Sutton Hoo excavation, 1939. Still from film made by Harold John Phillips. Public domain.

In a recent article (click here) we covered the links that exist between the Netflix blockbuster film The Dig and our sport of hockey. Following that piece, we received news of a further hockey connection.

If you have seen the film you will recall that Edith Pretty’s nephew became involved as the photographer of the excavations. During the film he signed up for the Royal Air Force, became a dashing young flyer and had a romantic liaison with Lily James’s character. Well, all of that was significant artistic licence, although with WW2 just about to start it did offer an interesting story line.

In reality the significant photographs of the excavations at the site were taken by two lady schoolteachers from Putney High School who were holidaying in the area, originally intending to photograph Saxon remains in Suffolk churches. When they heard of the Sutton Hoo excavation, they visited the site and offered their services. The two ladies in question were Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff, who was the PE teacher and hockey mistress at the prestigious girls’ school in Putney. Barbara had learned her hockey at Cheltenham Ladies College and went on to train at Dartford College of Physical Education where she was the hockey goalkeeper.

These two ladies were at Sutton Hoo for most of August 1939 and their request to take photographs was an amazing bit of luck. They took 447 photographs, 45 colour transparencies and two reels of Agfa colour film, thereby creating a unique photographic record of perhaps Britain’s greatest archaeological dig. This photographic collection now resides in the British Museum.

Excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial, 1939. Photograph by Barbara Wagstaff; © The Trustees of the British Museum