19.
searched the telephone directories of London, the Home
Counties, and many sample areas of other parts of
Britain (not to phone our Thomas of course!) but so
far not one Dosson has turned up. Perhaps he too was
Irish, in which case the Man's religious affiliations
may well have rested with the nearest Roman Catholic
church.
After a few months the ghost of Thomas Dosson was
allowed to rest for a spell, and in any case my main
activity was carried on at the site itself, which was
visited and carefully combed about thirty times in the
nine months to the end of October 1974, during which
time it is estimated that between three and four thou-
sand fragments were collected, washed, and classified.
From the start it developed into far more than the
mere acquisition of broken pieces from a fallow field.
It is a little frequented spot, and it was not difficult
to identify to some extent with the lives of the people
who did live on the site of Doves. After all, every
piece came from some object of everyday use; indeed the
majority were evidence of everyday breakage, and one
often wondered what scolding voice must have been heard
there so long ago when yet another piece of earthenware
hit the scullery floor.
Of course, our life at Doves has usually been in keeping
with the tranquillity the name evokes. Nevertheless
great things have happened there during the past eighteen
months. On 2nd May 1974 I turned up at 7.45 a.m., a
peaceful sunny morning given over to the calls of sky-
lark, yellowhammer, and reed bunting. The barley was
four inches high, and amidst the pale green were several
large mounds, beside their attendant pits, tracing a
diagonal across the home field. A day or so later when
I was stealing another hour or two on a similar morning,
a human being appeared on the field and disappeared
down each hole in turn. He was a pleasant young fellow
and interested in what I could tell him about the site.