Mick's Blessings
A Bristol University professor is a familiar face to millions thanks to Channel 4's top-rating archaeology programme Time Team. Nige Tassell meets Mick Aston.
Over the past few years, the Channel 4 archaeology-fest Time Team has become mandatory Sunday tea-time viewing, a stimulating antidote to the slot that was previously the exclusive domain of Songs of Praise and the Antiques Roadshow. One of the channel's most popular programmes, it brings archaeology to the masses as a team of assembled experts spend three days investigating a site of archaeological importance. But the programme isn't just seeing what can be dug up over the course of this extended weekend; it's enthralling for the interplay between the various experts, colourful characters one and all.
Mick Aston: I'm not too interested in the detail,
I'm interested in the overall picture.
Mick Aston is one such colourful character. With his wild
silver hair, thick Black Country twang and penchant for exceedingly 
colourful stripy jumpers,
this Bristol University professor is the chief expert on Time Team and
thus archaeology's most high-profile ambassador. Not that you'll catch
him getting muddy in some trench though. I'm a landscape
archaeologist,
he explains, which means I get
involved with surveying and aerial photography. It's about putting
everything together using maps, documents and all the historical
records in order to build up a picture of how an area developed over a
period of time. Excavation is merely one bit of that. I rarely get down
into the trench. I'm not too interested in the detail, I'm interested
in the overall picture.
Mick was there right at the start of the Time Team quest,
having linked up with Bristol-based television producer Tim Taylor on a
previous Channel 4 programme called Time Signs before hatching the idea
for its successor. With Tim taking care of the film production side of
things, it was left to Mick to seek out ideal locations for digs and to
headhunt a team of experts. He was also responsible for getting Tony
Robinson to front the show. Tony had been to Greece with a
group of mine on an extramural course,
he explains. We
kept in contact afterwards and he always said,
Look, we
should make some television programmes, it'd be really interesting to
show people what archaeology was all about.
So when Tim and I
got the idea sorted out and Channel 4 wanted the frontperson, all sorts
of people were suggested. Brian Redhead was the frontrunner. I said, I
only know Tony and I think he'd love to do it.
So they
approached him and apparently he first said no and they said, Oh,
that's a shame. Mick Aston told us to contact you.
Oh,
Mick? That's all right then. Let's do it!
The selected locations offer a wide range of historical
scenarios; one week they could be excavating neolithic sites in search
of primitive tools, the next they might be digging up the wreck of a
Spitfire shot down over northern France. So, how are the sites
selected? To begin with, it was the general public writing
in. It was something like 60-80% of the original programmes were
suggestions, whereas now it's only about 20%. The rest are suggested by
other archaeologists, local archaeological societies, even English
Heritage, people like that. Then the researchers go and look at the
site and the documentation to see if it makes sense and ultimately Tim
will look at it to see if it will make a good programme.
The Romans are a pretty boring lot. They're very like
us - they were materialistic, they were totally without morality.
Ask Mick what his favourite site has been and he becomes
uncharacteristically reticent. I don't have a favourite,
he admits, I really don't. There are little bits of lots of
them which make you think
When I suggest that the discovery of an extremely well-preserved Roman
mosaic during the filming of the present series must have been a
highlight, his answer is a tad surprising. Yeah, that was a great bit
.That doesn't turn
me on at all. The Romans are a pretty boring lot anyway. They're very
like us - they were materialistic, they were totally without morality,
they had loads and loads of possessions, they lived in buildings we can
recognise - so the general public love them. And they're a very good
start for people getting involved in archaeology but they're by no
means the most interesting part of the subject at all.
As if his general appearance didn't speak volumes, you begin
to suspect that Mick Aston isn't anything at all like the crusty
professor safely protected by the walls of academia. He's a fervent
supporter of making education as widely available as possible, as
witnessed by his work for Bristol University's Department of Continuing
Education and the many talks he gives in village halls and community
centres. He leaves you in no doubt that he prefers teaching adult
learners rather than young undergraduates and has some rather outspoken
ideas about the current education system. I wonder if we
should be bothered with teaching people who are reluctant to learn. It
would make a great deal of sense if, say, by the age of 14, they
stopped with formal education and moved onto something else - Outward
Bound, world travel, whatever. They don't know how to learn, they're
not interested in it. There's too many calls on their time, like girls
and computer games. But just wait ten years. People get in their late
20s and they are much more efficient at what they're doing then. So
I've always been more interested in adult students. First years are a
waste of time, basically. They're like kids, giggling at the back.
Away
from filming and lecturing, Mick becomes a bit of a recluse
at his house on the edge of Somerset's Mendip Hills, a home selected
not so much for the rich countryside around, rather for three peculiar
criteria. I had to be able to get onto the roof, it should be
detached so I could play my music loud, and it should be private enough
to lie in the back garden with nothing on!
A devout
vegetarian since the age of 15 (when no-one else was
),
he enjoys nothing better than cooking his favourite dish of cabbage,
cheese and garlic lasagne and settling down with a glass of red and a
good book. I do read an enormous amount. I'm reading Harry
Potter at the moment! I'm also reading the last Louis de Bernieres and
a book on Hitler's spies because I'm fascinated by the Third Reich. I
like travelling too. I've got a Volkswagen van that's got a fridge, a
cooker and a loo, and at the slightest opportunity I'm off in that,
going to somewhere I've never been to before, checking out the place's
history.
Though obviously delighted with the progress Time Team has
made in getting everyday folks interested in archaeology, Mick's
somewhat bemused by the onset of celebrity which sees him harangued for
autographs when he's buying his groceries and featured in cartoon form
in the pages of every student's favourite comic, Viz. What
does it mean to be a cartoon-strip character?
asks the
professor. I have very mixed feelings about that. On one hand
you think,
Well, great because archaeology's in the public
consciousness,
but part of me thinks, Well, hang
on, this isn't what I intended at all! What's it all about?
Reproduced by permission from Folio no. 62.
