Friday 8 August 2014

'Junior Will & Testament' (1977)

'Junior Will & Testament' (see newspaper advertisement below) was produced by Scarfolk Legal Games & Documents Ltd. While it familiarised children with the inevitability of their demises in a fun way, it also introduced them to their civic obligations. For example, many children were not aware that, like adults, they were subject to death duty.

Any child who owned more than 20 toys at the time of its passing was expected to part with 26.5% of them; 50% for more than 40 toys. After several years of the 'grave game tax', as it become known colloquially, the council noticed that many of the toys it was receiving in payment were clearly not the children's favourite toys.

From then on council workers would audit children every year to make sure that they weren't hiding away their most treasured toys. Particularly untrustworthy were very poorly children. Upon admission into a hospital, the council would confiscate children's possessions until their passing - the council couldn't take the risk that a frightened child may be tempted to withhold a favoured toy during its time of need.

In 1979, the millions of collected toys were melted down and made into an enormous, inflatable bouncy castle for politicians to play in on their many days off work.


1 comment:

  1. Justice, recycling, politics working together, the perfect cycle is closing in ! Aristotle should be there, covered with olive oil and nice company, swirling in that inflatable castle... We were allowed to watch this castle from a safe distance, on the Scarfolk Day Of Poor Curiosity, but unfortunately no one was there. All the kids there wanted to become politicians, not architects or spy-cars drivers as I use to believe. Great thanks for all the employees who had to deal with the pre-adults unfaithful mumbo-jumbo. Hope that they had to bring their own handkerchiefs.

    ReplyDelete