THE minor but pushy aristocracy of Britain are a snobby lot who believe they have some God-given right to rule the land. 

One way they try to enshrine that right is by sending their male children — and today females too — to schools where they can learn to spout a few phrases of Latin and adopt an enormous, if totally unjustified, self-confidence.

(Who can he mean? Can’t think of anybody in an important position today who exhibits that particular bundle of characteristics, can you?)

In the trenches of the first world war these moustachioed and ignorant young men had no hesitation in ordering battalions of working-class men of about their age to their deaths. 

Thousands of those working-class young men had left farms, workshops, fishing fleets and the like. 

They were really skilled in what they did but they had no hesitation in laying down their day-to-day tools to take up weapons of war.

Some genius scribbler looked at this situation and summed it up in a just few words — “Lions led by donkeys.” 

Now a brilliant Netflix film about the archaeological dig that discovered the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk has shown us another shocking example of that lions led by donkeys philosophy. This time it is among British archaeologists in the 1930s.

Our story starts with Edith Pretty, herself a talented amateur and self-taught archaeologist. 

She and her husband buy a piece of land to make their new home at Sutton Hoo. The estate — the Prettys have a few bob — is interesting. Much of it is cut about by small rivers and streams. 

It is also covered by many knobbly outcrops, and these fascinate Edith. She is sure they are man-made and very old indeed. 

Local legend and fable say they may be Anglo-Saxon burial mounds. The Ipswich Museum staff scoff at the idea. 

The more educated, and better academically qualified, staff from the Ipswich Museum know Edith Pretty and her knobbly estate well, but they write them off as of no real interest or value.  

They want Pretty to ignore her own land and any surprises it might hold and instead donate any spare funds she might have to the museum’s latest project — the uncovering of a huge Roman villa near Ipswich. 

They tell her it is far more interesting and valuable than anything she might hope to find buried in her own back garden.

Pretty does have one ally. He is the best archaeologist-excavator in Suffolk but totally academically unqualified, a man called Basil Brown. 

In 1939 Brown is working as a menial digger for Ipswich Museum on their Roman villa site.

She knows it is Brown she needs to help her find out just what it is that is buried in her knobbly garden. 

At first, she offers Brown work digging her garden at the same wage he is being paid by the museum, about the minimum agricultural wage. 

Brown wants more and they settle £2 a week (approximately £120 today).

Brown had left school aged only 12, so when he suggests Pretty’s mounds could be Anglo-Saxon the museum bigwigs mocked him. 

Anglo-Saxon? What could he or indeed Pretty know?

Brown and his new employer take a look at what they have. There are about 18 mounds on Pretty’s Sutton Hoo estate, but many have been so eroded over the centuries that it’s hard to know the exact number.

As Brown slowly and expertly uncovered the content and purpose of the various mounds, he realised his Anglo-Saxon theory was correct. These mounds were part of a ship burial dating back to the 7th century AD.

Brown slowly excavates the more promising of the mounds. It can be dangerous work. On one occasion he is buried when the trench collapses on him. Just in time he is dug out and revived.  

The ancient people buried at Sutton Hoo left no written records, so it is impossible to know exactly who they were, but today historians strongly suspect that this was the cemetery for the royal dynasty of East Anglia, the Wuffingas, who claimed descent from the god Woden.
 
Most of the mounds had already been robbed, largely in the Tudor period, and much of what was there was lost, but two mounds escaped this fate — the Great Ship Burial or King’s Mound One and the Horseman’s Mound. 

Today we know that Sutton Hoo is England’s Valley of the Kings, and the Anglo-Saxon ship burial in the King’s Mound is the richest grave ever found anywhere in northern Europe. 

Clearly Brown and Pretty would have been better to have stuck with the academics from Ipswich Museum and their Roman villa excavation.

Some 1,400 years ago, a king or great warrior of East Anglia was laid to rest in a 90-foot ship. The ship stuffed with extraordinary treasures had been hauled from the waters edge to the slightly higher ground by teams of people paying their last tribute to a king. 

The most likely candidate for the man who would be buried in this grave is Rædwald, a king of East Anglia who won renown for his victory over the Kingdom of Northumbria. 

I love the attitude Rædwald had to gods and religion. He simply hedged his bets. He built an altar dedicated to Christ and right next door another, just as impressive altar — this one for the old traditional Norse gods.
 
The 27-metre-long Anglo-Saxon ship from Sutton Hoo is long gone. After 1,300 years in the acidic soil the oak ship had rotted away, leaving only its ghost imprinted in the sand.

There are only three Anglo-Saxon ship burials in England — one up the road at Snape and two at Sutton Hoo. 

Once Brown has done the hard work and the importance of the site is clear, the academic vultures start to circle. 

Prominent local archaeologist James Reid Moir attempts to join the dig but Pretty and Brown send him away. 

News of the discovery soon spreads and arrogant Cambridge archaeologist Charles Phillips declares the site to be of national importance. He takes over the dig by order of the Office of Works. 

Poor Brown is retained but only to keep the site in order. Pretty intervenes and orders him to resume digging. 

Brown discovers a small gold coin proving that the Anglo-Saxons were sophisticated enough to use money.

Phillips declares the site to be of major historical significance. Pretty and Brown knew that a long time before.  

Phillips wants to send all the items to the British Museum. At an inquest the Ipswich County Coroner confirms Pretty is the owner of the ship and its priceless treasure of gold and other grave goods.

Pretty organises a small local exhibition open to all including neighbours, friends, volunteers and Brown’s wife and family.  

Finally Pretty, in an act of amazing generosity, decides to donate the entire Sutton Hoo treasure to the nation. It goes to the British Museum.  

At the time, at £150 million, it was the single largest donation in the history of the museum. 

All Pretty asks in return is that Brown be given recognition for his work. The museum accepts the treasure, but totally ignores her request to give Brown any credit for his discovery. 

The archaeological establishment of England will hide Brown away for many generations.

Edith Pretty dies in 1942. The grave treasures are publicly exhibited but nowhere in the exhibition is Basil Brown even mentioned.  

It will be many more decades before Brown gets anything like the recognition he deserves.

Today the treasures of the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo burial can still be seen and enjoyed at the British Museum. 

You will even find Brown’s name in the panels that tell the story of the finds.

The Netflix film The Dig tells Basil’s story against some beautiful images of the Suffolk coast. Well worth a watch.