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A Brief History of Me! I was born & brought-up in Maidenhead, Berkshire, but my family was from Cornwall & Devon (my mother was "a young lady from Bude") and she says I'm Cornish. So who am I to argue! It was through her that I developed as a child my love of nature and the countryside, due to the many walks we used to take with my dog Juno, while she named the wildflowers and trees, etc. It was from my eldest brother Robert that I got my interest in history & folk music. He would try to keep me quite while trying to tape "The Spinners" off the Telly (a much maligned folk group responsible for making the genre popular with many people). He was also a member of an American Civil War Society, and later he accompanied me to meetings of the Maidenhead Archaeological Society. Later, I got my mum more interested in history, through her having to go with me on society coach trips. As I wasn't a brilliant school boy student, I was guided into horticulture on leaving; working on a local plant nursery and attending the local Agricultural college on day release at Burchetts Green. After a couple of years I went on to study horticulture in more depth at Somerset College of Agriculture, where I developed an interest in surveying and landscape design. As part of this course I spent a year working at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley in Surrey. An interesting experience that also involved helping out at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1980. I decided that Landscape Design was the area of horticulture I wanted to work in, so went on to take a further qualification in this and local authority leisure management with the Institute of Leisure & Amenity Management, at "The Grotto" in Berkshire. I then worked for Slough Corporation Leisure Services for while (where a large playground I design was used for many years), and then worked for the Playing Fields section of Buckinghamshire County Council's Education Department (where I mostly worked on the landscaping of new school sites in Milton Keynes). However I found that my job was likely to disappear and I was faced with the possibility of a purely supervisory job. I wasn't at all satisfied with my situation and after a few deep conversations with a few friends, I decided to follow my heart into archaeology, and I was lucky to start a degree at Durham University in 1987, as a mature student . I thoroughly enjoyed my time as an undergrad at Durham, and fell in love with the city and region; making many friends in the area, several of which are also ex-Durham graduates who have also been loath to leave the North-East of England. In fact, I don't think I could live happily back in the South-East, as I would miss the quite calm, and the friendly people, and the interesting cultural history that has been heavily affected as much by its proximity to Scotland as well as its own English (or should I say Anglish, Celtic & Scandinavian) history. I was lucky enough to work on a number of excavations and geophysical surveys throughout the British Isles, including a major Neolithic & Bronze Age site at Runnymede, Surrey, the Neolithic Causewayed Camp at Windmill Hill, Avebury, and the major Bronze Age complex at Tara in Eire. However I wasn't getting very much archaeological work and seemed to be unable of getting any other work, so I decided to improve my job prospects by doing a PhD. I did this as a part-time student at Newcastle University, and it took me most of the 1990s to complete it. I undertook a multi-period, multi-disciplinary, retrogressive study of the landscape history of the Prudhoe area in Northumberland. I was very interested in using my horticultural knowledge in combination with my archaeological skills, and worked particularly in the fields (bad pun!) of agricultural history, hedgerow history, woodland history & environmental history. And I have published, or am in the process of publishing in these areas. I particularly enjoyed doing fieldwalking, where you can have all the fun of finding archaeological artefacts without having to kneel down in a cold muddy puddle! Along with the other techniques, it gives you a much broader landscape view of past than you get from excavations, and you get to see how past environments and past human activities were affected by each other AND affect the landscape of today. During my fieldwork I made the most important discovery of my archaeological career by finding a large Palaeolithic flint tool at Eltringham in the Tyne Valley. This turned out to the most northerly of its kind in the UK (I think I still hold this record ). It has been on display in the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle University since I found it in late 1993. Other than that I also discovered a number of other flint tool scatters and in my theses re-built much of the topographical history of the Prudhoe area from the Victorian period back to the Iron Age. Over the last few years, I have also been studying the landscape history of where I live in Brancepeth, County Durham, and I have made a series of exciting discoveries. Despite my PhD work, I was still not getting any meaningful, long-term archaeological work, as all the jobs I was applying for seemed to go to much younger recent graduates, etc.; so even before I finished it, I knew that I would have to do something else if I was ever going to work properly again. I considered a number of self-employment options before everything fell into place for me as The Green Man Potter. Me & My Pottery! Throughout my life I have had the urge to do art, in one form or another. In my teens & early twenties I tried a number of different mediums, particularly painting & drawing, but was never happy with the results, as I always felt they were scruffy and/or just not good enough. I now know that most of this scruffiness, dissatisfaction and my inability to achieve the finesse I wanted, along with my inability to write cleanly or clearly, was due to dyslexia, which had been recognized when I was little, but was forgotten and not taken into account again until recently (my bad hand-writing was probably a major reason for not getting many of the jobs I applied for). In my twenties much of my artistic yearnings was channeled into folk music and folk dancing, something which I didn't do very much of in my thirties, but has now become an important part of my life again. But also over the years I have had a hankering to have another go at pottery. This was a medium that I wasn't any better at than any other while I was at school, but as I saw more historical pottery I found that I wanted to try and have a go at making something similar. I was particularly interested in the Roman Face-pots I saw in the Rhine Valley, and in the sixteenth to seventeenth-century Bellermines, another form of Face-pot from the same area. I also studied the use of pottery artefacts in archaeology, and after finding so much Medieval pottery on the Brancepeth estate, I found an increasing desire to make similar vessels. Despite not having done any pottery at all for nearly thirty years, one night lying in bed I had what could be described as a waking dream. From that moment on I knew that I wanted to make pottery in an historical style and that I would be able to do it! This was in the autumn of 2003 and occurred at the same time as the birth of my new persona as the Green Man, and that my business was going to be the Green Man Pottery and from there on I started working towards this dream, despite not actually starting any pottery lessons until April 2004. On the first night of evening classes I threw a pot that was worth keeping (and still have it because I wont sell it), and I knew that I wanted it to have a green medieval style glaze. I found that I would throw a number of vessels in an evening, whereas most of the others would probably only produce a couple of items in a term. I had a professional attitude towards my work right from the start and soon discovered that I had a natural affinity with the medium, and despite my work being obviously rather rough and ready, people liked what I was making. It became apparent to me that all those years of seeing pottery vessels and all that knowledge of pottery form was coming out through my hands, and that my dyslexia was now an advantage, leading to the non-conformity of my work, and its rough rustic charm which so many people love. I don't know when I first heard about the Green Man. I know until I decided to become the Green Man Potter, I hadn't actually done any research on him, and I didn't really know why I chose him (or perhaps he chose me?). My perception of him had been of the wild man of the woods, or some kind of warlock and that was the image I had of him when I suggested to Thor Ewing ( a story-teller & singer then living in the castle) that I would like to be the Green Man in the annual Brancepeth Castle Christmas Mummers Play in 2003. I didn't realise that the Green Man in a Christmas Mummers Play was appropriate, as the Narrator can be played by a Green Father Christmas; although that year I actually took the role of the Turkish Knight/Dragon as the Green Man, I have since played the role of Green Father Christmas in recent versions of the play.
(S. Cousins, December 2003) For this role, which would only be for two nights, I spent weeks making a costume. I searched high and low through the charity shops for old green clothes, but decided that this was too expensive, so in the end I died some old sheets that I then cut into simple strips of leaves. I then got through hundreds of safety pins, pinning the strips to some old clothes. My ambition had been to produce a close fitting one piece suit a bit like the bird-catcher in the "Magic Flute", but it ended up much baggier, more like a Morris Dancer's outfit. I was particularly proud of the large fig-leaf on the front of my trousers (based on a real fig-leaf from the castle courtyard, and now the inspiration for my house numbers). Later, I decided to use the jacket from this costume as part of my business strategy. By wearing it at craft fairs it would act as an ice-breaker, and it would help people identify with my product. I knew it would mean that people would remember me as the Green Man rather than as Steve Cousins, but knew that most casual customers would not remember my name anyway, but they would remember the Green Man! In fact this has worked brilliantly, as many people come-up to me when I am wearing it and say "Hello Green Man! How are you?" and many of my customers have then gone on remember me specifically. The costume also has other advantages. For example I can take it off and then many people don't recognise me! Someone asked me if I had asked the Green Man for permission to use him for my business (they had had a batch of photos of the Norwich Green Man not come out and they said it was because they hadn't asked his permission), but several other people have said that I AM the Green Man, so I don't need to ask his permission. So overall, it seems that the Green Man is proving to have chosen me for this new role in my life, and I must admit that I am enjoying much of it far more than I have for years!
Publications & Reports Cousins, S. (1993). "Roman Vicus at Lanchester: A Rresistivity Survey" Archaeology North No.6, December 1993 (The News bulletin of the Council for British Archaeology, North). Cousins, S. (1994). "An Upper Palaeolithic Flint Tool from the Tyne Valley" Archaeology in Northumberland 1993-1994 (Northumberland County Council). Cousins, S. (1995). "Northumberland’s Oldest Artefact" Archaeology North No.9. Cousins S. and C. Tolan-Smith (1995). "A Late Upper Palaeolithic Tool from the Tyne Valley, Northumberland" Archaeologia Aeliana (5) XXIII, pp.307-309, 1995. Cousins, S. (1995). "Prudhoe Landscape History Project" Excavation and Fieldwork, Durham and Newcastle Universities 1995. Cousins, S. (1996). "Prudhoe Landscape History Project II" Excavation and Fieldwork, Durham and Newcastle Universities 1996. Cousins, S. (1997). "Prudhoe Landscape History Project" Excavation and Fieldwork, Durham and Newcastle Universities 1997. Cousins, S. (1999). "Archaeological Trial Trenches at Brancepeth Castle; November 1999". Report to for Planning Dept. & Archaeology Section, Durham County Council Cousins, S. (2002). "A Report on the Results of an Archaeological Watching Brief for Work in Connection with the Sewers at Brancepeth Castle, Brancepeth, County Durham". Report to for Planning Dept. & Archaeology Section, Durham County Council Cousins, S. (2003). "Boundary Dating and Analysis in the Prudhoe area of Southern Northumberland" Durham Archaeological Journal, Vol. 17, 2003 Cousins, S. (200?). "Place-Names and Field-Names in the Prudhoe Area of Southern Northumberland" Durham Archaeological Journal, Vol. ? (in progress). Cousins, S. (?). "The Prudhoe Landscape History Project: a Retrogressive Study of the Landscape History of Part of Southern Northumberland", a chapter in a book arising from a conference on Northern Landscapes held at Northumbria University in September 2000 (in progress). Cousins, S. (2004). "Why Hedge Dating Doesn’t Work" Landscape History 2005. Cousins, S. (2006). "Hedge Dating Simply Can’t Work!" British Archaeology May 2006. |
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