The Infamous Class 3 School Illustration (1976-1979)

On 7 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!

The Solstice Incident (1978)

Below is an artist's impression of the 1978 Solstice Incident during which an occult ritual went awry at Scarfolk Henge resulting in the transformation of the sacrificial martyr into an enormous space hopper.

When neither druid nor doctor could reverse the process, the victim became a town mascot, offering rides to children. Records show, however, that he was also secretly employed by the state to violently intimidate seditious citizens and prying outsiders. He was known among council staff as 'The Bouncer'.

The as-yet unsolved Steamroller Murders of Spring 1979, when dozens of people were discovered crushed flat with every bone in their bodies broken, were almost certainly a result of The Bouncer's handiwork.

Add caption

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.

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.

5 Years Old

Scarfolk is 5 years old. Thank you to all who became residents and joined in the community activities. Which is your favourite post?

Illegal Puppetry & Ventriloquism

By 1977 the numbers of puppeteers and ventriloquists roaming Scarfolk's sewers had reached crisis point.

Initially, they had claimed their sole intention was to entertain the many outcast citizens who had been ordered by the courts to live out their remaining days in the sewer system beneath Scarfolk's streets. It became apparent, however, that the ventriloquist's real motives were far less salubrious.

In the maze of subterranean concrete tunnels they lured people with sweets, toys and other gifts and abducted them. Then, through a complex process of mummification which permitted the subject to forever retain partial consciousness, the abductees were turned into so-called 'breathing dummies' destined for the northern, illegal club circuit where 'haunted ventriloquism' had become popular.

Though haunted ventriloquism conversions were outlawed in entertainment, they continued to be applied in politics for many more years.

Real English Wine (Magazine Ad)

The government strongly promoted the ‘Buy British’ message in the 1970s. It was so keen to prove the scientific superiority of British products that large-scale experiments were commissioned.

Scarfolk University, for example, was given four million pounds to develop a computer that could record the brainwaves of hundreds of Real English Wine drinkers and then convert those brainwaves into sounds and images.

Scientists (and advertising agency executives who planned to exploit the results) predicted the result would produce “a wide variety of positive images, including majestic British landscapes accompanied by the sounds of waves and music as beautiful as anything written by maestros such Sir Edward Elgar or Cliff Richard”.

In actual fact, all the subjects’ brains produced exactly the same image: An electrified cage containing a baby monkey whose mind had been destroyed by medical experiments, systematic torture and the jarring sound of a toy mechanical bear mercilessly beating a drum 24 hours a day.

Despite this apparent setback, the Real English Wine committee ran with this image in their advertising campaigns. The wine sold well in Scarfolk, simply by virtue of being British, as did a spin-off ‘soft-toy’ monkey, which wasn’t actually a soft-toy at all, but a real dead monkey.

'Loose Tongues' Public Information (1977)

When this poster was distributed by Scarfolk Council in 1977, many people were concerned that they did not understand the poster's message correctly and were thus at risk of unintentionally breaking the law by either talking or not talking about it.

Worried citizens gathered in secret to discuss the poster campaign. Knowing that most homes contained surveillance devices, they debated the poster non-verbally, using hand gestures. Unbeknownst to the clandestine groups, however, specially-trained police mime experts had infiltrated the meetings and reported everything they saw to Scarfolk's police commissioner who, keen to outdo his predecessor's record, had created the public information campaign to boost arrest numbers.

Telephone helplines were set up to provide legal aid to the many who were accused of talking (and not talking) and faced punitive tongue removal. Although the legal experts who manned the lines were not permitted to speak, they were authorised to offer advice via the medium of mime.

Christmas Meat Orders

Scarfolk's Dr Hushson, who surgically adapted children into kitchen utensils for the catering industry, also genetically modified children to grow a variety of foods on, and in, their bodies (see Discovering Scarfolk p. 120-123).

Taking sausage DNA, Hushson created the 'sausage orphan', which genetically substituted a child's face - something Hushson had long considered redundant - with a sausage or luncheon meat.

By the end of the 1970s, sausage orphans or 'kids in blankets' had become a traditional part of a Scarfolk Christmas lunch. Orders were taken weeks in advance and in the days leading up to the festivities, frightened sausage orphans would huddle together in meat curing/smoking rooms to await their fate.

See also: Scarbrand pie filling; minor meat cuts; Mr Liver Head; recycling surgical waste; the Eating Children book.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year from all the staff at Scarfolk Council!

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.

Albion Estate Sign (1970)

Albion Estate was built in 1970. It was described as "strong and stable public housing that proudly secures our future and makes Britain the envy of the world."

It was demolished in 1972.

The sign above, and the section of outdoor lavatory wall it sits on, is all that remains of Albion Estate.

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.

Commando Comic (1975)

The Ritual & Decorative Arson Newsletter (1972)

The Ritual & Decorative Arson Newsletter was published between 1970 and 1976. Its editor was Trevor Vestige who also managed the petrol station where Joe and Oliver Bush disappeared in 1970 (see Discovering Scarfolk for more details).

This copy was banned by the council after marauding children wearing ceremonial masks torched and laid waste to half of Scarfolk on Halloween, 1972. Despite the ban, the council torched the other half of the town the following spring because it "looked uneven".

Because the public information office had burned down citizens weren't warned and many perished in the flames. Grieving family members, however, were compensated with splendid, top-of-the-range trowel and funerary urn sets.

Happy Halloween from everyone at Scarfolk Council.

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.

Little Head (from Clay Stool)

Clay Stool was a daytime children's TV programme which we introduced a while back (you can listen to the theme tune here).

Many readers will remember the programme's cast of toys (see above), some of which became stars in their own right: Big Ted, Hamble, Humpty and Jemima.

Many, however, have forgotten 'Little Head', who only became a regular due to a typo on the programme's props list, which was supposed to have requested 'Little Ted'. Production staff were still frantically looking for an appropriately-sized head literally minutes before the programme went out live. A quick-thinking studio manager (who some believe was telekinetically controlled by Hamble) ended the panic by decapitating one of the cameramen, who had been scheduled for ritual recycling anyway.

Producers hoped that children wouldn't notice that Little Ted had replaced Little Head in the following week's episode, but they did. Thousands wrote in demanding that Little Head be reinstated.

Little Head eventually received his own line of merchandising (including a very popular biscuit barrel). He went on to host a Saturday evening primetime show, which involved an electric current being passed through his cranium and him yelping out the names and addresses of people who, in his opinion, did not deserve welfare payments.

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.

Laissez–faire Childcare (1978)

In 1978, Scarfolk Health Council launched a campaign which exploited people's fear of children (especially those with uncontrolled supernatural powers), to normalise the idea of letting kids do whatever they want without censure.

It was no accident that the infants in the campaign's various posters were depicted smoking, drinking and licking chocolate-covered asbestos.

A 1979 magazine interview revealed that the campaign had been privately funded by Mrs Bottomlip, a pensioner who worked in the local cancer charity shop on Scarfolk High Street. Her reasons were largely personal. Apart from the fact that she enjoyed her part-time job and "wouldn't ever want it to end because one meets such lovely people and it gets me out of the house", her son worked for a cancer research institute. Mrs Bottomlip was concerned that he, along with a whole generation of scientists and support staff, could find themselves out of work unless the number of people developing cancer was maintained, or preferably raised.

For her support of cancer research, the institute presented her with an award, which, unbeknownst to science at the time, was made from highly carcinogenic materials.