30th April 2010, 12:13 PM
Comarch - I don't think we are a million miles apart.....
Back in the late 80s/early 90s I was one of the IfA 'resisiters' who tried to stop the IfA (in collusion with EH and SCUM) from effectively destroying the old county, town and city unit system. We organised a couple of conferences to discuss the matter rang around all of our friends and former friends, tried to interest the media, ran a fringe session at an IFA conference I remember....all to no avail. I don't claim to be gifted with second sight, but I and many of my colleagues at the time could see where the disintegration of the then existing system (with all of its admitted imperfections) was leading and - lo and behold - thats exactly where we have reached. However as the old Don Mclean song says 'They weren't listening then, they aren't listening now'.
Did it do my career any good? Not really. The editor of a well known (but little read!!) archaeology magazine described us as pursuing a blatantly 'Marxist fringe agenda'....an English Heritage inspector at the time (now a respected academic) told me after one session I chaired - 'Competitive Tendering and Project Funding - its the same thing as far as we (EH) are concerned'....Right!! I also recall at an IfA AGM in Birmingham telling the then Chair of the IfA that if he allowed this farce to be enacted we might as well all leave the IfA and instead join the Institute of Loss Adjusters!! That comment certainly didn't do my career any good and I never did get offered that job in Borsetshire!!
I'd be happy you might guess (even after all these years) to see some semblance of sanity return to the regulation of the business of archaeology....
Back in the late 80s/early 90s I was one of the IfA 'resisiters' who tried to stop the IfA (in collusion with EH and SCUM) from effectively destroying the old county, town and city unit system. We organised a couple of conferences to discuss the matter rang around all of our friends and former friends, tried to interest the media, ran a fringe session at an IFA conference I remember....all to no avail. I don't claim to be gifted with second sight, but I and many of my colleagues at the time could see where the disintegration of the then existing system (with all of its admitted imperfections) was leading and - lo and behold - thats exactly where we have reached. However as the old Don Mclean song says 'They weren't listening then, they aren't listening now'.
Did it do my career any good? Not really. The editor of a well known (but little read!!) archaeology magazine described us as pursuing a blatantly 'Marxist fringe agenda'....an English Heritage inspector at the time (now a respected academic) told me after one session I chaired - 'Competitive Tendering and Project Funding - its the same thing as far as we (EH) are concerned'....Right!! I also recall at an IfA AGM in Birmingham telling the then Chair of the IfA that if he allowed this farce to be enacted we might as well all leave the IfA and instead join the Institute of Loss Adjusters!! That comment certainly didn't do my career any good and I never did get offered that job in Borsetshire!!
I'd be happy you might guess (even after all these years) to see some semblance of sanity return to the regulation of the business of archaeology....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...