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Ian Powlesland is probably most familiar on screen in his role as Time Team's 360-degree mini-digger operator, often working very precisely to the instructions of Phil Harding. But he's also a veteran Time Team digger and a fully qualified archaeologist (with a PhD to boot) in his own right. He has been with the Team since being called in to help out with a mini-digger for the Aston Eyre programme in the 1998 series.
How did you first become interested in archaeology?
I was always one of those kids who were fascinated by dinosaurs or castles or practically anything old. I drove my parents nuts demanding to visit places like that, especially as we regularly used to drive down the A303, past sites like Stonehenge, when visiting my grandparents. Much to my mum's despair, I never grew out of this and used to bring home old bottles, rusty tins, bullets or anything else I could find or dig up in the local woods around Long Valley, near Aldershot. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a tank on the back of my bike!
How did you get into archaeology as a career?
To my dismay, when I was at school I discovered that the local careers advisor didn't consider being an archaeologist a 'real job'. So I had to fall back on being a photographer, as the only other thing I was good at.
After working first in London and later in Bristol at a variety of photographic and arts-based jobs, I finally came to the conclusion that although I was good at the 'starving in a garret' part of the job, the world wasn't yet ready for my artistic talents. After several years of working at jobs like building, gardening, painting and decorating, interspersed with being on the dole a lot, I decided to go back to school. By chance, while I was doing some evening classes, I discovered that Yeovil College did a HND in archaeology and I jumped at the chance.
The next two years were a real eye opener and I learnt much that is still with me today. The course also allowed me to work with archaeological organisations, such as the Royal Commission, that inspired my love of fieldwork. Since then I have pursued my studies and whenever possible worked on a variety of excavation and field survey projects, culminating in 2004 with a PhD. Now I'm a freelance archaeologist, a 360-degree excavator driver and a landscape gardener for my sins.
How did you get involved with Time Team?
As with many things in my life, I didn't set out to work for Time Team. I had done some machine-operating work for Mark Horton, of Bristol University, which involved a mini-digger, and got a call one day to go up to Shropshire to do some more work on what I thought was a building job. This turned out to be the Aston Eyre manorial site [which featured in the 1998 series of Time Team], where they had a JCB, but no driver, and a 360-degree driver (me!) and no machine.
Eventually a machine was found and I found myself swapping between machine-driving and trench-digging like a madman. After the dig, which was the maddest thing I thought I'd ever worked on, Tim Taylor asked me if I'd fancy doing it again. Like a fool I said yes, and I'm still here, having failed to earn any parole.
What's the best thing about working on Time Team?
There are many good things about working on the programme, especially the crew – you know who you are! – and the people you meet all over the country who love archaeology and the history of their areas. It is still a real buzz to meet local people and landowners, who are always fascinated about what is in their backyard, and being able to give them a glimpse of that past. Of course it can be a drag trying to cram into three days something that most archaeologists wouldn't do in less than a month and not always being able to answer all the questions you set out to.
What's your favourite Time Team dig?
There have been many sites that stick in the memory. One of the filthiest has to be Cheddar Cave, digging out liquid cess and being hosed down in a car park at the end of the day – yuk! (Hi to the Cheddar caving crew, by the way!)
The biggest memory has to belong to Mick 'the Dig' (one of many!) at Blaenafon, looking for an aqueduct at the bottom of a council tip. The sight of Mick at the bottom of a huge hole in an excavator bucket with a camera on the end of a broomstick filming the inside, whilst thousands of discarded women's tights fluttered in the breeze is one I will treasure.
One of the most personally satisfying was at Standish, in the Severn valley, where after wondering about the lack of Iron-Age settlements in Time Team digs over the previous few years, we actually discovered one and got to dig some of it.
There are many more sites, but as fascinating as the archaeology often is, at the end of the day it's not the archaeology that makes the job worthwhile. It's the people you get to work with and the people you meet all round the country whilst you're digging, that make this one of the best jobs I've ever had.
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