The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  Lew Weinstein and Arthur Hall had set up New Ideas Productions in 1989. Weinstein had been a keen cinema-goer since his childhood and he had directed several small documentary films while at Fisher College, where he had been reading English. His friend and business partner Arthur Hall had read Law, but had no wish to stay in the profession. He was an entrepreneur to his fingertips. At first the company was run from their shared flat in Paddington, but soon it was successful enough to rent an office in Balham. Much later, and following the rapid success of Test Pit Challenge, they were able to move to larger premises in central London, where they were to this day.

  Arthur Hall had good contacts in the then developing world of satellite television and they had made several successful documentary series for these clients in the sky. In mid-2005, Arthur Hall raised the money to make a short pilot programme, which they offered to Terrestrial 2, where Charles Carnwath was commissioning editor for history and the environment. Carnwath, who knew and trusted Weinstein from their Cambridge days, saw the show’s potential and, although the pilot was never broadcast, he commissioned an initial series of five programmes, which were screened in the winter of 2006–7. The strand was a big success from the outset and by the end of series two, they were regularly being seen by upwards of four million people. By then, however, the number of episodes in each series had increased to ten, which is what was planned for the current, fifth, series, being filmed this spring and summer. The Fursey programme was to be additional to the main set of ten: a one-off Test Pit Challenge Special.

  Despite their name, New Ideas Productions were located in a somewhat ramshackle Victorian two-storey workshop, complete with countless alterations and additions. The original building was constructed, Alan reckoned, around 1850 and used the same grey London stock brick as its distinguished neighbour, King’s Cross Station, on the other side of the Euston Road. Like most of the houses, pubs and shops in the area, it almost certainly owed its existence to the nearby railway and may well have been built by one of the many sub-contractors who provided parts and services not just to the railway companies, but to the many service industries – the hotels, the caterers, the bus and cab companies – that sprung up when what was now known as the East Coast Main Line came into existence.

  The workshop was reached through a short cul-de-sac, which gave onto a rather moth-eaten park, where the grass never really thrived because the sycamores and surrounding buildings effectively screened out most of the sunlight. But it was pleasant enough, if, that is, you didn’t mind being regaled by the two semi-resident drunks who occupied its two benches.

  Alan had had to get up early to be in London for a ten o’clock meeting and the wet streets of Camden did not seem particularly welcoming. But at least it wasn’t snowing, he thought, as he crossed the Euston Road and walked through a waft of oriental aromas issuing from the extractor fans of Chip Chop Noodle Bar’s kitchens. His guts rumbled – he’d forgotten to have breakfast.

  Once inside the New Ideas building he signed in at the desk, climbed the stairs to the upper floor and made his way along the corridor that served the individual editing suites. At the end was the meeting room. He paused to look through the glass panel in the door before entering. He was the last person to arrive. At the head of the table was Weinstein and alongside him was Carol, his PA. Next to her were two people he didn’t recognise, a swarthy-looking man in his late thirties or early forties and a very attractive young woman with flaming red hair. Opposite them were Craig Larsson, the show’s presenter, and Joe ‘Speed’ Talbot, Weinstein’s favourite lighting cameraman.

  He tried to enter with the minimum of fuss, but failed, as they were all waiting for him. Weinstein introduced him to the two people he didn’t know, who turned out to be Frank Jones, the director who had recently returned from working in the States, and Dr Tricia Neave, who had just gained her PhD.

  In the run-up to Christmas, Alan had been working on material from Stan’s trial trenches of the previous summer, and had been struck by the amount of Roman pottery they’d revealed. It was all fairly usual stuff – NVGW (Nene Valley Grey Ware) and NVCC (Nene Valley Colour Coat), together with quite a few Samian sherds, which hinted at earlier origins – but Alan couldn’t pretend to be any sort of a Roman expert and he needed a consultant to help him out. Peter Flower had suggested they should approach one of his post-doctoral research students, so presumably, Alan thought, this was her.

  Being Alan, he asked the question outright. ‘Forgive me asking, Tricia, but Peter Flower said he knew of a Romanist who could advise us about pottery, small finds and that sort of thing. Am I right in thinking that’s you?’

  She gave him what could only be described as a winning smile.

  ‘My dissertation,’ she said, almost apologetically, ‘was on the small towns of Roman Britain, with special attention to Durobrivae and its region. So I do think I ought to be able to bring something to the project.’ She paused and gave Alan a shy smile. ‘If that’s OK by you, of course.’

  Alan was now beginning to regret jumping in feet first. And, yes, her work on Durobrivae, just west of modern ­Peterborough and one of the most successful and prosperous smaller towns of Roman Britannia, was highly relevant. Grudgingly, he had to admit that Flower’s choice had been excellent. And one glance at her beautiful face with its ­sparkling brown eyes was enough to see why Weinstein had taken to her so readily. Indeed, he thought, looking at their body language together, she already seems to be getting on well with the new director, too. Or was it him more than her? Hard to say.

  Weinstein cleared his throat loudly, drawing the meeting to order. ‘Great to have you with us, Alan.’ Then he very slightly raised his voice and turned to the rest of the table. ‘It’s nearly 10.15 and we’ve a lot to discuss.’ He glanced down at a print-out. ‘Charles Carnwath has told me that in-depth analysis of the ratings for Test Pit Challenge, series three, shows two important trends. First, an increase in the A and B social components, that’s the better-off and more professional classes. You may have noticed that the commercial breaks have featured more SUVs, finance houses and the like. But at the same time, and this is what makes TPC so special in T2’s eyes, we seem to be appealing more and more to the 18–35 demographic.’

  ‘Wow.’ Frank Jones was certainly impressed. ‘Seems like I’m joining a winning team.’

  ‘Thanks, Frank. But our success might prove a mixed blessing, so we’ve got to handle things very carefully.’

  ‘Do you mean the split between the two growing components of our audience?’ Tricia asked. ‘Is that going to cause us problems?’

  ‘It could, if it isn’t handled very sensitively.’ He turned to Frank Jones. ‘And you and I, Frank, will be the ones who’ll have to do the balancing act.’ He looked back to the table. ‘We’re not so worried about the main series of ten episodes. They have a quite a rigid format, which is tried-and-tested. And I’ll be quite frank with you all, T2 will be using the Fursey programmes to test new markets and, crucially, to increase their audience share. Currently they are averaging about sixteen per cent and we are aiming for around twenty.’

  ‘Sounds a bit optimistic?’ Alan couldn’t help asking.

  ‘It is, Alan, but Charles and the top people at T2 have some ambitious plans as well. I won’t say they’re going to throw money at us, but I don’t think we should have many problems raising any necessary expenses.’

  This was greeted with an impressed silence. Alan suppressed the urge to demand a pay rise. He looked across at Craig Larsson. I bet he isn’t appearing for £300 a day plus travel, he thought.

  Unexpectedly, Speed was the first to speak. ‘If we’re going to be so all-singing and all-dancing, isn’t it time we moved to HD?’

  ‘You’re right, Speed,’ Weinstein replied. ‘High Definition was the first thing I insisted on when Charles outlined their plans. And he agreed. They’re coming up with some technical specs right now. They’ll be emailed to you shortly.’

  Speed nodde
d. He was obviously well pleased.

  ‘But first things first,’ Weinstein said. ‘T2 can plan what they like, but nothing will happen if we’ve got nothing to film. And that, of course, is why Alan’s here.’ All eyes were now on Alan. ‘So, Alan, could you give us a brief outline of what has been found so far and how you intend to discover more? Timetabling is going to be essential here.’

  While Weinstein was introducing him, Alan reached into his knapsack and pulled out a manila folder containing his notes and a draft of the report to English Heritage that Peter Flower and Stan had been working on immediately prior to Stan’s death. He had added a more up-to-date summary of recent discoveries, plus a few references, but essentially it was their work.

  ‘Thanks, Lew,’ Alan began. ‘There’s so much …’ He paused, assembling his notes and his thoughts. ‘So where do I start?’

  ‘Try the beginning?’

  ‘Thank you, Craig, that’s very helpful. But it flags up how hard it will be to run the archaeology to a strict timetable.’

  ‘No, I appreciate that, Alan,’ Weinstein broke in. ‘But I think we must try to be very disciplined about when and where we do things. It won’t be like one of our regular shows where there are cameras everywhere and nearly all conversations are recorded.’

  ‘Or re-recorded in hindsight.’ Alan couldn’t resist replying.

  ‘I know, but what I’m trying to say is that you mustn’t come up with new plans without telling us. And on our side, we mustn’t suddenly decide to run a live episode, say, on a day that you’ve scheduled to move the site huts.’

  Speed and Craig had suddenly looked up at the word ‘live’. They looked happy. Alan wasn’t. As in real life, film gave you time to change your mind and modify your views. Live TV forced rapid decisions – which were often either wrong or misguided.

  ‘So you’re planning to go live?’ Craig asked.

  ‘Possibly, but that will depend on what Alan thinks we might find. So over to you, Alan – and everyone else, please give him a chance to say his piece.’

  At that, the people around the table sat back in their seats.

  Alan began by describing Fursey’s location on a small natural island of drier land, just off the northern shores of the main Isle of Ely. Briefly he explained that in medieval times and earlier the islands and shores of the modern landscape would have been real islands and shores in a reedy wetland, especially during the dampest months of winter. The flood-free land of the islands and fringes of the fens were usually thickly populated from prehistoric times. That population grew in the Roman period and there was no reason to believe there was a decline during the subsequent Dark Ages, either. Apart from being flood-free, the main reason why people settled along the edges of the wetlands was the fens themselves, where in the drier months of the summer and autumn, huge flocks of sheep and herds of cattle could be grazed; while in winter, the watery landscape provided something that was always scarce in ancient times, namely, a reliable and plentiful source of meat, in the form of fish, eels (hence the name Ely: ‘rich in eels’), and wildfowl, such as geese and ducks. The wetland was also a rich source of wood and peat for fuel, reeds for thatching and flooring; and finally, salt could be extracted from the tidal creeks a few miles to the north. All in all, it was utopian. When Alan used that word, Weinstein smiled broadly and jotted it down.

  Alan gave him time to make a note. As he did so he could picture the T2 trails in his mind: ‘Join us in the ancient Fens near the beautiful cathedral city of Ely. In this utopian landscape our Celtic ancestors were cruelly butchered by incoming Roman—’

  Alan realised that the room had gone silent. Weinstein had finished writing. Everyone was looking at him and waiting.

  He mumbled an apology and went on to outline how Stan’s work had revealed extensive evidence of a later prehistoric, Iron Age, settlement in the Fursey area, mostly dating to the final four centuries BC and the half century or so AD leading up to the Roman invasion of AD43. Some of the pottery was of exceptional quality and suggested a very high status community: maybe even a tribal capital or regional centre of some kind. There was some evidence that these settlements, or this settlement (it still wasn’t clear which), continued into Roman times, possibly as late as the start of the fourth century AD, but probably no later. Next came the monastic settlement at Fursey. The origins of the name are still not entirely clear. The last two letters, ‘-by’, referred to the Viking word for a farm or settlement. Normally the first part of the word would be the name of the person who owned that farm, so Grimsby was once a Viking-period farm that belonged to a man called Grimr, but they knew of no name that could become ‘Furs’; so the best idea yet suggested was that it referred to a rump-shaped island, ‘furth’, as in Barrow-in-Furness.

  At this point Tricia asked if Fursey was indeed rump-shaped.

  Alan smiled. ‘If it is, she had a very slender figure.’ This earned him a mild titter.

  Although not a place-name specialist himself, Alan was not at all convinced of the accepted explanation, but it was all he had to go on. He went on to describe what was known about the monastic site, mostly from documents in the library at Ely Cathedral. Essentially, it was a Benedictine sister house to Ely itself, but possibly not quite as early, perhaps even post-1066. It was always a smaller institution and towards the end of its life in the years leading up to the Dissolution of 1538, it had almost reverted to being a grange, in other words, a farm that was wholly owned by its larger and wealthier close neighbour.

  At this point, Weinstein intervened to ask Alan what he thought would be the main questions they needed to answer. Alan had expected this, and produced from his folder copies of a short list which he handed round.

  1. Are there earlier origins, before the Iron Age?

  2. The high status of the late Iron Age: did it happen gradually, or was it introduced from outside?

  3. Why did the high status not continue into Roman times, as happened so often elsewhere? Normally we would have expected a small villa in the fourth century.

  4. Why on earth found another Benedictine house so close to Ely?

  When he had finished, Tricia was the first to speak.

  ‘Alan, could you bring us up to date about the English Heritage research grant. How’s that looking? Peter said he’d handed everything over to you, and that’s all he knew …’

  ‘Yes, I’m so sorry. I should have contacted Dr Flower, so do please give him my apologies.’ In truth he still didn’t like communicating with the man and didn’t think the nuts and bolts of his, Alan’s, job should be any concern of his. He, Alan, had said he’d submit the report to EH before Christmas, and that surely was enough. Tricia’s response was, however, slightly surprising.

  ‘I would, but I don’t see him very often. I’m no longer at the university. In fact, to be honest, I’m quite keen to make my own way in the real world outside it, but that said, I was glad of the tip-off from Peter: this job came at precisely the right time for me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you were about to start stacking supermarket shelves?’ Craig Larsson could be quite mischievous when he chose.

  ‘No, worse. They wanted me to supervise the second years’ annual field trip around Dorset.’

  This merited a restrained laugh.

  ‘Oh no.’ Alan had to agree. But he hadn’t forgotten her original question. ‘I sent the report on Stan’s previous research, plus a detailed proposal and project design to ­English Heritage and heard from one of the regional team’s inspectors just after the New Year.’

  ‘Can I ask who it was?’ Tricia asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Alan replied. ‘Her name didn’t mean anything to me: Shelley Walters. I think she must be new there.’

  ‘Oh, Shelley!’ Tricia was delighted. ‘I’d heard she’d applied for the job.’

  ‘She any good?’ Immediately Alan wished he’d rephrased that.

  ‘Yes, she’s great. You’ll love her, Alan. Everyone loves Shelley.’

  T
ricia was trying not to sound gushing, but not succeeding, Alan thought.

  Weinstein intervened to bring them back to the point. ‘And what did Shelley think, Alan?’

  ‘At the time she hadn’t read it, but she phoned me yesterday, as it happens. Had some queries about specialists and some of our pay rates, which I pointed out were IFA recommended. So she seemed quite happy with that. But, yes, she sounded very optimistic.’ He tapped the tabletop. ‘Touch wood, I think we’ll probably get it – the grant, that is. I also gather on the grapevine that the current year’s money from the treasury is underspent. And between you and me, that’s what really matters.’

  ‘Yes,’ Weinstein intervened. ‘I agree, up to a point, Alan – the money does matter, as we’re not exactly millionaires at New Ideas, either. But the key and most important thing is to get the English Heritage name behind us. That will add huge credibility to our show. I can’t tell you how much it matters to our viewers that we’re absolutely authentic. With all the weird celebrity reality television now being screened, the discerning public are losing trust in what they see. It’s a real worry.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to hear you say that, Lew.’ Alan really meant what he was saying. ‘All the fans tell me that it’s the way we argue among ourselves that gives Test Pit Challenge its credibility. It’s as if they were there in the site pit alongside us. It’s a glimpse of real reality, not some media luvvie’s glitzy TV creation.’ He stopped abruptly. Had he gone too far?

  But he needn’t have worried. Weinstein was grinning broadly.

  ‘Thanks, Alan.’ He turned to the rest of the table. ‘So that’s what we’ve got to show the world. The next question is simple: how do we do it? But we’ll need coffee to decide that one.’

  * * *

  After a short coffee break downstairs, the group reconvened in the meeting room. Everyone returned to their original places around the table. There was a short pause while people waited for Weinstein to rejoin them. Then they heard his office door down the corridor close and his approaching footsteps. He sat down at the table and opened the discussion.