In the late 1980s, I got a job with the Theatre in Education company attached to The Greater Manchester Archaeological Unit. This was back in the days when public services had sufficient cash to do something creative rather than having to think of creative ways of doing stuff without any cash. The company's mission was to create plays and workshops for school children inspired by things that our bearded colleagues (applicable to archaeologists of all genders) happened to dig up.
Something, or rather, someone whom they had dug up earlier in the '80s was Peter Marsh a.k.a Lindow Man. The GMAU didn't actually dig up Pete. That was the work of commercial peat cutters on Lindow Moss in Cheshire. (I know, not technically a fen but what you gonna do?) True to their calling, they had succeeded in cutting Pete into several pieces during his accidental exhumation. Nevertheless, the GMAU claimed Pete as their own. There followed a bit of a turf (or peat) war with the neighbouring Cheshire Archaeological Service in which sharpened trowels were drawn but the family resemblance to the GMAU Director at that time was irrefutable and Pete was claimed for Manchester. As a result, we band of strolling players were commissioned to devise a play and related workshops, suitable for primary schools, on the life and death of Pete Marsh (RIP, not that any would let him)
Looking back, this seems like a very tough ask. When archaeologists had hosed all the peat off all of Pete, they noticed that, in common with many other bog bodies, Pete had been 'thrice slain'. That's to say, he'd been stabbed, strangled and banged on the head before he was cast face down into the bog. Recounting such violent acts to primary-aged children seems inappropriate now but, in the late '80s, Manchester was a brutal place in which to live. This was before some of my fellow Irishmen had kick-started the city's regeneration by obliterating its commercial centre. Prior to this, on a night in October 1987, in my first few weeks in Manchester, Elsa Hannaway, aged 37 and a mother of six, had been kicked, beaten and raped in the park opposite where I was living. She died in hospital a few hours after she was found, lying naked on the ground, by an early morning jogger. The gruesome details of Elsa's murder were well known by everyone, both young and old, in Manchester, so talking about another killing at least 2000 years earlier seemed okay.
Although Elsa's killer has never been apprehended, ('Unsurprisingly,' say some.) her death is easily explained. Every three days in the UK, between 2009-2018, a woman was killed by a man. 'Patterns of male violence are persistent and enduring,' according to the recently published Femicide Census. Femicide, both ancient and modern, also features in the story of Pete Marsh. A year after cutting up and digging up Pete, the same peat cutter, discovered what at first he thought to be a dinosaur egg was, in fact, a decomposing human head complete with brain matter and an eye. The police were called and they immediately linked the discovery to the on-going investigation into the disappearance a few years earler of local woman, Malika de Fernandez. Her husband had been suspected of her murder but her body had not been found. When confronted with news of the pete cutter's find, Malika's husband confessed to her murder and the illegal disposal of her dismembered body around Lindow Moss. He later attempted to retract his confession when carbon dating revealed that the head had not belonged to Malika but to another woman who had been very much attached to it for approximately forty years around 210 AD. This woman became known, rather unimaginatively, as 'Lindow Woman' but, until now, has not been granted humorous and humanizing first and surnames. Therefore, hereafter, let Lindow Woman be known as Lindy Marsh or Marsha Moss.
Whilst male violence towards women may be all too familiar and explicable in terms of deep-seated misogny, the circumstances around the murder of Pete Marsh (and all the other thrice-slain bog people) have been the subject of academic dispute. The most widely supported current theory posits that Pete was a leader whose people had judged him to have failed. As leader he may have been held responsible for a failed harvest or a sudden change in the weather. Or, if we accept that he lived around 100 AD, his leadership may have started to look rather fragile as Roman legions marching between Diva and Muncunia stopped off in the Cheshire countryside for a picnic. Such a sight may have prompted his subjects to think, 'There's a new power in town. Better bump of the old king to show where our loyalties lie'.
In 21st century Britain, our leaders face no consequences, fatal or otherwise, for failing. Instead failure appears to be rewarded. Let us consider the case of Gideon Oliver Osborne, heir apparent to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon in County Waterford and former Member of Parliament for Tatton, the consituency that includes Lindow Moss. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016, a position gifted to him by close friend, David Cameron, Gideon (aka George) failed to meet every target that he set himself. Under his leadership, UK national debt increased more than in the previous thirteen years. But, rather than being frog marched to Lindow Moss from his 'flipped' constituency home, George landed a nice little number working as a part-time advisor to the world's largest fund manager. Salary: £650,000 for one day a week. In the same year, and whilst still representing the good people of Tatton, George was also appointed editor of the Evening Standard. Straight out of Oxford, George had failed to get onto a trainee scheme with the Times and the Spectator, but, mercifully the Evening Standard was owned by a friend of a friend who conveniently overlooked George's record of failure and total lack of any journalistic experience. True to form, within George's first year as editor, the Standard reported a loss of £10 million. Losses increased each year that George was in the job, prompting him to be 'moved upstairs' in mid 2020. Once again, George has been rewarded for failure.
Some readers of this blog (and also of the Standard, should there be any readers of that publication left following George's tenure as editor) may believe that I am picking on George unfairly. It is true. I have singled him out due to the fact he was the MP for the constituency in which Pete Marsh and Lindy Moss were unearthed. He is merely representative of our professional ruling elite who, due to their wealth and privilege, have nothing to fear from failure. This allows them to act egregiously in their own self-interest and in pursuit of their own ideological fantasies. They care nothing about the damage their greed and recklessness will cause to millions of those they represent because they will experience none of the resulting pain. They may be forced to resign from office but only obscenely paid non-exec. jobs, lecture tours and book deals await. They will not have to face justice either in an open prison or on open moorland, neither Belmarsh nor marshland will be their fate. Their crimes and failures will go unpunished and will therefore be perpetuated by those of the same background who will inevitably succeed them.
Beyond the unaccountable Oxbridge-educated 'chumocracy' that constitutes our ruling class, there is another group of individuals whose 'crimes' are invariably punished with violence and death. Their crimes include: walking through a park alone at night, getting drunk, saying 'no', ending a relationship, wearing certain clothes, having friends or merely being a woman. The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens. For centuries, our leaders, including Pete Marsh perhaps, have failed to protect half the population from the fatal violence of the other half. This, above everything else, has been their greatest failure.
