things work out you can get a kind of unexpected twist on a person, show him from various angles, that kind of thing. I want to talk to more of Paxton’s old colleagues, students – the family is only a part of it. I’ve had a word with one or two people already and one’s beginning to get a picture. I say, Mrs P must have been a bit dashing, when young, from the look of her.’
Tom said, ‘Mmn. I daresay,’ and then, ‘Do you know much about archaeology?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Tony, with attractive candour. ‘But one picks things up fairly quickly, you know, that’s what this job’s all about. I’m an information man, through and through. Now obviously what’s interesting about the Paxton career structure is radiocarbon dating and its implications. By the way, you’re not an archaeologist, are you? Who is this obscure bloke you’re doing a thesis on?’
‘He isn’t particularly obscure, as it happens. He’s called Stukeley.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tony Greenway, propping a cushion behind his head.
For some reason hard to pin-point, he was not altogether unlikeable. In fact, he wasn’t really unlikeable at all, which was odd, given practically everything he said and, apparently, thought. There was a kind of deep residual self-deprecation about him: when he said ‘God, I envy you, doing something really serious,’ he meant it, even if, with the next breath, he was offering all sorts of half-baked but obviously deeply-felt opinions about anything and everything.
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘he was a doctor originally, but his first interest was always antiquarianism…’ He outlined Stukeley’s career, noting that Tony’s listening had a professional quality to it, the listening of someone for whom anything may be grist to a mill ‘… he was actually, bar John Aubrey, the first efficient field-archaeologist, his surveys of Avebury and Stonehenge are excellent, and a lot of his conjectures about things are very nearly right – he grasped the idea of a long sequence of prehistoric cultures, and the probability of continental invasions, and he thought about visible remains in groups – barrows or hill-forts or whatever – and tried to interpret them in the light of the actual historical evidence available at the time. But then – what’s interesting is that then he was ordained, and he went off his rocker – at least went off his scientific rocker – and produced wild fantasies about the Druids. That Stonehenge was a Druidical creation and that the Druids themselves were a priestly sect who came to England from Phoenicia after the Flood and set up a kind of patriarchal religion closely allied to Christianity – in other words that they were the true ancestors of the eighteenth century Church of England. It all fitted in very nicely, you see – then you could claim the most renowned site of antiquity for the Church. It’s all illustrative of the shift from the rational to the romantic and the decline of the seventeenth century scientific approach – but I s’pose what intrigues me most is someone manipulating the past for his own intellectual ends. Rather grubby intellectual ends – shoring up the status of the C of E.’
Tony said, ‘Fascinating.’ He went on, thoughtfully, ‘You know, I’m wondering if I couldn’t use him in some way, this chap. Once the twentieth century gurus series is in the can I’m going to be involved in something rather big about religious sects. I can’t help wondering if…’
‘Stukeley? Oh, no, I don’t think he’d make good television at all,’ said Tom decidedly.
‘Druids…’ Tony went on, warming to the idea. ‘I like it. I like it a lot.’
‘I can’t see it working,’ said Tom desperately. Whatever Stukeley’s own transgressions, the idea of him being mauled around in this way was somehow outrageous. ‘It would be bookish,’ he added with cunning. ‘Very difficult to present it without being bookish.’
Tony nodded
Tom said, ‘Mmn. I daresay,’ and then, ‘Do you know much about archaeology?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Tony, with attractive candour. ‘But one picks things up fairly quickly, you know, that’s what this job’s all about. I’m an information man, through and through. Now obviously what’s interesting about the Paxton career structure is radiocarbon dating and its implications. By the way, you’re not an archaeologist, are you? Who is this obscure bloke you’re doing a thesis on?’
‘He isn’t particularly obscure, as it happens. He’s called Stukeley.’
‘Tell me,’ said Tony Greenway, propping a cushion behind his head.
For some reason hard to pin-point, he was not altogether unlikeable. In fact, he wasn’t really unlikeable at all, which was odd, given practically everything he said and, apparently, thought. There was a kind of deep residual self-deprecation about him: when he said ‘God, I envy you, doing something really serious,’ he meant it, even if, with the next breath, he was offering all sorts of half-baked but obviously deeply-felt opinions about anything and everything.
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘he was a doctor originally, but his first interest was always antiquarianism…’ He outlined Stukeley’s career, noting that Tony’s listening had a professional quality to it, the listening of someone for whom anything may be grist to a mill ‘… he was actually, bar John Aubrey, the first efficient field-archaeologist, his surveys of Avebury and Stonehenge are excellent, and a lot of his conjectures about things are very nearly right – he grasped the idea of a long sequence of prehistoric cultures, and the probability of continental invasions, and he thought about visible remains in groups – barrows or hill-forts or whatever – and tried to interpret them in the light of the actual historical evidence available at the time. But then – what’s interesting is that then he was ordained, and he went off his rocker – at least went off his scientific rocker – and produced wild fantasies about the Druids. That Stonehenge was a Druidical creation and that the Druids themselves were a priestly sect who came to England from Phoenicia after the Flood and set up a kind of patriarchal religion closely allied to Christianity – in other words that they were the true ancestors of the eighteenth century Church of England. It all fitted in very nicely, you see – then you could claim the most renowned site of antiquity for the Church. It’s all illustrative of the shift from the rational to the romantic and the decline of the seventeenth century scientific approach – but I s’pose what intrigues me most is someone manipulating the past for his own intellectual ends. Rather grubby intellectual ends – shoring up the status of the C of E.’
Tony said, ‘Fascinating.’ He went on, thoughtfully, ‘You know, I’m wondering if I couldn’t use him in some way, this chap. Once the twentieth century gurus series is in the can I’m going to be involved in something rather big about religious sects. I can’t help wondering if…’
‘Stukeley? Oh, no, I don’t think he’d make good television at all,’ said Tom decidedly.
‘Druids…’ Tony went on, warming to the idea. ‘I like it. I like it a lot.’
‘I can’t see it working,’ said Tom desperately. Whatever Stukeley’s own transgressions, the idea of him being mauled around in this way was somehow outrageous. ‘It would be bookish,’ he added with cunning. ‘Very difficult to present it without being bookish.’
Tony nodded
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