Questions and Answers

Our local tax office. They ran every 3 months. I think they do webinars as well now more frequently which is easier. I found contrary to myth that the people were helpful and wanted me to get the best out of the system.

We made postcards and put them in village shops and we lectured to WI (Women’s Institute) and school groups.

At the beginning we had a contract with English Heritage writing the Strategic Stone Study for our local area. This was great but then I need a minimum amount to pay bills. CBA work gave me that 3 days a week. Now the 2 day a week job gets me basic and the smaller stuff gets me extra. I must make sure I have a contract for at least 2 days outside heritage.

I have an office away from family/TV etc in house. We bought a shack, did it up and put an office space in as I was doing access to education course at time.

At university there was a built heritage module and we had to do a level 4 report. C. and I both were on the archaeology and landscape history course. Then the people who had let us do their property told their friends and it went from there. We have fine tuned it to make a narrative so it is not dry. We also tell people if we can’t find info. We provide a summary of what we have found along with a description of phasing…no one wants a full survey. We have worked in our area now for long enough to know what records exist.

I am happy to train. We produced a house history guide for talks on how to do it. We also subscribe to Ancestry, the census is fab. Our library does it for free but shuts at 5!

Public speaking as in chatting and listening. Understanding what people want rather than telling them what you are going to give them. Lots of skills re communication. Our clients respect us because we not only do what we say but if we can’t do it we tell them as well. Also know your archives.We have an area we work and we know the archivists and what is available. Not sure that is transferable but we made sure we do not waste time going to one. I would recommend brushing up on Word or the apple word processing as the report messing around with pics does our head in!

No you wont. Ask the tax office for a normal tax code. Not emergency. If they put you on emergency then you can get it adjusted really quick and tax will be paid back at April. But you have to get letter off tax office. This happened to me last year!

The timescale depends on how much we find. Some take a month some a couple of weeks as we are p/t. We charge £– an hour per person plus travel expenses. If they want a full report it can take a few days but most want our summary and digital copies of the archive (we pay a camera licence). £– per hour full time would equate to £–k per annum. We felt we were skilled professionals and worth it. If we charged a flat rate for a report we found we earned £3! As we put so much in.

Admin takes very little time so not really. What we do is charge the client. It goes into the business. We take out costs then split. We do most if our work for individual home owners. If we get an organisation who want more commercial work we look at a contract price and use HLF guide. Our initial start up admin took ages but as a business owner you take this on the chin. This is a small partnership though and different charging to say a PLC. We charge more for lectures. These are now prepared so any cost is zero prep wise that way we make some money on work done already. Also as a self employed outside of heritage I charge according to the job. The ad hoc gardening is less per hour than the project manager role. I have to be realistic if I want to earn money to tide me over.

Filming days are typically a combination of a lot of waiting around and repeating things over and over again. On set shoot days (rather than when a crew is just following work) they usually take some time to set up the room to be used. You’re then miked up and asked to go through specific questions/points that the director wants to cover. They then usually film it again at least once from a different angle/camera and finally, film close ups of anything you hold or point at. All the teams I have worked with have been really brilliant at responding to what I want to say and cover, so it’s usually a great interactive experience.

My first involvement with a BBC documentary was by somebody recommending my research as being relevant, so very much right time / right place and contacts. But most of the rest has been through the publicity around my other projects and publications – I’ve sent out press releases through the university and taken part in podcasts & written for popular magazines. I’ve also tried to use Twitter to make a profile for myself and this has been great – I’ve had several BBC interviews and even the Washington Post contact me based on what I’ve tweeted! It’s not something we get much training or advice on in academia but personally, I think we should do more. I got a lot of help with the press releases from the University press officer.

This is a really good question… I don’t think that media currently portrays how many of us there are and that so many of us have responsibility and lead projects in archaeology and heritage. I think we need to be better at self-promotion.

Surprisingly not, and I’ve been very grateful for this! My appearance has never been commented on and I’ve never been given any requirements for what to wear, whether to put on makeup etc. To be fair, I do feel pretty self-conscious and will be all vain and do my hair beforehand, but if anything, I’ve felt that they’ve wanted to portray me as a hard-working scientist!

No, I actually haven’t had much training so it’s been very much a case of jumping in at the deep end and hoping I’ll float…. I haven’t been able to find any suitable training opportunities, otherwise, I would definitely have gone for it! Maybe this could be an idea for a workshop or training organised by this group in the future, if there’s enough interest?…

Definitely to a degree, but not to an extent I wasn’t happy with – at least for the BVG film. For my first TV interview I definitely felt pressured into giving a simple ‘are they or aren’t they Vikings’ answer and that was tricky. Now I feel far more confident about telling them what I DON’T want to say, but you have to be pretty careful in how you phrase things anyway. I recognise that simplification is necessary for formats like a documentary so the challenge is to find a balance between a simplified narrative that satisfies them but that you still feel is true to the academic background. With this latest film I had a really great dialogue with the production company and felt that they understood and respected my views. I deliberately chose them over others because I felt they wouldn’t misrepresent anything. This is definitely the scariest part though. My advice for anyone in the same situation is to decide in advance what you are / aren’t happy to compromise on and stick with it, even if they try to push you

This is actually one of the things we don’t know. We can’t conclusively prove that any of the women buried there were warriors (there are some very lengthy discussions on this for graves elsewhere in the Viking World, most recently discussed in an Antiquity paper by Neil Price et al) . In the charnel/mass grave, around 20% are women where sex can be determined. But we can’t currently prove whether they were definitely part of the Great Army and if so, what roles they had.

I’ve been lucky enough to benefit from the advice of many exceptional colleagues. The earliest advice I received during my MSc at the University of Exeter, to listen to feedback on papers even if it wasn’t something I wanted to hear, and then to use it constructively to move forward. Sounds simple, but basically don’t be put off if you receive feedback you didn’t want to hear, and use it to develop an even better piece of work. The second I received from my line manager and it was to know my strengths and the situations in which I work best and use them to my advantage. Particularly to try to arrange situations where possible to play to those strengths.

I started out not sure if I wanted to go to University and volunteering with a local archaeology unit for work experience, I then attended Exeter to do archaeology and focused on Heritage Management and museums! In my third year we had our Wetland Archaeology module and I was hooked! I did an MSc in Wetland Archaeology and Environments whilst working in commercial archaeology, I then went into commercial archaeology following graduation. I decided to take the opportunity to follow up on the phytolith specialism I’d developed during my MSc. with PhD research at York. I had long admired the work of the Science Advisors through engagement with them during my MSc and it was a role I aspired to. I had a broad background in post-ex and fieldwork and a specialism and academic research which provided me with the skills to be able to do my current job. I wasn’t appointed the first time, but I listened to the feedback and reapplied for the next post to come up.

I started out not sure if I wanted to go to University and volunteering with a local archaeology unit for work experience, I then attended Exeter to do archaeology and focused on Heritage Management and museums! In my third year we had our Wetland Archaeology module and I was hooked! I did an MSc in Wetland Archaeology and Environments whilst working in commercial archaeology, I then went into commercial archaeology following graduation. I decided to take the opportunity to follow up on the phytolith specialism I’d developed during my MSc. with PhD research at York. I had long admired the work of the Science Advisors through engagement with them during my MSc and it was a role I aspired to. I had a broad background in post-ex and fieldwork and a specialism and academic research which provided me with the skills to be able to do my current job. I wasn’t appointed the first time, but I listened to the feedback and reapplied for the next post to come up.

I think I’ve been lucky to have entered my career at a time in which there are lots of women entering and progressing within archaeological science careers. At Historic England there have traditionally been more female science advisors than male. I think that the more female role models there are in STEM careers, with the caveat that not all sectors have as many female scientists as Heritage, more girls and women will be encouraged to consider STEM careers. I think things will continue to improve on that basis.

Many of our archaeological colleagues have entered archaeology through a non-academic route and there are several colleagues who are exceptional archaeological scientists who have trained on the job as it were. This is actually a really complex question, and yes it’s possible and yes we need more routes for specialist training, and I think traditionally this has been successfully achieved in part through training and mentoring relationships. I think perhaps though that this is a process that is still developing. I would add that not every HE Science Advisor has had a PhD, and the role relies on experience and broad knowledge and ability to build relationships, as well as a specialist skill set. A small flavour of what I do – this morning I’ve advised on a sampling strategy in a WSI, I’ve discussed on-going national infrastructure projects and the inclusion of appropriate strategies for environmental archaeology, palaeoenvironmental assessment and human remains; discussed marine geophysics and read a new report on a Palaeolithic cave site.

So, the most useful skill is self awareness, enough to know when I don’t know enough about something and when I need to discuss it with a specialist. I’m really lucky that I have a great team of science advisors (our hive mind is quite impressive!) and specialist colleagues who support me and I also have lots of contacts outside HE who I can speak to. I am very keen to make sure that the advice I give is well considered and practical, whilst being in line with accepted standards. Sometimes I can’t give an answer immediately, but instead I say that I need to consult with colleagues and I’ll get back to them. Our role isn’t to know everything, it’s to draw on our experience and to know who to ask and when to ask! People are always welcome to speak to us, and if I’m completely honest I’m often stumped as I usually only see the complex things. I love a good challenge though and so relish those cases and I love that my role enables me to constantly learn new things. Whilst some people will perceive saying you don’t know something as a weakness, I think that it shows strength as you are not afraid to admit to what you don’t know and to find out!

I would always advise being a member of a union as even if your employer does’t recognise them they can give you free legal advice.

I’m not sure I always do. I find that the feast and famine nature of freelance work means that I may not know one week from the next when the next project will arrive. This can be very stressful when there are bills to pay. I also don’t feel I can turn work down so can be working on several projects at the same time then on nothing at all. I think being sensible about charging a good day rate and being honest about timings with the client help. You need to develop a tougher skin when chasing clients for money and when they want you to do more work for less money( this is where being clear about costs and timings before starting really helps). Working from home I do have the flexibility to take time off to escape into the garden if I am too stressed and even the washing up becomes tempting when trying to write a report. Of course all of this is much easier than it was when the children were smaller.

each stage has its pros and cons. The baby and toddler stage especially with the first is the most exhausting and stressful I found. Once you have more than one child you worry less and your standards have to drop. Once they can get themselves to and from school, operate a washing machine and cook life is much easier.

I was lucky that living in a city there was a lot of available nursery places and child minders to chose from. All of my children went to nursery and I worked on projects evenings and weekends.I actually found it more restricted when the children went to school as the days were shorter even with after school clubs and managing during the holidays. Also it was never assumed that just my wages would have to cover the child care. The down side was I was based in an environmental archaeology “black hole” where we live so was reliant on work from other areas and worked for a number of years for a unit 2 hours away from home. They were very flexible so I could work from home two days and my ex had to do the school pick ups 3 days a week and we had to juggle work when they were sick.

I really like the Christmas card fridge magnet idea.
I would suggest a Linkedin presence and advertise on the BAJR specialist register (Find on the resources tab).

Its best to be upfront and just ask if they will try to keep you on local jobs I found. There wasn’t really another choice I had to be back to pick them up from childcare and could only get to site once I had dropped them off as there was no one else as my husband works weird shifts and at the time we had no family here. You can request flexible working which they will have to try and accommodate.

The down side is that it has pretty much ruined me for being enthusiastic about going on weekend retreats to lovely cottages in the country with my pals. I’ve been on a few hen weekends where a cottage has been booked in the middle of nowhere, and everyone is naturally excited about the prospect, apart from me who thinks oh great, another cottage in the middle of nowhere with no wifi…

It would have to be when I was lucky enough to work for a couple of phases of work on a privately owned island off the west coast of Scotland. We went to work in a speedboat every morning, the archaeology was just brilliant and the team were folk that genuinely, 15 years later, are still some of my best pals.

Worst accommodation without question was a guest house/hotel where I turned up and the whole room reeked of smoke, there were unusual stains on sheets and ceilings, incessant noise from the pub downstairs… close second was a place where there were pubes on the soap in the bathroom.

If I’m being honest, I think it takes a fair chunk of planning and effort, which isn’t necessarily the most appealing thing. For me, it’s really important to think about what you want to achieve out of your period staying away. I was talking to a friend about this earlier this week, she said the best thing for her was to make sure she had her running shoes with her. It’s not much to pack in terms of space, but it makes all the difference knowing you can get out for half an hour, away from your colleagues(!) and get your head straight if it’s been a tough day.. I genuinely tried to see a long drawn out boring week away ahead of me as a chance to a) sit on my arse and watch all the crappy telly i never got a chance to do at home and b) do the stuff that i don’t get time to do at home, like making more of an effort to call friends and actually talk to them, or keeping a diary.

I suppose it depends on your role on the project. As far as I’m concerned, if you are in charge of a project, then you have at least some responsibility for sorting out any problems, although with the understanding that own time is not site time. It really is difficult, and i think it maybe needs to be a case by case basis. I can’t speak from a legal/HR point of view, but i would never see any of my supervisory staff on site as being liable for the behaviour of others in the evening, unless they were actively egging them on. Our company actually has various policies which cover behaviour when staying in rented accommodation, so it might be something to look into – at least if you manage to agree on a minimum expectation and it’s written down, you have something to fall back on if someone challenges you getting involved.

Yes, I’ve definitely done a fair bit of that. The longest example would be when i was working in Northern Ireland, and cos of the practicalities of going home, it just wasn’t feasible to get back every weekend. I think even in situations where the conditions aren’t as favourable and you’re not getting a deal like that, pushing (or at the least, asking) for occasional extra days off is a good thing for your personal state.

I’ve honestly found a mixed reaction. In my early career I was too scared of being fired or made redundant due to the short term contract issues to mention, So I very much suffered in silence. But recently I’ve been lucky enough for two very supportive units who I have been brave enough to talk to and have support with.

I do see a correlation though where the most supportive units are the smaller ones with no regional offices, rather than the larger ones. I think the most incredible reaction was a manager turning round to me and saying that he doesnt think I should work for them anymore, because I hadn’t recognised how ill I was, and they supported me in going back to uni and taking a year out and wanted me to start getting better. I am forever grateful to that manager, because while it was awful at the time, MH is very retrospective and looking back now I should not have been at work.

So my symptoms for BPD is that I “tantrum”. The BPD spectrum is not being able to recognise what your actions are and have significant emotional instability, so if something annoys or upsets me, I can lash out without warning. Its like a rapid version of bi-polar, where I can cycle through every emotion in a very short space of time, and then be absolutely fine, like nothing has happened.

This then often leads to severe anxiety for me, as I’m then terrified I have hurt or upset someone and I can then go for days thinking that I am a terrible person. At work this has resulted in me very untactfully telling people exactly what I think of their actions and just going ahead and doing stuff. The idea of committees and group work is an absolute nightmare for me!

So I handle it at work by asking to do certain tasks, like being the paperwork monitor, or by just asking for a massive feature I can excavate! Medication has definitely helped a lot on this to stabilise me.

So when I came out to a couple of units, I sent them an email asking to meet and I went armed with the NHS documents on BPD. Having formal NHS based stuff, while not always totally accurate for the individual really helps management understand what it is, and how they can officially help you. I also used the resources from Mind.

At the end of the day, you can’t fix people, you can only support.

Absolutely. The turning inwards has very much been my experience. This led to some very dark days prior to getting help, as a coping strategy I would not recommend it! Unfortunately MH is a postcode lottery. I have been unable to access further help as where I live is dreadful for it.

However I am on good medication which definitely helps stabilise me and though Uni I am able to access counselling services. Although as a private citizen Im not sure what to do in my area as I cant afford the private services, and Im “not bad enough” for the NHS in my area!

The best strategy I have found is being open and honest. I tell every super/PO/ manager now that I work with, and take along the mind and NHS resources as well. My partner has been amazingly supportive as have my friends and colleagues. While BPD is certainly an odd condition to have, in general if you feel safe to do so, I would recommend being open to your community about your mental health struggles and start pushing for better understanding and access at work.

The attitude of “you wouldn’t work with a broken leg, so why work with a broken mind” while crude is effective at making me stop and think to take MH time.

Yes and no. With a greater industry impetus for mental health discussions, if an employer wishes to treat me negatively due to my condition, then that is their problem. Through being open and facilitating discussions I tend to find that my employers, while having preconceived notions, are able to work with me and find ways around my symptoms that don’t impact on work. I also know that as a union member, if i am discriminated against, I have significant support. Unfortunately preconceived notions, and stigma is still a huge problem within the MH communities and sadly it is likely to still happen. If your condition (ie BPD) could impact you at work, I would recommend discussing this at interview alongside any other “this could impact my work” related discussions.

Probably a good point is that a number of conditions are covered by the Equality Act, technically you are protected however this isn’t always how life works in the day to day.

Hello, well the course definitely helps with that. It gives you everything from phrases to use and ways to do it, to handling the answer you might get. mostly, the training did a lot for my confidence in this area.

So I thought I’d explain why I wanted to get trained. I’d been a First Aider at work for years. Then a few years ago I moved to a new department. Very soon I realised that we had staff who needed assistance/support, but I didn’t know how to give it. I stumbled across Mental Health First Aid England by accident on social media, and asked to do their 2-day course. At about the same time, two of my colleagues (one in HR) were also looking into this kind of training. I and one other member of staff got trained just before a team of volunteers did.

No, work paid for me. £200 for two day course, but I did it in a town where I could stay with a friend for free!

Following on from all that, the role is mostly like being a (physical) First Aider. Let’s unpick that. Both courses teach you the essentials to deal with a crisis situation. Like a heart attack or major bleed: or someone who is suicidal. Both courses teach you how to deal with other situations, like someone who is sick: or experiencing a down-turn in their mental health. Both courses teach you the importance of looking after yourself too. And loads of other similarities, because health is health, regardless of which bits of your body are involved. The big difference for me was learning about/talking about difficult situations. Like, you know it might be bad if someone has a terribly broken leg or burns. But you have to talk about suicide and self-harm.

The course content is determined by Mental Health First Aid England, but delivered by local trainers usually through charities like Mind. Go to the MHFA website and look at their calendar of courses, find one at a location/time that suits you. You also need to find the right course. There are differences e.g. for at work, or in educational contexts/pediatric, and so on. I just thought I’d add I went to the CIfA one in England although I work in Wales and apparently the guidelines differ for Wales and it’s a separate company that deal with it.

I have used my mental health training more than my physical first aid training. Important caveat: my work is mostly office based – low physical risk! mostly I have talked with colleagues in need of a confidential ear and support.

I do notice behaviours in colleagues that cause me to ask how they are, or to raise a concern with a colleague.

Most recently I and my trained colleagues were providing support at our staff conference.

it’s often quite subtle, not like launching yourself at Resussie Annie on the Red Cross training room floor! As a mental health champion I speak up/out in work contexts. For example, one of my recent archaeological zines is about stress management.

I think that it depends who they have available. Certainly if field staff have access to MHFA they feel they can talk to (its key they are not just supervisors or managers) then that makes a big difference. But as a general I’ve seen office staff feeling more open as they usually have a more static support network.

The biggest difference is made though if you have supervisors or managers willing to be open about their own mental health. Not being afraid to say how they are feeling that day in morning briefings or staff meetings gives others confidence to say the same.

Prospect itself doesnt offer any MH services directly to members. It does offer reps mental health first aid training and will provide accessible help to trained professionals.

I first became interested in combining theatre and archaeology when I started volunteering for the awesome archaeological site of the Rose Playhouse-back in 2001.Up until that point, I only considered myself an actress. I never envisioned this amazing life of archaeology that awaited me when I set off from Vancouver, Canada.

I had been acquainted with Sir Ian McKellen for quite a few years at the Rose before I embarked on my film about the Rose with my two friends-Antony Lewis and Siegffried Loew-Walker. Sir Ian McKellen is Patron of the Rose, and because he was always so lovely with me and always so passionate about the Rose, I wrote him a letter and asked if he would kindly consider being interviewed in a documentary film I was helping to produce about the Rose.

Shakespeare’s Secret Playhouse (Part 1)

I was still living in Canada at the time of the Rose excavations in 1989. The Rose Trust would like to complete the dig as a part of the Rose Revealed Project. http://www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/
Dr Jane Sidell very kindly allowed me to assist her in monitoring the preservation water at the Rose. It was an incredible experience-and wow is that water cold!