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.

The Annual Maypylon Dance

Only children whose parents had lost either their jobs or their lives were selected to take part in the annual Scarfolk Maypylon Dance. On the face of it, the tradition welcomed in Spring, but it was really just an exercise in cutting unnecessary welfare expenditure. Funds were rerouted to more important undertakings such as supporting the arms industry, which sold weapons to volatile nations that regularly threatened Britain with war.

Super-conductive copper ribbons were used during the dance because it was believed that their combination with 400,000 volts and expendable children opened a vortex to an alternate dimension where household items were always on sale and could be purchased for a fraction of the price. Items that were brought back through the vortex, however, risked corruption by dark forces, as witnessed on May 1st 1971 when Scarfolk was overrun by a vast horde of malevolent, sentient food blenders.

For more May Day celebrations, see the Scarfolk Wicker Man.

Play & Learn Drowning Game (late 1970s)

This is part 2 of our feature on water-based toys (see last week's Action Man waterboarding accessories).

In the late 1970s, the government predicted that by the time the decade's children were grown up, suicides would be commonplace, perhaps even fashionable. This would be due to the "inevitable effects of living in a declining society in which the government has abandoned the welfare of its citizens in favour of fun hobbies it finds less boring", but mostly because "it will make suicide a compulsory part of national cutbacks".

The minister for welfare proposed that "suicide clubs" be established (they even launched a slogan: "Let's all say Felo-de-se!"), and that suicide methods be taught in schools and job centres by alternative-career advisors.

The government also funded several toy manufacturers who created products which cast suicide in a positive light. One such toy was the Play & Learn Drowning Game, which was also adapted into a console game in 1978.

Minor Meat Cuts Poster (1973)

An excerpt from a 1973 speech by Scarfolk's Minister for Family Welfare and Catering:

"In times of economic crisis, cuts are inevitable. We feel, however, that the citizens of Scarfolk should be directly involved in the process of how these cuts are implemented and that is why every household will soon receive a booklet describing all the cuts we currently recommend..."

Two weeks after the speech, thousands of poor families received Charcuterie for Beginners, which contained several pull-out posters, one of which is presented above.

More food-related austerity solutions from 1973 see HERE and HERE.

"Mr Liver Head" Toy (mid-1970s)

As part of its scheme to recycle human body parts (first outlined in "An End to Starvation?", Pelican Books, 1973), Scarfolk Council insisted that the region's NHS hospitals and police departments bolster their dwindling funds by partnering with commercial businesses. One such enforced collaboration was between Scarfolk Barber Surgeons Clinic, Greater Scarfolk Police and the ScarToys Company.

Surgical waste, such as amputated limbs, damaged internal organs and even excised tumours, was pooled with body parts accumulated by criminal forensics teams from the scenes of violent crimes. These were delivered in large trucks to ScarToys, whose development departments repurposed them into children's playthings with names like Snakes & Bladders, Fun Lung, My Little Kidney, Haunted Heart and the Placenta Playcentre. There were even crayons made from rendered human fat as well as authentic editions of the Operation Game and Girl's World.

But by far the most popular toy was Mr Liver Head, which was based on Mr Potato Head (see above and below). It quickly became so popular that a military curfew had to be imposed on overzealous young fans who would go to any lengths to acquire fresher, more impressive body parts to become the envy of their friends.

More posts about Scarfolk toys: "Pollute", "Mr Smug", "Land Mine", "Surgical Toy Insertions", "Lung Puppy", "Deformed Anonymous Infant Demon", "Ethnic Cleansing Playset", "Vulnerable Sam", "Junior Will & Testament".

"Trampvertising" (1973-1979)

 

 In 1973 the council ratified a bylaw which legalised the exploitation of all homeless people as advertising spaces. It became known as 'Trampvertising'. At first, only small, local businesses took advantage of the new law but large corporations soon started bulk buying advertising space, which drove up prices.

These big companies also insisted on the option of permanent tattoo advertising because their homeless human billboards frequently lost, ate or soiled the paper-based marketing materials.

By 1975 Scarfolk Council could no longer meet the demands of national and multinational businesses and began losing clients to neighbouring towns. To stay competitive, the council had no choice but to generate new advertising space.

It did this by targeting poor families and individuals at risk, ensuring that they lost their homes and livelihoods through a series of punitive taxes and fines. These included the exorbitant Gormless Tax and the Unemployment Tax, which charged jobless citizens 37% of the wage they would have earned had they become a barrister and not been barred from attending a good school.

Children's Vermin Extermination Clubs

By 1973, poverty was widespread in the UK and 80% of Scarfolk residents relied on soup kitchens. At first, the council alleviated the problem by exploiting an existing urban food source, but once the supply of homeless people was exhausted, a more sustainable food solution had to be found.

Scarfolk Vermin Extermination Club (see leaflet above), which was launched in 1974, encouraged children to scavenge through cellars, rubbish tips and industrial wasteland and eat the pests they caught. Initially, youngsters cooked their prey, but parents complained that expecting children to use matches without supervision was irresponsible and dangerous. Thereafter, rats, pigeons, mice, and even foxes (which became collectively known as 'ghetto tartare') were consumed in their raw state.

Unsurprisingly, pest control clubs became popular throughout the country and gained thousands of new eager members. The most requested Christmas gifts of 1974 were steel-reenforced jaw braces and hunting dentures which were required if children wanted to adequately render sinew, skin and bone. Which they did in vast numbers: The many tonnes of discarded bones were used to partially reconstruct the House of Commons which had been damaged by hungry children in search of the vermin rumoured to be teeming within its walls. 

British Gas Austerity Advert (1978-1979)

In 1978 the government faced budgetary problems on all fronts. The NHS, for example, risked collapse following an all-out doctors' strike, which had been triggered by the health secretary's insistence that doctors continue to work after they die and attend to patients via séance.

Desperate to reduce the numbers of patients straining NHS resources, the health secretary eventually struck upon an idea that would allow him to kill at least two birds with one stone.

British Gas was in the process of being privatised and the health secretary had a controlling financial interest in the company that was being groomed to acquire ownership. The health secretary lobbied for a short-term reduction in the cost of coal gas, particularly in areas of high unemployment, and promoted it as an aid to health akin to mountain or sea air.

He also had a hand in secretly funding a BBC "Play for Today" drama called "Noble Gas for Noble Gary" which extolled the virtues of a sick, working-class man who, along with several out-of-work comrades, commits suicide by putting his head in an unlit gas oven so as not to burden society. The men were portrayed as heroes to be emulated.

The health secretary's ideas became conflated in the public mind and by 1979 suicide by gas became an unlikely health fad spawning an array of books, cassettes and evening classes, all of which were produced by a company in which the healthy secretary also had shares.

Poverty & 1970s Pelican Books

Poor, uneducated people have always been obstinate in their selfish desire to ruin the contentment of those from more important social classes.

Below are several Pelican books from the 1970s which deal with the decade's poverty, austerity and the blight of these self-centered people who relish being destitute.

For example, The Poor and Other Invertebrates, published in 1974, made the following claims about the nation's impoverished:

"[They] reproduce prolifically in 3 months rather than the conventional 9 months of properly evolved humans".

"They intentionally contract diseases by manufacturing their own bacteria at home, which they smear onto their cheap linoleum floors  [...] then roll around in it".

"They burgle respectable citizen's homes, then play Bingo".

In 1976, Scarfolk council dealt with the needy by taking away their autonomy and making them property of the state. Thousands of people below the breadline were requisitioned to be used as civic equipment such as street bollards and even sandbags in the case of flooding or terrorist bombings.

"Inhale for Britain" (1974)

In the 1970s a government think-tank headed by Scarfolk councillor E. Bernays predicted that 21st century Britain might see a much-increased elderly population. Already faced with a recession, the government decided on a two-pronged solution that would not only reduce the numbers of future senior citizens but also boost the economy.

It strongly encouraged people, especially children, to smoke and then, once addiction had become more widespread, the tax on cigarettes was raised. The short-term plan was to bolster the economy with the tobacco levy and, in the long term, drastically reduce the number of people reaching pensionable age by ensuring they develop fatal, smoking-related illnesses.

To further secure economic stability the government also began slowly dismantling the NHS (Notional Health Service) so that it could not be made financially accountable for any pensioners who accidentally slipped through the net and stubbornly endured.

The poster below from 1974, which was aimed at impoverished children, took advantage of the national pride and sense of 'Britishness' which had been fabricated by an earlier government propaganda campaign intended to control the uneducated.

Find out how this campaign developed with confectionery branded cigarettes.

"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.