"Old Coffins are Death Traps" Public Information Poster (1975)

The recession of the 1970s gave Scarfolk Council no choice but to raise the age of retirement to 95 for men and 92 years, 36 months for women. This meant that when some people died they had not, in the eyes of the state, completed paying their dues to society.

All across Scarfolkshire coffins were exhumed and the cadavers put to work in the community. Fresher examples were dissected by children in biology classes or used in experiments by pharmaceutical and cosmetic firms. Less fresh cadavers served as scarecrows, supply teachers or junior ministers.

All this meant that hundreds of discarded coffins littered Britain's conurbations and countryside. Before long, Scarfolk's runaway children gathered the coffins in their thousands to make shanty-town-styled coffin 'cities' on the outskirts of urban areas. These settlements, which were given names such as 'Gravesend' and 'Bury', were pronounced death traps and a special branch of the police, called the Necropolice, were called in to dismantle the sites. Riots broke out and many police and children alike accidentally died after receiving nasty splinters. Despite this loss of life, thousands of pounds in funeral costs were saved as no new coffins were needed.