When I was a tiny flim of a flam...
...I was not your average little girl. While other girls would busy themselves playing with dolls and begging their parents to let them have their ears pierced I was at the bottom of the garden, digging mainly. What was I digging for you might ask… STUFF! I would dig for freedom, I would dig for liberty, I would just plain dig for the love of digging my friends!!

From a young age I wanted more than anything else in the world to find a dinosaur, obviously not understanding that a small garden on a RAF base in Bedfordshire was probably not the best place in the world to search.

Anyhoo, eventually the time came for us to move from the base and we shifted from Bedfordshire to Cambridgeshire so my dad could join the Police force. I was 7 and while I was of course sad to leave my friends behind I was also looking forward to the possibility of a new dig site - woo.

We had moved into a new build home which I later found out was built on top of land which was once a massive dairy farm. Once we arrived I grabbed a trowel and in a matter of days I had dug up most of the back garden and scoured all of the gravel drive looking for fossils, of which there were lots. I had also, much to my mothers horror, dug up half the bones from a cow and found a mouse skull, I was in heaven and things were only going to get better.

Starting at my new school I had pretty much told everyone about my digging habits and brought in my collection of misc boney/stoney crap to share with all those around me on our Nature Table. At the end of term I had a lot to carry home and struggled out the gate with bursting bags. It was raining and I had managed to fall over and drop my bag on the floor. Hearing the thud I knew I had broken my prize possession, a massive cow bone (I can't for the life of me remember what it was now - I think it was a femur bone) I sat on the floor and cried. I noticed a car pull up alongside me and my headmistress got out, she picked me off the floor and asked what was wrong. I sobbed and told her about the bone breaking. She got up and tapped on the window of the car. A man got out and introduced himself as Mr Howe.

It turned out Mr Howe worked at a museum in Peterborough and was a curator, he was very interested to see what I had in the bag. He asked if he could borrow my findings and bring them back after the weekend. I let him go and was dusted off and sent on my way. The following week my headmistress asked me to come to her office where she gave me a letter, it was from her husband and he had painstakingly drawn around each stone and explained in full detail, where they had come from, how old they were, what sort of fossil was imbedded etc. he had also managed to glue my bone back together again, and you could hardly tell it was broken. I was amazed and from that day on Mr Howe was my hero! I visited him at the museum in Peterborough and I would send him anything I found. He would always reply with beautiful letters, written with elegant swooping text explaining what I had ‘discovered’. He really did make me feel like an adventurer.

Sadly Mr Howe is no longer with us, he died of cancer when I was 10 and with him went my dream of becoming an archaeologist/geologist. I still have the letters and treasure them to this day, he will always be a hero to me, simply because he took the time to show an interest in me and never once treated me like a child.
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 17 Apr 2009, 14:07, 13 replies)

RAF Cardington?
My mate's dad was station commander there in the 1980s. Quite appropriate really, given that my mate's sister had a pair of norks that practically needed airship hangars of their own...
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 14:35, closed)

RAF Henlow...
...Although I'm not too sure if Hitchin is in Bedfordshire now I think about it??
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 17 Apr 2009, 14:55, closed)

Nope
Hertfordshire ... I only know as I sometimes have to work in Stevenage, and escape to Hitchin of an evening to rinse my expenses at the better pubs/restaurants they've got over there.
(Teiresias, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 10:47, closed)

Best yet
Finally. Not a "I once met somebody vaguely famous" post (come on, no one's a fan of Les Dennis are they?) but a genuinely great post about someone who clearly meant a lot to you. Thank you for a truly wonderful post.
( SteamedCleaner, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 15:02, closed)

Aww
Thank you very much for the nice comment! :)
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 17 Apr 2009, 15:12, closed)

Wonderful
Brilliantly told, magnificently written and cute enough to make kittens look like non-cute things.

This rocks.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 15:56, closed)

Double awww...
...again, thank you very much, I seriously thought I'd get verbally abused for bringing the mood down on a Friday! Cheers you lovable bunch of lovables!
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 17 Apr 2009, 16:00, closed)

/Goes a bit red/
You called me (well, us/the collective) loveable.

I've got a bone you can have - and it doesn't need gluing.

Regards,

Dick Emery.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 16:08, closed)

That was
absolutely beautiful.
I'm almost in tears at my desk.

It's things like this that rekindle my hope in humanity.

*Click*
(TheColonel, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 15:58, closed)

Great stuff :-)
The world needs more folks like Mr Howe.
(TC, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 16:23, closed)

*Click*
I spend most of my life digging and I never found a damn thing. Except that massive electricity cable, but thats another story. Good on ya Mr H!
(DownhillGardener no-one does it like that anymore, Fri 17 Apr 2009, 16:57, closed)

lovely
but why did you stop being an archeologist? surely you still could? ya got to keep digging! dig for freedom!

and again, just lovely.

*has somthing in my eye
(DreddPirateBob has watched every scifi film ever on, Sat 18 Apr 2009, 0:39, closed)

Thank you...
...for your nice comments!

I suppose I could have carried out my dream of becoming an archaeologist, but I think as a child you don't consider what it actually takes to get into the job you like the look of. Sadly my science grades were quite terrible when I was at school and regardless of my shovel-wielding-skills it was not meant to be.

I am considering doing a course in archaeology though, just for fun... or maybe a course in forensic entomology, which is also wicked cool! :)
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Mon 20 Apr 2009, 12:01, closed)