Richard Osgood MOD Oct 2023 - Friends of Swindon Museum & Art Gallery

28th Nov 2022

Richard Osgood from the MOD

25th October 2023

On 25th October 2023, the Friends of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery will welcome Richard Osgood. Richard will deliver a talk on his work with Operation Nightingale, advising Philip Pullman and his work so far.

Richard Osgood and Professor Alice Roberts

Back in 2019, Richard Osgood won the Current Archaelogy Live’s, Archaeologist of the Year award.

Richard is the co-founder of Operation Nightingale – that’s an initiative that uses archaeological fieldwork to aid recovery of wounded veterans.

‘Operation Nightingale is a military initiative developed to use archaeology as a means of aiding the recovery of service personnel injured in recent conflict, particularly in Afghanistan.

The huge range of sites on Salisbury Plain, many of them remarkably well-preserved within the Ministry of Defence training area, has provided an ideal opportunity for Operation Nightingale to engage in archaeology.

For over two decades Wessex Archaeology has been helping the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and its predecessors protect sites on Salisbury Plain, excavating and recording them where necessary, for example in advance of construction of new hard tracks which allow modern tanks and heavy equipment to be transported across the Plain …’

A bit about Richard

Taken from the article linked to above – an interview with Richard

‘I grew up in a small Wiltshire village, so it was, perhaps, inevitable that archaeology would be an interest. My school used to have these horrific cross-country runs titled ‘fun-runs’ and some of us found a way to take short-cuts across one of the nearby farmer’s fields thus removing a fair portion of this torture. I shouldn’t actually be saying this as my Mum was a teacher at the school!’

To learn more about Richard and what he gets up to follow the link above.

Find him on Twitter: @richardhosgood