‘Life is Fleeting’: mentioned in despatches at the Fleet Valley
Ian Blair
With the recent passing of Friederike Hammer I found myself looking at a copy of the Fleet Valley Project Interim Report published in May 1993 that she had given to me a year ago.
Fred had maintained contact with Bill McCan after he moved to China in 2006 and often liaised with him about trying to resurrect the stalled Fleet Valley publication project, and a few years ago in her own time had come back into MOLA to resolutely scan all the ‘A0’ phase plans for the site on the large format scanner. Hopefully, this labour of love was not in vain, and the scans will still be on the MOLA system in an accessible format, as sadly Bill pre-deceased Friederike in 2020.
One thing that struck me when looking at the interim report was the fantastically comprehensive acknowledgements section listing the cast of thousands who were involved with the Fleet Valley Project. I felt that this was worthy of reproducing as I very much doubt if many or perhaps any of the archaeologists who are honourably mentioned in despatches will have ever seen it.
One other piece of Fleet Valley memorabilia that Fred passed on to me was a flyer advertising ‘The Fleet Valley Interim Dinner’ the date being Friday, 23rd April, which I have checked and was predictably in 1993, immediately before the release of the Fleet Valley Project Interim Report. I have no way of knowing how many members of the archaeological team were to eventually sit down at ’I Vespri’, an Italian restaurant on Southampton Street, but perhaps some of the cast will be able to enlighten us.
‘Life is indeed fleeting’…..
(In fond memory of Bill and Friederike)
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