"Plan C" (1979)

This internal council document was only recently unearthed in our archives. It refers to a secret governmental emergency plan to "purify" the town following some kind of "infestation or plague," the details of which have now been lost. 

Although we can now no longer be entirely sure what Plan C consisted of, the image of a nuclear mushroom cloud offers us a clear indication of the council's intention. Our archivists have postulated that the council might have thought it simpler and more cost effective to remove all living things than to target specific vermin and/or undesirable microscopic pathogens. 

What also seems clear is that an unidentified but enthusiastic council employee took it upon themselves to extend Plan C to almost every eventuality, in effect making the nuclear Plan C simply the only plan.

The notion that the council planned to employ a nuclear option is further supported by a minor story in a local newspaper from the time. In October 1979, seven-year-old schoolboy Nigel Johnson, mixed up his family's contribution to his school's annual harvest festival. Instead of the intended box containing four cans of oxtail soup and spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce, he took a quarter tonne of enriched uranium and other weapons-grade nuclear materials.

The boy's father, a local councillor, when questioned how his son could have found such materials at home, claimed ignorance. "Boys are always picking up things like this in the playground," he said and added "it's the fault of liberal teachers and communist dinner ladies and I firmly believe they should be among the first to be cleansed."

Social-Distancing Laws (1970)

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.

'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 Scarfolk Annual 197X

The Scarfolk Annual 197X. 

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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.

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.

Amateur Execution Allowance

Though pushing people off buildings was all the rage in 1970s Scarfolk, it was quite damaging to concrete paving. Hundreds of paving slabs had to be replaced in 1974 alone, at an estimated cost of £35.

With some of the most at-risk slabs dating as far back as the early 1970s, a local charity called SPLAT (Society for Pavement Liberation from Amateur Terminations) dedicated itself to the protection of paving slabs and their heritage in general.

Though the charity raised awareness, it had little impact on the number of people impacting the valuable concrete from great heights.

The charity lobbied the council which eventually agreed to regulate the amount of people that could be hurled from tall buildings (see poster above).

Paving slab damage was reduced by 25%, but the problem transferred to locomotives, specifically their paintwork, which was at risk of chipping after  pushing people in front of trains became the new, preferred method of amateur execution.

See also: Living cement and concrete pornography.

Corporal (& Capital) Punishment

The Scarfolk Education Board was very keen on administering corporal punishment from the moment an infant entered the school system. Punishment was meted out for a wide range of misdemeanours including: 'being less than 5ft tall', 'not being able to clearly elucidate the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein via the medium of mime' and 'poor attendance due to injuries sustained as a result of corporal punishment'.

The reason for the early introduction of corporal discipline was to familiarise children with the idea of capital, or 'grown up', punishment and the fact that it was very expensive. Convicts were expected to meet the exorbitant costs personally, so children likely to commit capital offences were advised to start saving their pocket money from a young age. 'Execution gift tokens' were given at birthdays and Christmas by well-meaning grandparents, as well as given as prizes by schools for spying and reporting on classmates.

The 'Fingers On Lips' Campaign (1978)

Crime in Scarfolk did not rise substantially between 1976 and 1977, largely due to the latest in thought detection techniques* and random public executions. The government, however, did announce that there had been a significant increase in naughtiness.

Many citizens criticised the state for treating them like children. The council denied this but in January 1979, thousands received orders to put 'fingers on lips' while in public. Scarfolk fell silent.

Specially trained police officers patrolled streets, public and private buildings, and handed out on-the-spot fines for various misdemeanours such as not standing up straight, running in corridors and not paying attention. At the officer's discretion, the fines could be substituted for corporal punishment with a slipper, belt, cane or rabid Alsatian.

By the summer of 1979, the scheme was in chaos: So many people had been sent to 'stand in the corner' that a new, much larger corner had to be built - at a cost of £2 million - to accommodate the cramped detainees. In August alone, 94 people died after they raised their hands to go to the toilet but were not given permission. They had simply been forgotten.

At the end of the decade, the council decided that because of a small handful of troublemakers, the whole town would have to be punished: Everyone would have to resit the 1970s.

* See thought-detector vans and thought policy leaflets.

Help Britain Charity Film (1971)

 

In 1971 the council released a short film which predicted the state of the nation by 2025. While the film is no longer extant, these three frames have been found in our archive.

According to the transcript, the film anticipated Britain joining and leaving the European Union and becoming a nation of racist immigrants who intern themselves in camps and try to get themselves deported. It also predicted that Southern Britain would become a dumping ground for international toxic waste. This leads to the genetic modification of Brits who eventually become a delicacy in Japan and the only known food item that complains.

Memory Chemicals (1979)

Just as Scarfolk Council demanded control over cultural memories and the historical narrative taught in schools, it also wanted to control individuals' memories.

To ensure a docile, compliant populace, Scarfolk promoted the idea of clumsy townsfolk forever stumbling into situations and seeing and hearing things they shouldn't, and proposed that measures be taken so that citizens only retained information that reflected the official party line at any given time.

Building on the success of the Black Spot Card campaign, potent, neurotoxic chemicals (and, in some cases, a steel truncheon) were employed, according to one leaflet, to: "cleanse unnecessary or redundant memories, so as to unclutter the mind".

The campaign and treatments were so effective that some people became inexplicably afraid not only to go outside but also to go into rooms in their own homes in case they saw or overheard something forbidden.

Those who could still manage to venture into rooms immediately forgot why they were there and, following a deluge of confused calls to the authorities, they had to be reminded that they had forgotten, and should now forget that they had remembered that they had forgotten.

Illegal Public Displays of Emotion (1970s Public Information)

In Scarfolk, public displays of emotion were governed by draconian laws. Negative or even ambiguous feelings (such as curiosity and hesitation) were deemed seditious and on-the-spot fines and punishments were often meted out by police (and by the Council Christmas Boy during the season of good will).

Distress (see poster above), a broad term which included "psychological breakdown", "suffering personal injury or attack" and "tutting in a queue at the post office", was considered to be a criticism of the state and therefore treasonous.

The only emotional expression truly free of censure was, according to government guidelines, "an abiding, unmistakable demonstration of pride in Our Joyous State (even if that demonstration requires the forfeiture of one's pride - and/or physical body - for the sake of Our Joyous State)". By 1979, feelings such as scepticism and doubt had been declared acts of terrorism.

These laws permitted police to cast a wide net in their investigations and arrests. Even if citizens did manage to pass the stringent, invasive contentment examinations they were still eligible for arrest if their pets exhibited negative emotions. Records show that many people were detained because of their sulky dogs and there was even one case of an arrest due to a livid tortoise.

See also The Anti-Weeping Campaign, which was aimed at children.

Lavaland Holiday Camp (1970-1970)

Lavaland was a holiday camp on the outskirts of Scarfolk built around an active volcano, which had been designated an area of outstanding natural peril.

It opened on the first of May 1970 and closed on the first of May 1970, a mere eight hours after opening, following a catastrophic volcanic event that killed nearly three thousand guests and could be heard as far away as the bowling green in Torquay.

The Council's Tourism & Leisure Department claimed that the tragedy was a freak accident that could not have been predicted. It soon became apparent, however, that the victims were people the council had previously tried, unsuccessfully, to evict from the town: children born out of wedlock, foreigners, the poor, people with lisps, and women with ideas of their own, among others.

Play Safe Public Information Campaign (1979)

 

While the state frequently warned children about the dangers of playing on icy ponds, near electrical substations and in open-air, biological weapons laboratories, it failed to take into consideration the decade's plethora of science fiction films and TV programmes, which inspired space-themed games up and down the country.

Scarfolk children, who were known to take greater risks during play, initiated an unfortunate trend that started claiming lives. In 1977, two schoolboys from Scarfolk’s Junior Indoctrination Facility dared each other to endure the harsh extremities of space. Their corpses were eventually located drifting a few hundred miles from earth by tracking the surveillance devices that had been implanted in their frontal lobes at birth.

Concerned parents demanded that the state act immediately. Two years later, (and only after the government realised its child labour factories were losing a steady flow of under-10s), a public information campaign was launched which warned minors about leaving the earth's atmosphere (see poster above). Scarfolk Council also laid many miles of high-altitude, electrified fencing to repel innocent children who might unwittingly stray into outer space.

"Nazi Anti-Bullying Campaign"

The Gullibility Campaign (1976)

In 1976, the government informed citizens that gullibility was a contagious disease. The Dept. of Health warned that it was spread through the handling of so-called 'clever books' or by talking to people who were not approved by the state. Libraries, bookshops and schools closed overnight.

The department also disseminated the notion that gullibility could be inadvertently caught by coming into contact with airborne ideas. People were told to stay at home. One leaflet read: "All the information you will ever need will be presented to you via the state-controlled newspaper The Scarfolk Mail and the one and only state-run TV channel, which is decontaminated daily."

When the Dept. of Health realised just how successful the campaign was, it added that gullibility also led sufferers to forget serious crimes they had previously committed. This permitted the council to impose hefty fines and other arbitrary punishments (see poster above).

Lip Sewing Kit (1970- )

In 1970s Scarfolk, women over the age of 18 were legally required to be a certain weight and shape. If those who didn't conform to official regulations dared to go outside during daylight hours (assuming they had the appropriate free-movement paperwork), they were stopped on the street by police armed with tape measures, weight scales and portable plastic surgery instruments.

Because kerbside operations were frequently botched, many women went to drastic lengths to meet the government's slender ideal. An example of this was the Lip Sewing Kit (see above) which thousands of women received as Christmas and birthday gifts. It was also sometimes prescribed by doctors.

The kits had originally served a different purpose. They were the brainchild of a government welfare minister (and cotton thread magnate) whose department had previously used them to silence political prisoners and other enemies of the state. When the supply of all such people was exhausted, a commercial application for the product had been sought.

For more about women's rights, see unwed mothers and 'Bastard Lanes', the 'Spread -Em Campaign', romance novels, 'Seducing Students & Secretaries' (BBC 1, 1977) and the 'Women Outside' I-Spy book.

Confirmation Bias Goggles (1970)

Confirmation Bias Goggles were the first wearable technology to be wired directly into the brain. In addition to the pinhead-sized speaker which perpetually broadcast the statement 'Of course you're right!' into the auditory cortex, the goggles' sensors could also switch off those parts of the brain that deal with troublesome emotions and feelings such as empathy, decency and healthy scepticism.

By tapping into the wearer's biases, the goggles literally deleted undesirable objects from the wearer's field of vision. Sights that were too dominant to be erased completely were visually falsified to validate the wearer's preconceptions.

By 1971, the state had adapted the goggles for use in schools. Children were told precisely what to think and what their personal opinions as adults would be.  Unsurprisingly, everybody who tried the goggles, without exception, thought that they were a great idea.


See also: De-education classes, Rub-on transfer newspapers, Mindborstal drug, The Fact Ban, and Children & Hallucinogens: The Future of Discipline.

Sing-a-Long-a-Savagery (1970s Toy)

In order to prepare children for adulthood, parents in Scarfolk wanted to familiarise their toddlers with life's cruelties as soon as possible. Toy and game manufacturers were only happy to oblige.

ScarToys' Sing-a-long-a-Savagery Music Box TV (see above) contained gruesome images of decapitation, dismemberment and disembowelment by artists such as Goya, Caravaggio and Hieronymus Bosch. The images were accompanied by nursery rhymes such as Girls & Boys Come Out To Maim, Mary Had a Little Laceration, and Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Little Scar (See Discovering Scarfolk p. 159 for more details).

Additionally, children were forced to endure a variety of traumas they might typically face as adults. These included peer-group rejection, physical and mental degeneration (achieved with regular bleach injections and a cricket bat), and being hunted by the official Women's Institute sniper.

For more toys and games see: The Drowning Game, Mr Liver Head, Pollute, Mr Smug, Landmine, Action Man Waterboarding Playset and Lung Puppy.