The Infamous Class 3 School Illustration (1976-1979)

On 10 September, 1976, dozens of children, including every single pupil from class 3, Scarfolk High School, vanished on their way to school. A police operation was launched but no clues were ever found. The children were pronounced dead the following Monday, a mere three days later.

Every year thereafter, the police commissioned their sketch artist to draw, in the style of a school photograph, how the missing children might have looked (albeit with their faces removed) had they not disappeared in mysterious circumstances. This was sent to the bereaved parents of class 3 at an exorbitant cost of £31.25.

In the 1979 class sketch, one parent noticed a small label on one of the faceless figure's clothes that contained a code word only their child could have known. 

Under mounting pressure from parents, the police eventually raided their artist's studio and found 347 children in his cellar where many had been held captive for several years. The police immediately seized and confined the children as evidence in a crime investigation, which, after much dithering, ultimately never went to court leaving the families no choice but to pursue a private prosecution against the kidnapper. 

As the children had already been pronounced dead and the cost of amending the relevant paperwork was high, they were given away as prizes in the Scarfolk police raffle, which helped pay the legal fees of their sketch artist, who, it turns out, was the son of Scarfolk's police commissioner.

Beer Mats of the 1970s

The pubs have reopened. Here is a selection of 1970s beer mats from the Scarfolk council archives. Collect them all!

NOW AVAILABLE to buy from Saatchi Gallery!

Includes:

8 x Different beer mats

1 x printed insert

1 x presentation box

Unknown Poster Campaign (1970s)

No one is entirely sure what the purpose of this public information poster was. All we know is that when a council worker accidentally posted it on billboards around Scarfolk, the poster below was quickly pasted over it. 

Records show that the errant, anonymous worker was soon sold to another council where his job was either to feed the council pets or be fed to the council pets. Documents don't clarify which.  

Government Employee Eye-Test Slide (1970s)

Scarfolk Death Statistics (1975)

"All is Well!" (1970)

Social-Distancing Laws (1970)

Welcome to Scarfolk...

NHS Face Removals (1977- )

While some children were born without faces simply because they didn't deserve them (see the Scarfolk Annual 197X), the government became increasingly concerned about citizens who did have them. They found that people with faces are more likely to have personal desires, hopes and dreams, in short: a will and ideas of their own. 

Such idiosyncrasies were not only thought of as needlessly self-indulgent, they were also deemed inconsistent with the smooth running of a successful society. Scarfolk's was the first council benevolent enough to offer face removals on the NHS.

In 1976, the council trialled face removals on stray foreigners, prisoners, children nobody wanted, unsuspecting people who were picked up leisurely walking in a park after sundown and volunteers (see leaflet above). 

When the full scheme was rolled out in 1977, the council soon lost track of which faceless citizen was which. By 1978 a new law was passed which dictated that all faceless people were required to have a tattoo of their old face over their lost one to make identification easier.

Surrender Hope (1975)

BBC Discolour Signal Intrusion (1972)

Election Posters of the 1970s

Of all the 304 general elections that were held in the UK during the 1970s, these three election posters for the Conservative party are among the few campaign materials that are still extant. This is largely due to the fact that campaign slogans were more often compulsorily tattooed onto ailing citizens who collected welfare benefits.*

All promotional literature was designed and printed by the Scarfolk Advertising Agency, who, it was later revealed to the surprise of all clients concerned, had been working not only for the Conservative, but also the Labour and Liberal Parties.

Furthermore, the agency cleverly maximised its profits by selling exactly the same poster designs to all clients. Only the party name was changed. This made it difficult for voters to decide who to vote for, but it also confused politicians who became unsure which party they belonged to.

*See also: ‘Trampvertising’.

Further reading: 'Watch Out! There's a Politician About' (1975), 'Voting isn't Working' election poster, 'Democracy Rationing', 'Put Old People Down at Birth' election pamphlet.

Let's Think About... Booklet (1971- )

The Let's Think About... booklet was published by Scarfolk Council Schools & Child Welfare Services department in 1971. It was designed for use in the classroom and encouraged children between the ages of five and nine to focus on a series of highly traumatic images and events.

Parents and teachers assumed that the booklet was based on psychological research but it had no scientific basis whatsoever. The booklet's medically untrained author was one of the dinner ladies from the council canteen before she was fired for attempting to slip strychnine into bowls of blancmange.

Despite the scandal, the booklet remained on the school curriculum for many years and the author was invited by the council to pen an updated edition from her prison cell in 1979.

'Little Lady' Breath Mirror Corpse Detection Set (mid-70s)

Apocalyptic toys were all the rage in the late 1970s, not that they were thought of as apocalyptic at the time. Citizens didn't fear their annihilation; they quite looked forward to demonstrating their 'Dunkirk spirit' with the misguided belief that it would somehow bring the country together. It didn't occur to them that their dogmatic nationalism might instead bring about the demise of the nation.

As the country moved toward collapse, social unrest and inevitable casualties increased. The paranoid state began anonymously exterminating citizens who so much as hinted at insurrection. Average (and the vast numbers of below-average) people were killed in street clashes between opposing factions and there were spates of frightened suicides.

Scar Toys exploited this expanding market opportunity and created a range of toys aimed at the many children in the process of being orphaned. One such toy, the Breath Mirror Set, aimed at young girls, was designed to accompany their more traditional beauty/vanity toys. The deluxe set (see picture above) included one mirror for each parent, colour-coded as per gender convention: pink for girls, blue for boys.

The wording on the back of the packaging encouraged children to use the mirrors beyond the death of their own parents. Included was a little booklet into which little pink stars could be affixed for every corpse that was identified using the mirrors. Highly sought-after prizes were awarded to the girls with the most stars and council archival documents reveal that the police turned a blind eye when gangs of little girls began slaughtering adults in frenzied attempts to accumulate more stars.

The Banned Horror Top Trumps Card (1978)

Many readers will remember the two packs of Horror Top Trumps, which were first issued in 1978. What is not commonly known is that the first pack was recalled after 3 days only to be rereleased a month later minus one card: The Scarfolk card.

The card had proved so effective that, not only could it effortlessly beat every other card, it also killed the losing player within moments of the game ending.

Learning of the inexplicable power of the card, the government immediately issued the recall, albeit not in the interest of public safety. Instead, it coerced citizens on welfare into playing the game during home assessment visits. The government also targeted enemies of the state, using the card in so-called 'black operations' at home and abroad.

In 1979, a catastrophe was narrowly avoided when the Scarfolk card was played in a game opposite a forgery of itself. Fortunately, the game's location was sparsely populated and the only victims of the resulting dark-matter explosion were a government agent, an unknown dissenter, seven ducks and, less significantly, four coachloads of orphans* who were driven to the remote site for reasons unknown.

*The orphans were children of disgraced artists, academics and other intellectuals who disappeared during the New Truth Purges of September 1977**.

** Edit: Apparently, according to fresh information, no such purges took place.

Happy Halloween/Samhain from everyone at Scarfolk Council.

The Scarfolk Annual 197X. OUT NOW!

The Scarfolk Annual 197x. 

OUT NOW

(US/Can: 10.29.2019)

Available from :

Amazon (http://bit.ly/scarfolkbook), Hive, Waterstones, The Guardian Bookshop, Foyles, Wordery, Blackwells, Forbidden Planet, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million & others. 

For more information please reread.

The Scarfolk Annual 197X

The Scarfolk Annual 197X. 

17.10.2019 (UK) 10.29.2019 (US).

Pre-order: Amazon (http://bit.ly/scarfolkbook), Hive, Waterstones, The Guardian Bookshop, Foyles, Wordery, Blackwells, Forbidden Planet, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million & others. 

For more information please reread.

SPECIAL OFFER:

 Pre-order NOW and receive the copy you ordered when it comes out.

For more information please reread.

Opportunity Doorways For Women (1976)

The Opportunity Doorway scheme for women was launched in 1976. Here's an excerpt from the council's literature:

"Scientific studies conducted by some of the finest minds in the Gentlemen's Science Club of Great Britain clearly show it’s not your fault that you were born female.

But that doesn’t mean you are entirely blameless for your irresponsible birth. Lazing around the house all day looking after infants and cleaning your husband's home is all well and good for a few years. But what happens after that, when you have become redundant?

Enter The Opportunity Doorway scheme, which has been designed specifically for you. It won't dig into your housekeeping allowance and you won’t have to worry about reading anything complicated; however, a head for heights is recommended."

See also: International Women's Day 1970, romance novels, birth, sexual reproduction in females and Bastard Lanes for single mothers.

Illegal Resurrections (1974)

A 1973 county survey showed that, after all deaths and births had been accounted for, there was a surplus of citizens, approximately 665 in total.

This was due to the practice of inserting deceased people's hearts into inanimate objects to bring them back to life. Grieving family members were most likely to attempt the process but there were also a few hobbyists and human traffickers.

Once the heart had been placed in its new host body, over which a medi-legal incantation had been recited, the object would become imbued with the personality of the deceased. However, there were often side effects, for example not being able to say certain words such as 'artichoke', 'help' and 'please kill me, I did not give my consent for this', to name but a few.

Hearts were usually placed inside humanoid objects: dolls, mannequins, large soft toys and the like, though one widow had her dead husband's heart inserted into a guinea pig called Jonathan who flushed himself down the toilet after his application to do an MA course in Linguistics was rejected.

See also: illegal ventriloquism, living toys, Mr Liver Head, organ tax, recycling surgical waste.

Under 7s Fire Service

The Under-7s Fire Service was one of several children's emergency services in Scarfolk. There was also a mountain/volcano* rescue team and an SAS-style toddler regiment. The children received little training but they did get a lolly if they were good and/or survived their first week of active duty.

Enrolment in such organisations became mandatory when a government study revealed that parents were only putting forward their least favourite children. This was a serious issue for the government because it diverted workloads away from, and reduced target quotas of, state child recycling facilities, which had been set up at great cost to deal specifically with processing unwanted, less-valuable offspring.


* Many children were sent to work at Lavaland.

See also: child terror groups and children's homicide forensics teams.