Focus on UK Metal Detecting: The Chav Defence

On the back of my comments about a news item in the public domain about how artefact hunters had treated an archaeological site over the weekend, the discussion continues. Yet another UK metal detectorist, this time from Dagenham attempts to explain the finer points of the methodology of recording of finds in their context, as the PAS have been ineffectually banging on about for eighteen years. He reminds fellow detectorists that they are all "ambassadors for the hobby" and that the general public will judge hobbyists from what they see in the media. If every time something like this happens artefact hunters present themselves as a group mainly composed of clueless and irreformable chavs, then the future of the hobby based on the image of a legitimating partnership does not look bright.