A Bone to Pick (part seven)


The interlocutors were Michael Lane (MFL), Paul Halstead (PH), Mel Giles (MCG), and John Barrett (JCB).


The naked truth about Mike (and other aspects of friendship at Cambridge)

MFL: Was Mike [Parker Pearson] among your opponents?

PH: Yes, although I thought much more of Mike than any of the others. For a long time, Mike lived next door to me and Glynis at Kings, and he had this little postgrad room round the corner from where Glynis and I lived in the relative luxury of a fellowship flat. Mike was a very regular visitor. He'd just wander in. One of the most vivid memories of Mike being there -- you remember the most striking experiences -- on several occasions, Mike would be in the shower, thinking about Marxism and archaeology, and he'd suddenly have what he thought was a good idea and he'd just walk out of the shower, down the corridor five yards and walk into our room, wearing nothing, not even a towel, and start burbling. Glynis always used to make him stand behind an armchair.

[Laughter]

Mike would be there, in full flow, very excited, dripping wet and forced to stand behind an armchair. Todd Whitelaw always used to explain Mike's behaviour: he said that he had very liberated parents who brought him up with the illusion that he had a beautiful body.

[Laughter]

I argued a lot with Mike.

MFL: About his archaeology or about his body?!

PH: About his archaeology. There was a lot of more or less good-natured banter. I argued a lot with Chris Tilley, actually, whom I, at a personal level, got on with extremely well. I really really liked Chris and I have great respect for him as an original thinker, although I probably disagree with virtually everything he's ever written, and he would certainly disagree with everything I've ever written. I think that's one of the other interesting things that I've noticed about students in Sheffield: they find it very hard to understand that there are personal friendships that transcend what seem like very big disciplinary divides. A very good example is both Glynis and I have been very good friends of Mike Shanks since he was a first-year undergraduate. We're still good personal friends with Mike, but I probably have even less sympathy with what Mike does than I do with Chris Tilley, and again vice versa, but there are personal ties which are actually completely unrelated to whether or not you think what people are doing is appropriate or not. I've noticed on several occasions when Mike or Chris have been up here to talk, they've stayed with me and Glynis and the organisers of the research seminars find it very hard to understand how that can be. They can't apprehend that there are social ties, kinship ties which go back beyond everything else.

MCG: Isn't that because, since the late '80s and early '90s, students have been brought up with that evangelism in mind, and they find it very difficult to understand how you can have those links and relationships?

PH: Maybe, although in a way it's not misleading because Chris Tilley in an academic forum is entirely confrontational.

* * *

He's a very cutting opponent.

MCG: He's merciless -- intellectually he can be merciless.

PH: Yes. On a personal level, he's a guy with a fantastic sense of humour. He and I probably both have vivid memories of shared experiences.

* * *

MFL: What about the time you lent Mike Parker Pearson your key?

PH: The key thing? I didn't lend him the key. It was a big mistake. We were away for the summer. I went away before Glynis, and she asked Mike if he would water our flowers.

MFL: So it's all Glynis's fault you say!

PH: She gave him the key which I would never have done, and while we were away, Mike had a party, which was sufficiently big and boisterous. It caused a lot of noise and at some point the porters got involved. They wanted to know what Mike was doing there. Mike had said that I had said that it was okay for him to use the flat, which was a bit naughty of him, because I had no right to sub-let the flat, and also I hadn't given him permission to do that. Somehow he managed to disguise the fact that he had a key, so he did it again and got caught a second time. When I got back, I was basically in deep trouble for abusing college property and was under threat of having my flat taken away, and of course I knew nothing about this.

MCG: Was he apologetic?

PH: In such situations, Mike always tries to look contrite, but I don't think anyone is ever taken in. He has a long history of these sort of things, as you probably know.

* * *

MFL: I was going to ask -- if I could return to something less controversial, like the processualist/post-processualist divide....

[Laughter]

You talked about how perhaps many postgraduates today don't understand how many of these disciplinary divisions were bridged by senses of personal obligation and friendship...

PH: Yes, they were personal friendships.

MFL: ...and kinship relations.

PH: They were personal friendships. That doesn't mean that the disciplinary divides were not there. They certainly were. Chris and I had, for example, precious little interest in or sympathy with what each other was doing, but I think it doesn't prevent you from relating at a personal level.

MCG: Do you think part of that intimacy came from the fact that you were able to banter with each other?

PH: We chatted in the pub. When you aren't talking to Chris about archaeology, Chris is an immensely funny person. You can't dislike someone just because you think what they're doing is wrong, or vice versa.

MFL: I want to ask a more academic question and that is whether you ever felt the need to reconcile your personal closeness and your academic differences?

PH: No.

MFL: No?

[Laughter]

You've never analysed it at some ideological level? You never asked yourself why it was that I can get along with someone so well who ostensibly sees the world in such different terms?

PH: To me it doesn't seem at all inappropriate. We disagreed intellectually but I never saw any reason why that should mean personal animosity. I don't see any connection at all there.

MCG: Do you think that's because of your practical life and the way that you've done lots of field work, the fact that you've had to be very adaptable and cope with very different ways of living and seeing the world helped you?

PH: No, I don't think so. I think the fact that the archaeology department conducted most of its debate in the pub has got a lot to do with it. We met each other socially. We argued interminably over far too much alcohol. It was just a social relationship. If I'd only ever met Chris across the floor in a conference, I'd probably find him a loathsome person, because he's very combative.

MCG: Circumstances were different.


Part eight

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