It was early 1981. I was going to be 21 in July, and was in my 3rd year of an Archaeology Degree at Newcastle University. Unexpectedly, I was hospitalised for six weeks. With the help of the hospital, and the Isle of Man Government who were funding me, and the Archaeology Department, it was agreed that I could start my final year again the following year. By March I was fine, and spoke to one of the Department's research fellows Harold Mytum about digging opportunities. He accepted me onto his small team for the first excavations at the Iron Age and Romano-British hillfort and settlement at Castell Henllys, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and I dug there over Easter, and returned there for the Summer season of digging - and for the first experimental reconstruction of an Iron Age roundhouse on this site.