"Pagan Paediatrics" Pelican Books, 1974

Happy Halloween/Samhain from everyone at Scarfolk Council.

There was always conflict between science and religion in Scarfolk, particularly regards topics such as birth, death and secular resurrection. However, writers like Dr. Santa Blacklord tried to bridge the gap with their books and Open University courses, which included 'Pagan Paediatrics.'

Excerpts from the birth chapter of the revised edition:

The normal process of birth starts with a series of involuntary contractions of the uterus walls. This is the first sign that the dark spirit has made his presence known. Eventually, the amniotic sac bursts and amniotic fluid escapes. This fluid should be preserved as it is known to a) help pigs and owls develop psychic abilities, b) hurt one's enemies when mixed with unstable explosives and c) cure female pattern chest baldness.
When the cervix is fully dilated, further uterus contractions push the lazy baby out through the left vagina or nostril, and the baby is born with umbilical cord attached. If, when plucked, the umbilical cord is tuned to D-sharp it is considered a lucky birth. If it's tuned to G the child will most likely grow up to work in retail. If tuned to B-flat most parents are recommended to try for another child.

Excerpts from the chapter on death:

Death is a state that immediately follows life. Only very rarely does it not occur in that order.  During death the body's organs, like employees without an immediate supervisor, become confused and wander around the body looking for someone in charge. They meet in the buttocks where they hold a seance. They contact the dark spirit who was present at birth but learn that he has been made redundant due to cutbacks. Panicking, the organs argue amongst themselves briefly before turning out the lights and leaving, never to be heard of again. Some religions believe that when a deceased person is buried they are reincarnated as soil.

The "Little White Sam" Book Ban (1977)

"Little White Sam" had always been a very popular book among Scarfolk children, but in 1977 the Scarfolk Association of Teachers caused controversy by withdrawing it from the school curriculum.

This had been triggered by a slew of international complaints: Children from developing countries (many of which had been liberated from themselves by the benevolent British Empire) were terrified and offended by the book's pale-skinned, blonde protagonist. He reminded them of days under British and European rule and the suffering (or 'learning' as the government preferred) that they had endured.

Historically, white people had always been unfairly picked on for trying to help the world be more like them and Jesus, so this was another major blow.

A legal battle over the book ensued, and when it was finally reprinted stringent efforts were made to completely remove any contentious material regarding race, colour and even gender. In the updated 1979 edition Sam was reimagined as a completely transparent flatworm which changed gender at will. 

However, sales plummeted and, before long, environmentalists were reporting that crimes against flatworms had risen by as much as 23%.

"Audio Control for Baby" (Scarfolk Records & Tapes, 1970)

The cassette called "Audio Control for Baby" (Scarfolk Records & Tapes, 1970) has long been lost but we do have this recording of the music playing in the background at the Scarfolk Inconvenient Infant Playcenta. It was piped into every room around the clock at high volume and many child carers found it to be very effective: Enjoying drinks at the pub two doors down from the 'centa', the carers rarely heard any of the babies cry.

Many struggled with the pressures of the job. As one carer, Jocelyn Hurtt, noted at the time, "the kids really set your nerves on edge, especially if, like me, you don't have a natural affinity with children. You can be right in the middle of a good programme on the telly and one of them will start up: complaining about nightmares, appendicitis or wanting to be freed from their restraints. I really don't know what I'd do without my Martini & lemonades. You're not supposed to hit the little blighters, but if you've had a few drinks you're less tolerant and you don't know your own strength; it only stands to reason and is to be expected. After all, we're only human."

We hope the extraneous sounds on the recording do not distract too much from the music.

"Charley says...[obey or die]" (1973)

Bad behaviour was rampant in 1970s Scarfolk and disciplining children was a major concern.

The so-called 'degenerate generation' of children, often from worthless-class backgrounds, was known to actively defy rules and social norms and frequently committed the following appalling offences:

- Stay awake after allotted bedtimes.
- Peel marzipan decorations from cakes.
- Laugh loudly while having fun.
- Read books more advanced than their official reading age.
- Question adults' belief in Father Christmas.
- Cry after having nightmares.
- Refuse to join in educational/life-skills games such as 'lie about a friend,' 'slap-the-immigrant',  'wet someone else's bed.'

In a desperate attempt to curb this destructive, nihilistic behaviour, Scarfolk Health Service launched a treatment regime employing the newly developed 'great flooding' psychological technique*, which exposes the subject to such long durations of relentless and exaggerated cruelty that any desire to be undisciplined is quashed.

*The technique largely comprised of repeated readings of a book called the bible which was written many hundreds of years ago by people who had never heard of knives and forks, washing machines, coat hangers, toilet seats, aluminium kitchen foil or shampoo.

Porn-Education (1976-1979)

More rare screenshots this week.

In 1976 the Scarfolk Board of Education was faced with a problem: Children weren't educated enough to be able to learn anything, thus benefit from education.

Teenagers had lost all interest in schooling and spent their time indulging themselves in popular teenybopper pop groups such as The Wittgenstein Rollers and Arnold & the Schoenbergs.

To counter this apathy, the Board of Education decided to take advantage of the recent relaxing of film censorship and the rise of sexploitation.

From September 1976 they delivered the school curriculum via a series of feature-length pornographic films. In particular they wanted to enliven maths and English topics and to "put some lead back in the pencil" of pedagogy, as the minister for education, Tom Stiph, put it.

School attendance rose by 42% in less than six months, as did the birth rate.

Below are three of the long-lost maths and English, so-called 'Porn-Ed' films, as certified by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censorship).

Other films included:
"Debbie Does Differential Geometry" (1976)
"Lady Pythagoras' Love Triangle" (1977)
"HomoPhone Sex Operators" (1977)
"Vital Statistics and Alge-bra Overflows" (1977)
"Homonympho Grown-up Groans" (1978)
"Homonympho 2: Whole Holes Meet Man Meat" (1979)

To enlarge/zoom right-click and 'open in new page/tab'

"Seducing Students & Secretaries" (BBC 1, 1977)

In 1977 BBC Scarfolk broadcast a 'schools and colleges' series that prepared children for the world of work awaiting them. The programme was aimed at boys aged between eight and twelve (girls, of course, weren't allowed to watch such programmes because they interfered with weekly domestic servility exams).

"Seducing Students & Secretaries" focused on one of the more important aspects of employment; that of cornering and ensnaring female employees or students for personal gratification.
Based on his book "How To Get the Lady Beneath You Beneath You" (Pelican Books, 1974), Dr. Hugh Schaime (seen below) presented the programme and taught prospective bosses, in a classroom environment, how best to exploit their positions of power in the workplace.

His course covered subjects such as 'how to make women believe that an uninvited kiss is a compulsory dental exploration.' He also tutored obstinate female employees, teaching them how to submit with grace.

The programme was particularly memorable for its title sequence which featured a butcher preparing meat, something that Dr. Schaime felt was a perfect metaphor for the knowledge he imparted for over fifty years.

The programmes were accidentally erased by the BBC in 1979, but we do still have a selection of screenshots, as you can see below.

Happy Friday the13th from Scarfolk Coven!

Everyone at Scarfolk Coven would like to you wish you all the best for today, Friday the 13th. So mote it be, dear citizens, so mote it be.

"Scarfolk Coven: Where every Friday is Friday the 13th"

 

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"Patient #249" EEG Recording 01.11.1977

In 1977 Scarfolk Clinic conducted sleep experiments on a local boy known only as 'Patient #249'. He suffered from severe nightmares and developed a rare condition known as 'manifest hypnagogia'.

Symptoms include the physical manifestation of hallucinations that sufferers endure between sleep and waking states. For example, Patient #249 frequently awoke to find, sitting on the end of his bed, a syphilitic, deformed Victorian clown eating trifle and pig's liver pâté. At other times, a confused sewing machine salesman from the Midlands would appear. Patient #249's parents found this inconvenient.

Doctors observed Patient #249 at home and wired his brain to an EEG, which they attached to a Bontempi electric keyboard. They wanted to record what Patient #249's brain was doing and translate it into music. In the recording you'll hear the TV in the background before Patient #249's unconscious brain takes over and he slips into a hypnagogic state.

Falling Disorder (mid-1970s)

In the mid-1970s, Scarfolk was under pressure from the government to investigate a high incidence of suicides and tourist deaths in the region.* In 1974 alone there were 356 cases.

The mayor appointed the council-funded Scarfolk College, which was run by Dr. James Marde, the mayor's "bestest friend in the whole wide world," to help conduct the enquiry.

A trained psychologist, Dr. Marde soon identified a hitherto unknown condition, which he named Falling Disorder. It was this, he insisted, that was responsible for the many inexplicable demises.

According to Marde, Falling Disorder led the sufferer to tie their hands behind their own back and hurl themselves from high places.

The discovery appears to have made a considerable impact because council statistics showed that there were zero official reports of suicides or unlawful deaths in 1975, and the government was appeased. However, there were approximately 360 new cases of terminal Falling Disorder.


*For a related post go here to learn about 'Scarfolk Drop'.

Scarfolk Council Health & Safety (1973-1974)

As many of you know, a vaccination introduces a small amount of a virus to the body so that it may build up an immunity.

Scarfolk Council applied the same principle to preparing its employees for accidents in the workplace. For example, to prepare for the eventuality of falling from the roof of the seven storey council building, an employee, during a drill, would be thrown out of a low first floor window. In the case of a gas leak explosion, which could kill fifty people, only three employees would be terminated during the drill.

This method ensured that health and safety ideals were maintained to a high standard throughout the 1970s.

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The Scarfolk Towers Murders - Comic Book Adaptation (1977)

Some of you may recall the spate of murders at Scarfolk council's social housing flagship, Scarfolk Towers (it was touched upon in Scarfolk's tourist literature. See here for more information).

In 1977 there was a comic-book adaptation of the murders which served not only to lure tourists to Scarfolk but also entered the curriculum of the Business & Sociopathy Diploma course at Scarfolk Technical College. 'The Scarfolk Towers Expirations' comic became a seminal work and inspired many of Scarfolk's most successful entrepreneurs, bankers and politicians.

When one of the 'Scarfolk Towers' killers, three-year old Trevor Smite, was finally apprehended, he was presented with a 'Businesschild of the Year' award and offered 23.5% of any revenue generated by his homicidal spree, the highest payout to date for a sociopath under the age of ten (see here for the poster warning residents about dangerous children).

Trevor became a household name and hosted his own quiz panel show, 'Capitalism Punishment', on BBC Radio Scarfolk. The show penalised contestants for inadvertently introducing ethical or moral considerations into hypothetical, potentially lucrative business propositions.

More pages from 'The Scarfolk Towers Expirations' may be posted in the future.

To enlarge/zoom right-click and 'open in new page/tab'

'Go Home' Racism & Living Toys (mid-1970s)

This allegedly innocuous British Rail poster, which could be seen all around Scarfolk in the mid-1970s, is pertinent because it touches on issues raised by the recent controversial anti-illegal immigrant campaign in the UK.

The campaign, which threatens illegal immigrants with its 'go home or face arrest' message, smacks of 1970s racist rhetoric, in fact it quotes it outright. The Home Office's claim that the campaign is not discriminatory is also reminiscent of 1970s racist attitudes which were subliminally woven into public life.

When racism was finally exposed as being detrimental to society, it was blamed on foreigners.

This post is the last in a short series which addresses dolls in society. Many Scarfolk children took part in after-school occult rituals to animate their toys but this practice was banned after schoolboy Peter Colons brought to life an immense Slinky which killed 237 people and destroyed public property.

"Gynaecology for Anxious Patients" & Puppetology (1973)

After the last post about inflatable child substitutes, a young reader has written in asking about the use of dolls in general.

Puppets and marionettes were frequently used in 1970s healthcare. For example, at Scarfolk Hospital & Confectioners, electro-shock therapy was administered by ventriloquist dummies. Even Scarfolk Council's very own Barbara, the omphalophobic hand puppet, performed amateur lobotomies on disobedient children and undesirable tourists in her weekend hobby group.

Bi-weekly prostate examinations were performed by a wooden Pinocchio puppet who initiated the procedure by telling a series of lies (whilst attached to a polygraph machine to ensure a rigorous, productive examination).

If Pinocchio discovered anything to be concerned about he would withdraw and squeal: "We've found a nasty one, Jiminy Cricket!"*

*Before the advent of fibre-optic cameras the use of crickets or grasshoppers for exploratory surgery was common. However, there was a breakthrough in 1978 when a local scientist invented a miniature polaroid camera which he taught locusts to operate.

"Vulnerable Sam: Inflatable Child Substitute" (1972)

 

This educational product went on the market in late 1972 and was targeted at prospective parents, nursery school teachers and church staff. It afforded them the opportunity to practice their corporal punishment techniques before inflicting them on an actual child.

From the product description:
"'Vulnerable Sam' wants you to hit him (or her). Yes, that's right: Give him a good old whack! (wooden spoon provided). 'Vulnerable Sam' deserves everything you can throw at him. Hone your skills like a pro so when it comes to the real thing you can achieve the perfect balance of injury and compliance. Our research shows that correctly administered physical punishment will produce long-term psychological effects. Guaranteed. Now, that's what we call value for money!

'Vulnerable Sam' requires no medical attention and can't report you to the police or welfare services. So what are waiting for? Pick up that wooden spoon, cricket bat, or red hot poker and strike while the iron's hot!

'Vulnerable Sam's' body can be filled to simulate child body density at different ages:
- Inflate with air (0-2yrs)
- Fill with jam or marmalade (2-3yrs)
- Pack with cooked ham or black pudding (3-4yrs)
- Pack with raw lamb, beef or giraffe (4-6yrs)

Sample admonitions that you might like to try out:
"Sam! Stop it! Only filthy animals defecate where they sleep!"
" Jesus hates you, Sam. It's your fault that he was killed by Italians."
"Why must you constantly remind me of my first child who died?"
"You are irretrievably unaesthetic. I'm ashamed and sense the scorn of my peers."
"Your father is foreign."

"Twice Tasty" Secondhand food schemes (1970s)

Tolerating poor people has always been a challenge to more civilised, useful members of society.
Because of a historical legal statute the poor, unemployed and homeless were not formally recognised as homo sapiens until 1971. Before then they were officially categorised as a class of 'fruit or vegetable' below melon but slightly higher than turnip. Technically, this meant that they could be traded, thrown at petty criminals and fed to pigs, though this rarely occurred.

The government always endeavoured to strike a balance between eliminating the poor (and thus the strain on society) and needing them to fulfill menial, demeaning work:  cleaner, road sweep, theologian, etc. It was Dr. Max Gongfarmer, professor of Socially Debased Ethics, who had the idea of feeding secondhand food to the poor after reading an amateur historian's account of Marie-Antoinette's life. According to the typo-ridden book, she uttered "Let them eat cak."

Unsurprisingly, the poor, who have no sense of aesthetics or cleanliness, welcomed the idea and it thrived in 1970s Scarfolk, as can be seen from this newspaper advertisement for the COUP supermarket chain. 

"Son Oil" Baby Marinade (1979)

It has been some time since the mayor permitted us access to his collection of 1970s pharmaceutical postcards. Here's one for the summer:

The text on the reverse of the postcard:

"A child's skin is vulnerable and can easily burn, which could impair the flavour. To avoid damaging the skin first blanch the child for fives minutes then generously apply Son Oil. Add salt, pepper and newts to taste, then leave the child in the garden during the hottest part of the day. Whimpering usually means that the child is ready to be transferred to the grill or oven. Warning: Illegitimate or unbaptized children burn more quickly."

"We Won't Forget. So You Can't" (1973)

Illicitly and unconstitutionally spying on a whole nation requires an enormous amount of taxpayers' money. That is why, in 1973, Scarfolk started a scheme to sell surveillance data to the public, the actual object of the aforementioned spying.

By 1970, Scarfolk Council had bugged every room, every street, every public and private space. Even forests, beaches and bouncy castles were wiretapped. Every moment of every resident's life was recorded and archived in vast bunkers in the mountains of Snowdonia and abroad.

All this information was subcontracted to a consortium of corporations called RIMPS that used the data to exploit citizens' psychological weaknesses and/or blackmail them into acts of personal depravity for entertainment. These acts were televised and had viewing figures of millions per broadcast. Many people became household names as shame and celebrity became synonymous.

"Mr. Nationalist"

Until 1978 foreigners were officially classified by the government as livestock and were subcategorised by odour.

Defining who was and wasn't English became complicated. By the end of the decade, right-wing nationalists had drawn up a list that demanded the deportation of everyone apart from 9 people, all of who claimed to be the only true English. They even insisted on the deportation of all foreign foods (which they later amended, granting visas to pizza, kebab and curry sauce).

Their spokesperson, Colin Head, said at a 1976 rally:  

"We reject foreign influences in England. That is our weltanschauung. Multiculturalism is our bête noire and we strongly believe that English culture is destined to become kaput if the current zeitgeist continues to be de rigueur. But it doesn't have to be a fait accompli and that's why we will continue to be the enfant terrible of modern politics. It's time to act: Carpe diem!"

Primary school tapeworm experiments (1970s)

Back in the 1970s there was no way of ascertaining how some medical products might affect humans.

Rabbits, chimps and other animals were needed for dark ritualistic purposes and human volunteers were not forthcoming, especially after several high-profile medical scandals.

The Cavalier Pharmaceutical Company hit on the brilliant idea of publishing a series of primary school science and maths books. They donated them along with a generous endowment to Scarfolk Education Board which had no choice but to introduce the books to the curriculum.

The textbooks invited young children to conduct experiments on themselves and record the data, which contributed to higher end-of-year grades. The best scoring pupils from each school were awarded the chance to try out the medicine to which their schoolwork had contributed. They also won free cigarettes, as well as courses of either anti-seizure or anti-psychotic medication.

There's another page from the Scarfolk maths and science book here.
 

(click image to enlarge)

"Is Mankind a Board Game?" 1973

Scarfolk had its fair share of UFO/deity conspiracies in the 1970s. The town's resident UFO expert Bert Cage insisted that extraterrestrials have intervened in mankind's development for generations,  introducing technology and even manipulating our genes.

He claimed the otherwordly visitors have been responsible for: irrigation, rockets, fax machines, polyester bed sheets, dental floss and cocktail umbrellas; not to mention genetic emotional states such as: the disappointment one has seeing the film adaptation of a favourite book and the amusement one feels when seeing a cat fall over.

According to Cage, there are also several significant changes due to mankind very soon. These include: Geo-spankhens (eta: 2017), colonspicers (2019) and the shame one feels for having eaten cabbage for so many years not realising that it's actually an animal (2032).

"Scarfolk Drop" Tourism poster. 1970

Decades before 'assisted suicide' was offered by organisations such as Switzerland's Dignitas, Scarfolk Council had its own kind of 'suicide tourism.'

The mayor and his councillors were always torn between the economic benefits of the tourist industry and not particularly liking outsiders. To balance the dichotomy, advertising man and stand-up arsonist Taylor Church suggested that the tourism board considerably exaggerate how exciting Scarfolk's tourist attractions were and then advertise them to depressives, the terminally ill, etc.

The plan was to raise the hopes of despairing tourists, so that when they arrived at an attraction it was an extreme disappointment - just the nudge they needed to 'take a plunge into the ocean'.

Cleverly, Church also recommended that tourists be guided through gift-shops before visiting the attractions, before disillusionment took too strong a hold.  

After the tourist season ended, Scarfolk children would comb the beaches for washed-up snow globes, key-rings, tea towels and other items which were then resold in the shop.

Sex, Sex, Sex 1978 (Part II)

Here's another page from the 1978 biology textbook taught in Scarfolk schools. This time it's about female reproduction.

You can learn about the complexities of "Male reproduction in males" here.

"Pick off your litter" & Mobile Termination Units (1977)

After the case of James Sprout (go here for more detail) the government realised that parents desired more control over their offspring, so, in 1977, laws pertaining to pregnancy and termination were revised and widely expanded.

Adverts, such as the one posted below, were printed in newspapers, magazines and church newsletters.

Many parents either couldn't find the time to drop off their unwanted children at a termination facility, or they just couldn't be bothered, so the MTU (Mobile Termination Unit) was introduced.

The MTU was a fully-equipped bus which travelled to schools, playgrounds, junior covens and prisons for the under 5s. In an attempt to calm children, sounds of laughter were played through tannoys.

Children dreaded being called out of the classroom by uniformed MTU doctors and desperately feigned undiminished magical abilities, but to no avail: The MTU doctors knew all the ruses and highly-trained government psychics tested each child individually before termination.

By 1979 the numbers of children in Scarfolk (in particular red-haired, bespectacled, and those who never wiped their noses) were drastically reduced, which prompted parent-teacher associations to hold a town fête.

The "Don't" campaign and Kak, 1973

This public information poster is from the "Don't" campaign, which started in 1973.

The council became increasingly concerned that citizens were too actively involved in 'doing.'
Because 'doing' is a morally and politically ambiguous activity the council decided to take control and enforced 'not doing' until they could clarify and ratify only positive, socially acceptable expressions of 'doing.'

The campaign's mascot was called Kak the bird. To disseminate the 'Don't' message among the youth, all school corporal punishment, daily vaccinations, and dentistry had to be carried out by an adult dressed as Kak.

Parents were also encouraged to dress as Kak then rush in on their young, sleeping children at 3am, and screech as loudly as they could: "Don't, don't, don't."

A "Don't" Kak button badge (1973-74)

The ghost of Mrs. Payne (field recording), 1975

The mayor has decided that it's time to hear more from Scarfolk's audio archive.

This post refers to a previous one about the disappearance of primary school music teacher Mrs. Payne whose body was found encased inside an ancient standing stone (go here for more detail)

Forensic examination of the stone revealed that it had originated more than 300 miles away and historians could not ascertain how prehistoric man had transported it to Scarfolk, much less how Mrs Payne had found her way into a 300 million year old rock. The police reported it as a chance accident.

When the stone was broken into chunks and sold as 'Payne's Pain' souvenirs in the Scarfolk gift shop, purchasers began hearing ghostly music in their homes. Additionally, the music was heard at the stone circle where Mrs. Payne's body was found, as well as at the geological site of the stone's origin.

The souvenirs were recalled and buried at the centre of the stone circle in Scarfolk fields, now the only location where the music can still be heard, but only on the anniversary of the death of Payne's husband who found himself unexpectedly dismembered during a pagan ritual competition for the under 10s.

This is a field recording made from the stone circle.

1970s greetings cards

On the subject on stationers (see previous post), here's a greetings card sold during the mid-70s. This one was recently found behind a radiator in the Scarfolk police department of homicide and light entertainment.

Back in 1976 James Sprout was found dead in a Scarfolk canal. He was in a sack weighed down by his favourite toys (Action Man 'plague doctor', Fisher-Price 'death row' and concrete Play-doh)

A murder investigation was soon underway but the police ultimately found no evidence of foul play. They concluded that James had somehow inflicted upon himself a severe head injury from behind then, delirious, climbed into the sack. A forensics expert postulated that while James snoozed, the sack was then dragged four miles by either a vast litter of feral kittens, or the ghosts of unvaccinated foreigners, to the canal bridge where James fell to his watery grave.

When James' grief-stricken parents learned of their son's tragic fate they entered a lengthy period of mourning, consoling themselves by opening a beach-front bar in Barbados where they moved the day after James' funeral.

W. Smith newspapers, magazines, stationery, 1979

Here's a 1979 shopping carrier bag from W. Smith, a leading newsagent, stationers and music shop.

When Winston Smith retired from the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth, he decided to open his own high-street Records Department in Scarfolk.

Daily newspapers were updated every 3 minutes and anyone possessing an out-of-date edition was arrested, prosecuted for dissent, and declared a "Scarfnot" (An "unperson" in Scarfolk).

Books were also constantly rewritten and "unbook" tokens were available. These tokens could be exchanged for any given book's amended pages. Indeed, some books were corrected so frequently that maintaining a single book could run into hundreds if not thousands of pounds.

A book's contents could change drastically. For example, by 1979, the erotic sci-fi thriller, "Affordable Brothel of the 9th Moon of Jupiter," bore little resemblance to its first edition, which was originally titled the "New Testament," a story about a Galilean carpenter who opens a budget furniture store in Sweden.

Most people found it easier not to buy or read books.

Items for sale week of 06/11/1979:

All magazines/comics - 65p:
Women Weakly (Highlighting the disruptive and damaging role of women in society).
Telescreen Fun (A weekly cartoon strip singling out individual children and deriding them for  personal indiscretions).
Rats 'n' Laughs (Hilarious images of people's expressions when hungry rats in cages are attached to their faces. Plus prisoners' letters).

Music dept:
"It's Inner Party Time!" and other public confession LPs & tapes - £3.99.

"Stop The Ripper From Killing Again" Police appeal ads

This police message appeared in national newspapers and as posters in Scarfolk schools, libraries and community centres for occult cloning.

The Lynch case aside, in the late 1970s there was another manhunt underway for the killer of three actresses. The police, desperate to spark the memories of any potential witnesses, planned a reenactment and hired Jonty Lumm, an actor and model who most resembled police sketches of the killer.

During the reenactment Jonty killed the actress hired to play one of the actress victims and the police quickly realised that they would have to engage another actor to portray Jonty in a future reenactment.

Though Jonty Lumm was never found, police reenactments became popular. Scarfolk prison put on its own charity reenactments in which inmates would replay their own crimes for an enthusiastic audience. The 1979 show raised £7,799 for a charity that helped police men and women learn how to read.

"Never Go With Strange Children" public information poster, 1977

This public information poster was ubiquitous during the mid-1970s when there was a spate of cases involving adults being abducted from leisure centres, building sites and nudist beaches.

The police launched a public manhunt hoping that the perpetrator would be swiftly apprehended, but the crimes went unsolved for nearly two years. Terrified grownups would only go outside in groups of four or five and many pubs refused to open.

It was only when a police medium read the entrails of a recently sacrificed tramp that clues were finally unearthed, leading to the arrest of eight year old Steven Benson who had fed his victims to his tortoise, Admiral Twinkles.

When Steven was taken into state care and Admiral Twinkles escaped, it was suggested that the tortoise, which was an illegal immigrant, had used 'Manchurian Candidate' style psychological techniques to manipulate young Steven into subconsciously carrying out his instructions.

"Put Down Old People At Birth" Conservative Party campaign leaflet, 1979

With the funeral of ex-prime minister and hobby taxidermist Margaret Thatcher underway, it is perhaps appropriate that this item from the archive is posted today.

This leaflet was distributed throughout Scarfolk during the 1979 Conservative Party campaign. With such clear policies and faultless logic, it's little wonder that the Tories won the election. The Labour Party had pushed Britain into a deep recession following numerous strikes by miners, postal workers and the royal family who, throughout 1976, refused to politely wave on Tuesdays, weekends and bank holidays.

However, under the Tory government, Scarfolk lost several of its community covens, and the council's plans to convert Scarfolk Towers, the site of a series of occult killings, into a children's nighttime playground were thwarted. Additionally, Scarfolk residents were vexed that mystical phenomena became taxable, which led to an increase in back-street astral projections.

Tupperware urns, 1973

Here's a scan of a Tupperware advert that appeared in a 1973 issue of the The Scarfolk Times Sunday magazine.

Back in the early 1970s, people weren't entirely convinced that death was final, irrespective of whether or not their loved ones had been cremated. The general opinion was: it can't hurt to keep things as fresh as possible. Just in case.

It was around this time that children throughout Scarfolk began seeing ghosts of seahorses drifting on the breeze. Adults could not see the apparitions, so the children were not believed at first, but 'Old Jamton Bones,' a recluse who lived in Scarfolk Woods, came out of his hermitage, proclaiming the seashorses to be an omen.

According to Bones, every forty years the appearance of the seahorses heralds a big change in Scarfolk. For legal reasons, what happened back in 1973 cannot be discussed here, but it is now forty years since their last appearance.

The mayor will keep you posted...

"Let's Learn About...Torture" 1976

This textbook was taught in Scarfolk schools in 1976. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

"Experts agree that information and its communication will be very important in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Information will become a commodity, sold only to the highest bidders, so it is crucial that students learn how to acquire information as quickly as possible if they want to survive.

Some information can be found in library books, but oftentimes, the most valuable information is buried inside another person's mind. It is up to pupils to mine that information, much like a prospector searches for coal. Sometimes he will use dynamite, other times a powerful drill is more appropriate. There are many ways that a person's mind may be mined.

Here are just a few techniques that you can try on your classmates:

--Scream at them in a high-pitched, helium-inhaled voice without pause for 47 hours.

--Beat the soles of their feet with an effigy of Jesus made out of frozen, compacted ladybirds.

--Pass a pair of stockings dipped in marmalade through their entire body from anus to mouth and then refuse to let them win a game of Monopoly.

--Bake them at gas mark 4 (350 degrees F) for 45 minutes or until the top becomes a rich, golden brown.

--Staple or glue them to a panicking, claustrophobic ostrich..."

"How to Wash a Child's Brain" Pelican Books, 1971

With the SHS (Scarfolk Health Service) stretched to its limits and running low on resources, parents in the early 1970s were encouraged to remove and wash their children's brains at home.

In 1971 Scarfolk Council collaborated with Pelican Books to produce this handy 21-page guide to brain and cranial cavity cleansing.

An excerpt from the book:

"... Always wear woollen gloves (or mittens) [...] After the child's brain has been removed with the two brain spoons, rinse it in a solution of vinegar, ammonia and curry powder, then rest the brain on a soft cloth or tea towel for a few minutes, or for as long as is convenient. During this time remove all your clothes and incant pagan ritual #23, as found in the appendix (of this book, not your child) [...] Do not spit on the brain or leave it near a hungry or rabid pet, such as a guinea pig [...] If the brain has swelled outside the cranial cavity and will no longer fit, simply snip away part of the frontal or temporal lobe with nail clippers and discard. This will not affect your child's development. [...] If your child has a seizure slap it and insist that bad behaviour will not be tolerated..."

"Black Spot" public discretion cards, 1978

Scarfolk Council had a few problems with outsiders, or "Scarfnots" as they were known, interfering in town affairs throughout the 1970s, so it developed a scheme to encourage civic discretion.

The severity of punishment for a "loose tongue" more or less guaranteed obedience, though a few Black Spot cards were issued.

For example, four year old Jeremy Chapped inadvertently discussed with his "Scarfnot" trepanning teacher the sudden, inexplicable appearances of ancient megaliths in schools and community centres, and found himself facing capital punishment.

In lieu of this penalty he pushed an unloved aunt in the path of a speeding hovercraft for which he received not only a cub scout badge, but also a £5 book token from the mayor.

Meet Mr. Rumbelows, Minister for Health.

Here's another page from the children's book "Let's Sing The Unspeakable Together," which was first published in 1970 (Go here for more details and another excerpt from the book).

Mr. Rumbelows was eventually tracked down by the authorities and coerced back into his position as minister for public health.

However, his obsession with bodily 'tidiness,' as he called it, never abated and by 1977 he was completely limbless. He could only operate his typewriter with a mixture of telekinesis and a complex device made out of lolly-pop sticks, coat hanger wire and double-sided sticky tape.

Mills & Boon: "Catheters, Kisses & Colostomies" 1974

Until 1971 married women were only allowed to leave their husbands' homes if they had the appropriate documentation. The so-called 'Wife Pass' also restricted married ladies to selected shops: supermarkets, hairdressers, bingo halls, etc.

However, once a year, ladies could enter a bookshop (if accompanied by a man), but only to buy recipe books, cheap romance novels, or calenders containing photographs of kittens frolicking in wool.

The 'Pass' listed a wife's government-allocated prettiness rating, her most accomplished household skills (bed making, cooking, dog worming, etc), as well as her preferred brands of washing powder and other cleaning products.

The author of "Catheters, Kisses & Colostomies," Gigi Feague, was actually a violent schizophrenic called Trevor 'Terror' Chlidge who, when not smearing himself with his own faeces and screaming in his Scarfolk Prison cell, wrote dozens of romance books, as well as guides for parents about childcare and child development in general. 

Vicks Vaporub Blindness Ointment, 1978

You've probably not even recovered from the excitement of the last postcard from the mayor's rare 1970s pharmaceutical collection, yet here's another bombshell.

This is the Vicks Vaporub postcard from 1978 that came free with multi-pack orders of prosthetic eyes.
Vicks Vaporub was originally invented to temporarily blind children for up to one hour while parents did things they didn't want their offspring to witness.

The original Vicks formula also contained a psychotropic ingredient that caused hallucinations, but it was withdrawn after a class of contagious children escaped from Scarfolk high-security infant school posing as alarmed peahens.

Summer Holiday Diseases Colouring Book, 1976

This is another page from the hospital records of the anonymous little girl who was found wandering Scarfolk in 1976 (more here)

The colouring book itself was produced by Scarfolk Council Health Board Service Council and was distributed throughout hospitals, schools and junior covens.

While providing children with a fun creative pastime, it also subtly alerted them to the dangers of horrific diseases such as rabies and bed wetting, instilling in the children a deep-seated fear of foreigners, close relatives, harmless household objects, animals, vegetables shaped like animals, and belly buttons (see Barbara the omphalophobic office hand puppet).

Thought-Detector vans, 1973

Many will remember the TV detector vans that stalked suburban Britain in the 1970s.

Scarfolk was chosen to take part in a government scheme that tested the latest technology in thought detection, particularly because of the events surrounding "The Tim Seven" in 1972 (See here and here for more details).

The scheme not only successfully reduced the number of telepathic crimes in Scarfolk, but also exposed hundreds of "wrong thinkers."

According to legislation, "a 'wrong thought' is a thought, which, when thought, contains themes thought to be not right, therefore wrong, and therefore prosecutable. An unthought thought may be potentially wrong, but the thought will not be prosecutable until such a time that the thought has been thought and its themes have been thoroughly thought through and deemed wrong by the authorities. Thinking about which specific thoughts may or may not be prosecutable may also be prosecutable."

In 1975 the mayor's brother, Winston, was one of the 90 people arrested for a "wrong thought" involving TV newsreader Angela Rippon, a jar of Robertson's Marmalade, and garden Swingball.

TV test card & "The Scarfolk Nurse"

Here's a BBC Scarfolk TV testcard from 1970.

The SHS (Scarfolk Health Service) suggested these particular photographs in an attempt to subliminally accustom citizens to the plummeting success rate of state healthcare and to lower their expectations.

But they got more than they bargained for. Throughout the 70s a very faint, ghostly image of a woman's face began inexplicably appearing on Scarfolk's local TV broadcasts. Because she was first seen on this early 'SHS' testcard, she became known as "The Scarfolk Nurse."

She appeared on all kinds of programmes, but was most often seen during children's television broadcasts at times of social unrest. Engineers at the TV station never found a technical explanation for the phenomenon, nor could they for the examples of distant, eerie voices on the radio, which were also attributed to the "Nurse".

Can you see her? She's there if you look hard enough....