David Ball, motorcycle-fancier and metal detectorist, member of Wessex Searchers and Let's Go Digging has just posted a message over on the Facebook page of the latter for all to see:
David BallThis has been followed by over 30 Comments, none saying what he's doing wrong. Mr Ball feels entitled to go out detecting on a "permission" he's got, he does not see that stay at home is anything that applies to him, nor the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 (still in force), the HM government Guidance on searching for archaeological finds in England during COVID-19, or the NCMD's advice from just two weeks ago to follow these guidelines.
Hi all, my wife and I have just got a permission literally right next to a sunken [sic] medieval settlement, with history of Saxon and Roman pottery finds... However the soil is very red and we both use a nox 800, went we went out yesterday we both suffering from chattering iron signals virtually non stop... Could this be the red soil or something we are doing wrong?
Basically, from close familiarity with them, it seems to me that a lot of UK metal detectorists have severe cognitive issues, they cannot connect things in the way the rest of us do. So Mr Ball sees absolutely no dissonance in writing what he does from an account that has an "NHS fank you" avatar. He seems not really to be aware of the reason why there is legislation, why people (shock, horror, EVEN selfish metal detectorists!!!) to stay at home as much as is humanly possible.
And it does come down to sheer selfishness, coupled with stupidity.
And if he cannot connect simple things like the word "stay", "home", and "this is why", then what hope have we that this guy will ever be able to document an archaeological context while he's ripping it apart with his noxious Nox to pocket some artefacts for his collection? Instead of "sunken" he probably means "deserted", can't even get the name right.
TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".
Update 20th Nov 2020
It took a bit of time, but at 10AM the next day one (literally one in a group with 13000 members) remarked with some sarcasm:
Ian Winship Bailey
Have the rules for detecting on our own permissions been relaxed?
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