More to come - It’s not all Bad

To lighten up the whole Biography thing, after the past few posts, I thought it might be good to show that adventure and excitement does come -  I became what I always wanted to be..  an adventurer, a wild archaeologist in the grand tradition, a warrior, poet and er…   fantasist .  Well, in some cases I created the adventure to suit what I wanted, I found myself shot at, stabbed, lost in the desert, surveying huge tracts of mountains, searching for lost towers, living with locals, chewing Qat, smoking fishpaste tobacco, drinking vast quantities of Vodka and White Spirits.  If you can keep with the rambling tales, then prepare for true stories (and that’s the worrying thing!)  of recording Tell sites under rifle fire, climbing sheer cliffs to reach a hidden village, finding lost cities and ancient steel furnaces, being arrested by the Police in almost every country, mainly due to unfortunate misunderstandings..  I assure you…  and having run ins with Iraqi secret police, gun runners and whiskey smugglers, even attempted armed car jacking in Mexico.  Lets not forget escaping the KGB after a small altercation about a photograph and the fabulous times being Beatrice D’Cardi’s driver and bodyguard…  Tall tales they may be, but fortunately there was always someone nearby to say… “I can’t believe it… that could only happen to you!”

 Here are a selection of images to whet your appetite…   and no comments about my urban combat chic please!  So you see, there is better to come…     (scroll down to view)

 I kind of got on to this - because of this:

National Geographic’s Expeditions Council

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/grants-programs/expeditions-council.html

The National Geographic Expeditions Council (EC) is a grant program dedicated to funding exploration of largely unrecorded or little-known areas of the Earth, as well as regions undergoing significant environmental or cultural change. EC grants support a wide range of projects including marine research, archaeological discoveries, documentation of vanishing rain forests, first ascents, and more. Through these compelling stories we reinforce our mission to foster a deeper understanding of the world and its inhabitants.

The Expeditions Council consists of representatives from National Geographic editorial divisions who review and vote on grant applications, as well as an advisory board of external consultants. The program is editorially driven; thus, projects must have the potential for a compelling written and visual record in order for a grant to be awarded. Applications are also judged on qualifications of applicants and their teams, and on merit and uniqueness of the project.

Since its inception in 1998, the Expeditions Council has funded projects that span the entire spectrum of exploration and adventure.

 

What a Family!

  It is often said that the child is a result of nature and nurture, and so I suppose to understand the nurture bit I have to describe my family.  I would not say it was unusual, though a bit of dysfunction is always useful in making a good archaeologist. I was born to Eleanor Alice Connolly (nee Donaldson) and James Connolly on the 20^th December 1965.  My mother was shall we say a late bloom, having lived a life that was in some ways overshadowed by her Mother and Father and their expectations of her looking after them and my uncle Archie who had severe learning difficulties (as we love to call it now)  - It is such a hangover from Victorian Values, where the female child was expected to stay and become almost a servant to the family.  She did serve in the WRENs and the Nursing Corp during the War (more on some weird and whacky tales in a later episode) however, her place was with the family in Lee Crescent, Portobello, Edinburgh. 

She met my father when she was 38 and was married at 39, he was a train driver with British Rail and had been married before.  And so, at the age of 41 (which is quite late for a female, especially back then) she gave birth to my fathers 3^rd son.  He already had two sons, Jeffery and James, and as I later discovered (and I mean much later) two daughters called Janet and Janice (?) …  so as he was called James…  best thing was to carry on the tradition and call me…  er…  J?   J?   nah….   David!

Originally I was to be called Alison, due to my Mother being convinced that I was female… and so when I popped out (well…  to be honest I had got comfy and so had to be taken out by Caesarean!)  they had no name for me, and so, as the nurses walked the Simpson Memorial Hospital in Edinburgh they sang Once in Royal David’s City they found my name!   Thank goodness it was not Good King Wenceslas!   But I digress!

At that point we were living in Wester Hailes (a now less than..  cough…  salubrious area of Edinburgh)….  However, the death of my grandfather, falling off a tram 2 weeks before my birth, allowed my ever dutiful Mother to return to Portobello and Hamilton Terrace and a three- story Terraced house (costing a whopping 5 grand!) there to live with Granny Donaldson, Mother, Father, James, Jeffrey and Me.  I was picked on quite a bit as I grew up, with my half-brothers nicking money off granny and blaming me, or another favourite was to teach me swear words and send me into Granny’s realm (the top floor) to get a whack round the head for being foul-mouthed!  

My father was obviously not happy at the plans he had for my mother to look after his sons as this was spoiled by my birth.  I can still remember the shouting and arguments…  It is aged 6 that I remember a trauma that has still to leave me fully.

I returned home from school at the Royal High School, with my satchel over my back.  I heard the shouting and thumps and ran to the back of the house, where I saw my father throw my mother into a corner, a fist raised and a look of fear on her face, I ran at him and jumped on his back, with tears streaming down my face, shouting to ‘leave her alone’…  I still remember as he reached over his back and picked me up by my satchel, with me attached and easily ripped off his back, I dangled in his hands and with a flick I was thrown aside.  The wall was a useful device to stop me going too far, though it did hurt a bit.  Once again I see where my desire to fight for right and on behalf of those that can’t defend themselves has stemmed from.  Like the bullies I later tackled, and even the violence that was unleashed in my teenage years - I only tackled those that I felt were unjust.  Perhaps there is a lesson for those that pick on others still…  BAJR is based on a boy who will fight even if he can’t win, a six year old that tackles a man, because it is the right thing to do.

Soon after my Father left, trying to take half the house, which would have been a disaster, however my indominatible Granny stepped in and bought him out…  putting us into debt, but freeing us from him. 

It has taken nearly my whole life to forgive him, and to learn myself what he must have suffered, but there is never an excuse for domestic violence…. My mother never deserved that.  Tales of my father…  perhaps that is another post to come! 

So there you have it…   at the age of seven I have a dead Grandfather, an absent father (oh the stigma of divorce back in the 70s …ouch it hurt!)  a Solid (and quite stout) Scots Granny, a Mother who must work all hours to keep us stable..  two brothers who I never see and two sisters I never knew about until I was 32!  I was brought up then by two women, and had a strong view on right and wrong…   I lived in a big house, was loved by both my Granny and Mother…  what could possibly go wrong now!  

Lets see!

Bullys not welcome - it’s gonna hurt.

 

Of course school teaches you more than just reading writing and rugby (well at my school anyway! Gawd bless the Royal High, Edinburgh)  - the lessons are that honesty and innocence soon melt away into reality and the odd bruise (both physical and mental).  That’s the way I learned the lesson of life..  Bullies are always present; it just depends on how you deal with them. 

I was first bullied by the standard ‘group of three’;  The head bully (who usually does none of the physical stuff);  the lunk (who carries out the sore bits); and the toady (who ensures that they don’t get hurt themselves!)  To cut a long story short, I was bullied over a matter of weeks, I guess it was just my turn, so ritual water on the front of the shorts to make it look as if I had p##sed myself, or the Chinese Burns - always a favourite  - the dead arm, the dead leg, the pencil jab..  You name it..they did it, or rather Lunk carried out instructions.

I had always been told by my mum and granny that fighting was bad, and so I did not fight back, which seemed to have the result that they wanted to bully me more.  So one day after a particularly bad session of bullying I walked back down to my home and spilled my guts to granny.  She sat and listened quietly and then looked me straight in the eye and said the immortal words that I’m sure grannies say to small boys across the entire world 

“Bullies are cowards you just have to hit them once and they leave you alone“. 

Now I was getting confused as I been told never to fight, while here was my granny trying to get me to beat the crap out of another boy (okay three, nothing like setting your sights high).  My logic circuits were not coping with this, but it was worth a try and when my mother came home from work I said nothing about it.  The next day I remember like it was yesterday, it was cold but clear November day and the sky was blue, and all the trees and bushes were stripped of leaves and sharp against the sky.  The three boys approached me at first playtime and prime bully ordered another round of torture, but this is when things did not go according to plan, well, for of them at least.  I rushed forward, no longer the shy coward and grabbed hold of the lead bully by the scruff of its neck, catching him off balance dragged him forwards towards the clipped rose bushes gathering momentum the whole way.  With one last thrust I sent him headfirst into the rose garden, it certainly was not a pretty sight, and the howls would soon attract the teachers, I turned again to see the other two bullies transfixed, motionless, perhaps even petrified.  I hate to think what look I had my eye, the bullied was now most certainly in control, a righteous fury that follows me to this day.  Down went the bigger bully, soon blubbering at my feet while the other one ran for help. 

The teachers came of course, and I was taken to the headmaster, where explained why I had carried out will only be described as quite a vicious kicking.  And even explained that my granny had told me to do it, which perhaps a slightly better than saying God did, however even though I had been right to defend myself, and became a hero for almost an entire afternoon to the rest of the class, I was soon to find out that taking matters into your own hands sometimes have their own consequences.  In this case it was a rather thick belt with three straps at the end, and yes it hurt, and yes I cried, and yes I deserved it, but boy was it worth it as three bullies never again bullied me or anyone else in the class ever again.

Looking back it’s scary to see violence sometimes being the right thing to do, perhaps it’s something I should have remembered later on.  Nowadays I am very slow to anger, in fact it’s almost impossible to make me angry, properly angry.  But if you do, make sure there are no rose bushes nearby.

It was this time that I met my best friend, Grant, who lived next door to me in Hamilton Terrace.  He was to have a great influence on my life in many ways, and at this point in time there were many influences, most of which were out of my control, so perhaps I should explain a bit more about my family.

Primary - Information overload and hard Knocks

My first school was the Royal High School in Edinburgh, up at Northfield Broadway, a short walk from my house on Hamilton Terrace in Portobello. It was one of those old style schools and while others were getting into the groove and allowed the wearing of flares and tank tops, we were in full uniform, with cap! Oh yes! Well, anyway I continued my love of all things ancient and archaeological (YES! Even fossils.. I know they are not really archaeology ! honest I do).

It was in primary school that several events happened that you could say, shaped my life, positive and negative they are bubbling to the top of my mind now, so here’s a start.

In Primary 4, to make every kid in my class feel like they were special (That’s me - the prim looking one! - 2nd from the right at the back) the teacher, a Mr Henderson, gave each of us a hand written scroll, all copperplate writing and ribbons, the works. Each of us was called up to the front of class to be presented one by one. The scroll contained words like … Richard is most likely to grow up to be a new Picasso (if they were good at art) or Mark is most likely to be Mark Spitz (if they were good at paddling across a swimming pool). My turn came…. and I pottered up to the front, but you can imagine my horror when I was told I was most likely to turn out like Geoffrey Wheeler…. GEOFFREY WHEELER … who the #### was that … I wanted to be Mortimer Wheeler.. and didn’t mind saying so. The teacher had tried but got it slightly wrong! However I did learn a lesson, as he bent down and hissed… accept it with good grace, sometimes you don’t quite get what you expect! (as an aside, sometimes you get exactly what you expect, as I got a good 6 of the best belting for an unfortunate incident with a stand up urinal which I swear to this day, directed the flow at the boy next to me - and if you are reading… apologies! - but bloody hell did that belt hurt - so I did get what I expected that time.)

I still have the scroll, just to remind me. Now, as we were talking about Richard the artist, this was a eureka moment for me, one that helped shape me into a draughtsman. I peeked over his shoulder to find out why he was the best artist (well as good as a 9 year old can be) and good god… it was like watching the renaissance happening before my eyes. Instead of the average kiddy airplane picture where the wings come out of the top and bottom of the plane body, he knew about PERSPECTIVE!!!!

Suddenly I realised the world could be 3D, though why the Egyptians had never worked it out after thousands of years I am still not sure, as it only took Richard 9 years. This revelation allowed me to explore the technical side of looking at objects and would help me 10 years later as I began my career as a draughtsman.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself too much, so I will leave further primary school memories until next time.

Is it something about that time, where everything is like a dream, where knowledge is all around you and the smallest nugget of information can be like a fist sized lump of pure gold? Each colour bright and new - finding out what happens when you press a piano key for the first time , or running so fast you hit a wall and you learn about the solidity of nature. Each day was a wow. With stories and minds that were open to everything, innocent and free from prejudice… well… that was almost true, but every school needs a bully, and I had three … lucky me! How to deal with conflict, well now there is a new lesson that drags an innocent into the adult world…..

Autoblog First Dig at the age of 5

Well I guess the best thing to do with any story is to begin with your first memory, and believe it or not my first memory and my first venture into archaeology are one and the same.  Like most of this autoblogography you’ll have to forgive me if I sometimes wander off track or take certain liberties with the actual truth.  The thing is that sometimes memories can play tricks and I’m certainly not immune from this, so if you are actually involved in any of my life and  notice certain inaccuracies then I’m sure you can forgive me - I may return to these earlier years as my memory returns..  this is quite good for that! - I was born.. 20th December 1965.