Diary of finding a hoard
Find gold hoard, ring coroner and finds liaison officer.
Finds liaison officer Kurt Adams, asks me how do I know it’s Bronze Age gold . Duh!
Tells me he will come and pick it up in two days.
Kurt Adams never arrives.
Phone him up, ‘where are you’, ‘sorry couldn’t make it, next week sometime.’
Next week arrives, no sign of him.
Third week, I ask him are you taking this seriously, he says sorry I’ve got car troubles, and Gloucester museum hasn’t got the adequate insurance, so you can’t send it there.
Forth week , get ****** off, take it myself to the Corrinium Museum , Cirencester.
First thing they say, we don’t know anything about this, why didn’t Kurt Adams inform us. (why didn’t he indeed)
Fifth, sixth, seventh and finally eighth week archies turn up, to look at the site, even though some of the gold was found on the surface..
Discuss find with landowner, but not me.
Silence!
After 14 weeks eventually turn up excavate the rest after securing funding from the heritage lottery fund of £20000, that was just the dig.
Plan to excavate trench 3m x 10m.
Jan Wills turns up, head of Archaeology in Gloucestershire. Refuses to speak to me. B---h!
Start to excavate trench, find first piece of gold. Yippee!
Tell me they have 10 days to complete job.
Thursday weather forecast not looking good, forecast rain, I offer to get large sheet to cover trench, no it will be alright they say.
Friday, turn up to swimming pool in field. Archies abandon dig until Monday.
Archies arrive on Monday morning, to find weather has dropped to minus 10 overnight. Trench is completely frozen , so they chisel the lumps of ice out. I manage to detect spoil heap, and find large piece of gold lying on top, visible to everyone.
Tuesday, carry on digging. One of the diggers stands up to stretch his back, and I look down to find he has uncovered a gold ring which was clearly visible 10 feet away but he fails to see it, until I point it out to him.
Lots of secret phone calls are made, just out of range.
Eighteen pieces are finally recovered from the trench on the rescue dig, I find 12 the archies find 6.
Trench finally refilled, and archies leave.
6 months later, I ask them whether I can write to the local paper to tell my story.
No problem, as long as we see it first, and vet it.
Send Email to Shire Hall , get reply from Kurt Adams FLO, story O.K but you didn’t mention all the hard work the F.L.O did for you. I must have been like ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and slept for 3 months and missed something!
Revise the story, then go to the local press to tell them the facts, 10 minutes latter my mobile rings , all hell breaks loose, it’s Shire Hall, stop the story, fund raiser need to be contacted, too late I say!, then the phone goes dead. What the f--k was all that about!
Read papers the next day, make front page!
Archies then contact landowner, and fax him the press article and cause a rift between us, they then try and get him to make me sign a gagging order. Every thing must go through Shire Hall and the archies.
Bollocks I say.
18 months go by, not a word from the archies.
Asked to attend court, for treasure inquest. Declared treasure.
Finally get a letter saying a provisional valuation has valued my hoard at between £15,000-£17,000, which I say is too low.
T.V.C meet and value my hoard at £17000, which I contest twice.
On the 30th June they meet again. They ignore all my evidence I have provided them on the value of the ring money, and tell me Bronze Age gold is fairly common, and say they will pay 3 times scrap value for the cut up pieces, at the time gold was trading at $500 an ounce.
After 2 years we finally have to except £17000, although I tell them not to use this as a bench mark for any other future cases, as we feel we were ripped off.
Four year then go by and I’m not allowed back on the land, because they tell the landowner they may need to scan the ground some time in the future.
Finally the landowner relents and let me continue to search his land.
Stalked on various Detecting forums by Tim Grubb of Gloucestershire archaeology under the name of 'Gooner.,
Write to Shire Hall under the freedom of Information Act, and receive a large folder containing libellous emails, and 100's of pages copied from various Detecting forums, infringing the copyright of these sites.
Contact Solicitor, to sue Shire Hall for libel and invasion of privacy, and told it will be very costly and no legal aid is available.
Write to Trevor Austin of the NCMD to see whether he can help me, as I was a paid up member. Unfortunately the insurance coverage will only help me if I libel someone else, not if they libel me.
Next stage to publish the story in the national press.
