It was actually Mick that got Phil the job here and the later evolution to time team

Fun, isn't it 😊

I actually saw him mention on his flint knapping video, that he put a sheet underneath and took all the bits away so as not to confuse future archaeologists. Interesting, I thought.

Watching Phil walking through the woods with the sunlight glistening on that beautiful hair gets me every time. He was so very handsome back then. Sadly time and gravity take their toll on all of us eventually.

He still has long hair.

Noted: no leather buffer though.

I was also surprised, as a flintknapper myself, I always enjoy watching other people knapp. Shame he wasn’t mentioned, I’m sure he chuckles to himself if he was to watch this now! Gotta love that laugh! RIP Mick Aston, grew up watching this and time team, your work goes on!

Yes, it's most remarkable that he was excluded from credits, no doubt caused from Tim's owning class ignorance Yet, we can trust Mick Ashton pushed to ensure the MAN they relied on for this entire video was Phil. He's also more or less unmentioned in early Time Team. Such classism only seen in England, eh Phil.

@@ledacedar6253 I tried to send Phil a card/letter from here on the U.S. West Coast…it was returned. Do you have an address?

​@@ledacedar6253 Oh piffle.

TT was conceived on the drive back from filming the last TS episode.

Thank you for the comment, glad you're enjoying the uploads. Digging for Britain returns to BBC4. very soon so look out for that.

@@rrc7t3 That's fantastic....I will look forward to that....I want to thank you for bring this to YT....I do so miss TT and all the the Team from the earliest to the last....they managed to bring the past alive.

rrc7t3 Is there a hope Digging for Britain will get to KZfaq?

Mick wanted a presence that wasn’t an archaeologist, that asked real people questions! When he met Tony on a cruise, he asked him to be the presenter! That’s how it started!

@@catofthecastle1681 I didn't mean anything about Tony. I was referring to Mick's struggles with how the show was run after a few seasons, not anyone in particular.

Have you seen any of the new Time Team episodes? They are a bit more lowkey; the current presenter is a bit more soft-spoken than Tony Robinson and is himself an archaeologist, so they have a very different feel. Many of the regulars from the older series are back, like Matt Williams, Carenza Lewis, Helen Geake, and of course John and Stewart needling each other whenever they have the opportunity.

You're very welcome :-)

You're very welcome, thanks.

Bonjour. Have you seen "Tales from the Green Valley" ?

Lol you lot.

Phil at that age was a magnificent specimen.

Take a number 😁

Take a number and get in a very long line. That boy's mother did some very fine work when she made him.

Around 40 though.

Hawt 🔥🤗🔥

@@barbmcconnaughey3070 from where I sit, 40 is still a kid 😉

@@samikirk05 I hear you. We felt sooo old then, didn’t we??

If you are referring to Phil, he is not Viking. They tested his DNA and found that he is pure Celt. He was very pleased to learn that. He did a little happy dance and told Tony to get off his land. I loved it.

I prefer Huey, Duey and Louie. But they are indeed the glue of the whole show.

Clare B80 - this was the precursor to Time Team.

I'm grateful to the person who identified, in the comments to an earlier episode, that it's actor Ray Brooks. I've heard him in radio dramas but couldn't put a name to the familiar voice. He certainly did a great job here: clear, well-paced, warm, naturally animated where appropriate but without being over the top or having any irritating quirks.

I agree but this series of programmes did not take off like TT did hence the change of format. But watching this I to preferred this style. Reminds me of the series in the mid 00's 'Return to Green Valley' of the tudour farm and house in Wales. Thinking about it maybe the same narrator? Enjoy.

You are missing the point of time team. Times signs is a typical documentary for its time, but for many people it is hard to absorb because it is too dry and not nearly engaging enough. It is preaching to the converted: those like yourself who have already made a commitment to learn about the subject. Time team's primary purpose was to draw in the unconverted into a very esoteric activity that also happens to be very hard work often in horrible conditions. Time team achieved the impossible: it made digging holes for broken pots sexy, and interesting. This was absolutely vital to raise popular interest in the science; popular interest vital to ensure funding for the science. You knew they had succeeded when the team was introduced to the Queen. If only the same could be done for Taxonomy

@@wiretamer5710 Agreed and thanks for the new word!

Nah, i find this approach boring compared to the Time Team series.

And few people would’ve watched and it would’ve been canceled.

Re Mr Benn: Yes, according to the online bio I've just read.

Mick passed away but Phil is still alive and living in Salisbury.

That must be because he’s so good that we all know who he is. 🤫

@@ChrisHyde537 so true

You'd know what companies to buy stock in, eh?

Spent half of the 90's at college, and the pub across the road from it, best time ever

You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to make the same comment. My father spoke of my grandfather clearing land in just that way in Indian Territory before it became Oklahoma. Fire is an old tool, as old or older than flint.

@@larryreese6146 I believe there is an account of the Iroquois ringing trees to create new gardens, but they didn't burn because they were hoeing and hilling, not plowing. Subsequently they had to watch out for falling branches in following years. Probably a good source of firewood for cooking.

They burned. Fire adds to the soil. Especially in areas that are highly acidic from the tannin of leaves. Also leaves and detritus from years of leaf accumulation promotes pest growth that leads to diseased forests. Also, when fires are set consecutively year after year and the debris is kept down so that when there is a fire it doesn't devastate everything and become uncontrollable. Fire promotes new growth to bring game into an area. Some plants need it. Huckleberry grows old and wont produce but burn the forest and it will produce the second year. It was a general practice by Native Americans both in th East and on the western prairies to burn. Most probably they burned twice a year, once in spring, once in fall. Spring to promote new grass and herbage, fall to get rid of detritus and sweeten the soil.

@@larryreese6146 You don't have accumulation when the women with stone hatchets rely on fallen wood for fuel, and deciduous leaves tend to keep the soil sweet by cycling calcium. Leaf litter wet from deep winter snows and spring rain doesn't burn, it gets broken down. They may have scraped together piles of dead understory weeds as they hoed, and burned those for convenience, but that is not what you are talking about. Clearing fields left fallow for a couple of years is a different story because those will burn.

@@tyrander1652 they burned. Not only do I know this from word of mouth and remembrances from my childhood but also from various sources which I have read. I site Washington Irving's A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES for one example and would have to dig some to find my other examples from other books. But I have them. Also, when i was a youngster, growing up in the foothills of the Ozarks, it was a common thing every spring for folks to go out and set the world on fire. Note the new growth that came after the fires in Yellow Stone Park. When the first Eiurpeans arrived in America they didnt find a howling wilderness, they found forests of large trees, interspersed with open meadows and prairies. Why? Fire. Note the demise of red oaks and other forests in the Ozarks today. Why? Beetles, which have always been present but which over winter in leaf detritus, have been allowed to multiply in population until they are killing the trees. Only Europeans with their fixed abodes dislike fire. Fire is cleansing and promotes new growth for deer browse and food for other game animals. Native Americans managed their forests and fields with fire. On the plains they fired the prairies after their last fall hunt to get rid of invasive cedars and to clear the ground for new spring growth.

I'm grateful to the person who identified the narrator as actor Ray Brooks. The voice was familiar ( to me , from radio dramas but he's done a fair bit on TV including Eastenders) but I couldn't name him. [Funnily enough , a suppressed Richard Briers had occurred to me too! There's an occasional lilt that these two seem to have in common!]

@@sonia4641 And as if by magic the shop keeper appeared!

Agreed.

@@clareb8015 But he has a cunning plan!

He'll always be Baldrick to me.

At least he was more entertaining than the later PC facilitators that killed TT

If they wanted to keep an actor, they should've tapped Stephen Fry. He's a lovely person, quite funny, and incredibly intelligent. Also from Blackadder 😅

What makes you think Phil couldn't make his own booze? That man can do anything and do it with style. I'm just sorry I've never been able to find a video of Phil playing his guitar.

Phil can make beer and also the barrels to put it in. He did both of those things in a couple of Time Team episodes.

That's funny!! Not many of us old folks will get that reference.

@@rbru8030 Come feel the oww ar noise!

Get down and get digging 😅

It’s literally in the title…

ya exactly, unlike Time Team they weren't to informative on location in Time Signs! LOL

Wolf River Valley, prior to reservoir flooding.

Wolf river