regular metal dissecting where you only need permission of the landowner and only have to report something if it comes under the purview of the Treasure Act 1996.
Speaker: So this isn't just about metal detecting. But what they say is, with unique access to museums dedicated to archaeologists, curators, conservatives, and scientists, the discoveries are filmed from soil to gallery, revealing more history from the object at each stage. So again, they're trying to tie into the museum process. They're trying to tie into processes of study and so on.
Speaker: And it points out that there have been over 1 .5 million fines recorded with the portable equity scheme since it came into being in 1997. That's all well and good and all absolutely correct and proper. But this stuff does happen. It's perfectly reasonable for a TV company to want to cover it. It's perfectly reasonable for the British Museum to presumably punt this as part of its PR.
Speaker: or cooperate with this as part of its PR. We don't know whether the PM and the portable antiquity scheme suggested the program to Channel 4 or whether somebody at the production company came to them or quite what's going on here. There have been a number of metal detecting programs in the UK, either shown or punted since the success of Mackenzie Crooks detectorists.
Speaker: you know, so whether that's coincidental or not, again, blogger Paul Barford was suggesting that, for example, a program like this was being planted by the British Museum in the Port of Atlantic City some time ago. Well, according to the press release,
Speaker: Sarah Saunders, British Museum's Head of Learning and National Partnerships, said, with the support of DCMS, the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport,
Speaker: The British Museum, with the Welsh National Museum of Wales, they're proud of its role in delivering the possible integrity scheme and administrating the treasure process, reaching communities across England and Wales. We're delighted that this work will be highlighted by this new series which will showcase the hard work of the scheme and exciting discoveries made every year by the British public.
Speaker: So given that we have repeatedly, and we always say in these instances, that we're not anti -metal detectorists, metal detectorists, or is it the ultimate hobby, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And putting also to one side questions as to why it is that TV production companies see it as easier, presumably, to go to metal detectorists than they do to go to archaeologists and ongoing excavations, this kind of thing. I suppose the question would be, how does this fit in with the culture of metal detecting in this country at the moment? And so much as, is this production company wading into something which they don't quite necessarily
Speaker: fully understand? Is this culture subject to change in the near future? Obviously there's a review underway of the definition of treasure that's somewhat shelved at the moment, isn't it? It's in the long grass at least. It appears to be, yeah. So what's the context of this and what should we be looking out for?
Speaker: Okay, those tectonic plates. I'll start with Great British History Hunters again, because another part of the press release highlights one of the problems in trying to turn metal detecting into a character -driven and TV -less character. One of the reasons archaeology programs have often, actually I'll say it in a different way,
Speaker: The archaeology programs that have worked on television for any length of time have had at their centre characters. Time Team was a cast of characters. Time Team was a police procedural with characters fulfilling certain roles from the forensic scientists to the slightly cranky head of the investigation.
Speaker: One of our earliest TV archaeology successes, Animal Vegetable Mineral, worked because of the chemistry involving the characters of Glyn Daniel and some Baltimore Wheeler. You can't get away from that. Television, you cannot do an academic report, a peer -reviewed article as a television program. Nobody would watch it. Even the professionals probably wouldn't watch it.
Speaker: No, but also to be fair, who is attempting to make that sort of programming anyway? I can't imagine an archaeologist would.
Speaker: No, that's a bit of a straw man argument, but the point is that archaeology to work on TV needs to provide what TV wants, not what archaeology wants to give it. It has to be a creative partnership, which can mean critical friends, but it has to be a creative partnership. Now, one of the problems with this programme is that, for example, it talks about
Speaker: um it just finally correct uh here we go uh we'll meet a colorful mix of finders uh including an 11 year old youtuber finding bronze age gold an indiana jones enthusiast there has to be one that's on there actually straight up they don't mention stonehenge
Speaker: any point in this, which is probably to the good. It's trying to break away from the idea that metal detecting is a male preserve, middle -aged white men primarily, by saying that female detector is giving guys a run for their money, devoted dads and a host of other finders, but it also mentions war vets.
Speaker: Now, social media suggests that that is a reference to recording that was done with an organization or company, in fact, called Detecting for Veterans. Now, our regular viewer might remember that a few, about a month or two ago, we reported that Detecting for Veterans had collapsed amid accusations of fraud on the part of its owner.
Speaker: Now, investigations are ongoing, we can't comment on that, but it is also the case that the owner of the company has applied to Companies House for it to be struck off.
Speaker: Now, it's not clear, I've got a request in the Channel 4 press office, but they haven't responded yet. It's not clear whether Channel 4 or Tuesday's child were aware that detecting the veterans has collapsed and whether they will still be included in the program. But you can see, metal detecting is not uncontroversial.
Speaker: It's even non -controversial within the order of metal detecting. Battle lines have been drawn between traditional detectorists working on individual permissions and club permissions and the big commercial rally companies who are becoming the root for the greater numbers of people into metal detecting these days.
Speaker: It's unclear whether that will be covered in the program. And that also brings me to those other two tectonic plates. One is that the post -planting scheme has also just launched a very slick video punting the content of the Code of Practice responsible mental detecting.
Speaker: Now it's fronted by people like Helen Geek, Dan Snow and others. It's a it's a slick piece of work and it is punting a code of practice which is not endorsed by the largest national organization which is the National Council for Mental Detecting, the NCMD.
Speaker: The other thing is that it is associated and being pushed by an organisation, a new organisation, which is called the Association of Detectorists.
Speaker: the AOD, which has grown out of an initiative and a feasibility study that was funded by Historic England. And it sets out basically as an educational body to promote positive use of mental detecting, to promote best practice, to offer training.
Speaker: Now, this has been seen by some people in the metal detector community as a Trojan horse for bringing in regulation and even licensing by the back door, that if you haven't got an association detectorist ticket, you won't be allowed to metal detect in most situations.
Speaker: Now, there is no proof of that, but there's any suspicion of that. And with the PAS putting forward its own code of practice as opposed to the much looser code of practice promoted by the NCMD, some people might say that we are seeing a metal detecting frog being boiled.
Speaker: that the status quo is being changed incrementally and that in the near future we may see a more regulated form of metal detecting in the UK.
Speaker: Right, and so are you potentially suggesting that this sort of entertainment, edutainment show is a way of aligning and getting into the public's mind the notion that good metal detectorists work with the possible antiquity scheme and therefore potentially whatever frameworks the PAS prefers them to work within? You might say that I couldn't possibly comment
Speaker: I thought you might say that I thought you might say that but I just thought I would I would up some an element of my understanding of what we've just been discussing okay interesting interesting okay okay well um I suppose that's that's more or less it for this this week's watching brief it's uh it's a uh this is a um a dispatch I think this feels a little bit more like a checking in really for the week uh it's uh I just say I don't think I've done quite
Speaker: quite well, relying just on my phone and not having my laptop in front of me. And tonight, obviously, it is bonfire night. Do you go out and celebrate? Are there any local explosions that you go to witness? Or do you have to stay in with the dog? We certainly have to manage in the SRO.
Speaker: Absolutely. And I will say, anybody who celebrations like that, you know, I have friends who have, for example, involved in the Lewis Bonfire societies and so on, and relatives living in Sussex who regularly visit the wonderful Lewis event.
Speaker: but you know have an enjoyable one have a safe one personally. We often go to the end of our road where we've got this fantastic view right across east London into Essex so we can basically enjoy it. We can basically, well you've seen it yeah so yeah so we can basically enjoy other people's displays and but yes stay safe and look after your animals and make sure there are no hedgehogs in the bonfire and
Speaker: Also, you know, we're at that time of the year for the big, you know, the equi -optial and moon festivals and the fire festivals and so on. So, you know, we had your Halloween last week, which we talked about last night. And today it's Diwali. And so whatever people are celebrating,
Speaker: Have a good one, enjoy, and I guess see you on the next Watching Brief. Yeah we shall do, shall do. Light in the dark, light in the dark, and of course I'm talking about Watching Brief as well as Duvalian and fireworks. Yes guys, thank you for watching, until next time do take care, bye bye.
Speaker: This podcast episode has been produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network in collaboration with Archaeosoup Productions. Find out more podcasts at www .archaeologypodcastnetwork .com
Speaker: This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www .archpodnet .com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork .com.
