The Silver Jubilee Ghost (1977)

During the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 a ghostly figure was spotted by alarmed viewers in a BBC broadcast. The spectre appeared to be sitting beside the Queen in her carriage. The apparition's identity remains unknown, though some claim it is Scarfolk resident Herbert Empire. 

Empire, a proud slaughterhouse owner and staunch monarchist, died after trying to tattoo a likeness of the royal family on his own brain using the pin on the back of a royal souvenir badge that depicted the young Prince Andrew meticulously checking the gender of a Corgi with his nose. A post mortem also revealed that Empire had swallowed substantial quantities of red, white and blue paint, later found to contain toxins, to ensure that everything he discharged was patriotic. 

The Queen was encouraged to publicly acknowledge Empire's loyal actions on his birthday, which annoyed her because it would mean missing her favourite radio programme called I Know God Doesn't Exist But I'm Not Saying Anything Because the Peasants Still Think Royals Are Divinely Chosen.

An example of the souvenir badge used by Herbert Empire.

The Children's Guide To Séances & Cuddly Demons (Scarfolk Books, 1973)

 "Are you amongst us, spirit? Wake up, be bright, be golden and light. Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing..."

From page 37 of the Children's Guide To Séances & Cuddly Demons (Scarfolk Books, 1973). The book encouraged children to contact the apparitions of children's deceased television stars. It was banned briefly, however, in 1975 when Noddy and Big Ears, deranged by their time in the spirit world, broke through to the earthly realm and wreaked havoc in a branch of Marks & Spencer, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. Additionally, a priest had to be called to perform an exorcism over the shop's entire stock of varicose vein support tights.

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.

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.

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. 

"Wardrobe Men"

In 1973 there was an increase in complaints about odd, mumbling men appearing spontaneously in people's wardrobes. The council allocated funds to have them removed, but their efforts were in vain. No sooner had they expelled a 'wardrobe man' than another would appear in his place. Inexplicably, the men somehow found their way into residents' wardrobes regardless of how well doors and windows had been secured.

When the council realised that the wardrobe men's whispered mumbles were detailed (albeit slowed down, backward) accounts of what they saw and heard from their closeted vantage points, it quickly registered the mysterious men as state employees. Once a week, local council workers recorded the wardrobe men's accounts onto wax reels, processed the audio in vast laboratories and prosecuted residents who contravened any of the local laws, which changed almost daily.

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.

Election Campaign Poster (1974)

Gerry Mander (see above) was the Scarfolk Party candidate in the 1974 election. Though much of his nationalistic campaign consisted of subliminal brainwashing techniques, complicated satanic invocations, and simply lying and punching liberals in the face, he did also proffer tangible promises.

For example, he wanted Britain to be the first western nation to construct an underground sewage system designed specifically to transport its disabled and sick to landfill sites. He also insisted that women finally be recognised as the most valuable resource in their husband's or father's livestock.

Most of all, he strongly promoted British exports such as conker wine and badger cheese and demanded that the UK be acknowledged as the clear trade leader out of all the world’s authoritarian third world nations.

The Horned Deceiver

The Horned Deceiver appeared in several Scarfolk publications in the early 1970s, one of which we featured a few weeks ago (see here).

As followers of the traditional state religion dwindled, a gap opened in the faith market. The Horned Deceiver exploited this by targeting the lower middle-class, under-12 demographic, relying initially on playground word-of-mouth. By 1973 he had become so popular that he produced a successful range of merchandising including lunchboxes, bed sheets and wallpaper, plush dolls and black candles made from human tallow. He was a regular guest on local radio and on television where he appeared on celebrity panel quiz shows such as Celebrity Squares and Blankety Blank (see below).

Though well-liked, he eventually lost the pagan market to Mr Johnson of the Officist cult (see Discovering Scarfolk for more details) who had the enthusiastic backing of local politicians and business magnates whose families had been kidnapped and threatended by the cult.

The Horned Deceiver on Blankety Blank, BBC 1, 1979.

Charlie Barn

Charlie Barn was a paranormal, spider-like entity discovered in the vast, labyrinthine bunker beneath the Scarfolk council office building. He employed mind-control techniques to trick people into making him famous and was a regular guest on British TV throughout the 1970s. He appeared in children's programmes such as Blue Peter and as a cartoon character in Paddington (see below). He also hosted his own show, Barn's Owls, which saw him hunt, disembowel and eat large owls (later revealed to be orphans dressed as owls) in front of a live studio audience.

In 1973 he set up various fake charities which gave him access to schools and hospitals where he would illicitly lay eggs in the heads of children in a bid to populate the world with his unnatural progeny. How he got away with his sickening actions for so many years beggars belief.

He probably avoided detection by hiding in plain sight: he appeared in a series of public information films and published books which warned the public about the dangers of arachnoid demons such as him.

Since 1979, all forms of evil spirits have been banned from consuming minors on public property and/or for the entertainment of a paying audience.

Spider legs by sankax

The BBC Test Card Witch

(click to enlarge)

Many people recognise BBC television's test card "F". However, when it was broadcast in Scarfolk an old woman would inexplicably appear in place of the young girl as soon as parents left the room.

According to legend, if she turns to look you in the eye, you are fated to die beneath an overloaded lorry which will topple over, crushing you with its consignment of industrial safety equipment (Find out if you are cursed HERE).

Children called the woman Old Chattox and she was believed to be a 17th century witch whose spirit had been unintentionally revived and broadcast by a hilltop TV transmitting station built on the site of her execution. She frequently flouted broadcast guidelines and undermined the BBC's attempts to avoid product placement by advertising the services of a bull castrator who had been dead for nearly 400 hundred years.

Below: Photographs of Old Chattox taken by viewers between 1970 and 1978. Old Chattox wrote out demands on her blackboard, which children felt compelled to obey (top). She also drew occult or satanic symbols designed to mesmerise and indoctrinate young viewers. Some of her messages were seemingly nonsensical, though many people believed they were cryptic descriptions of future events (bottom).

Further reading:
i. Learn about Bubbles the clown and his range of possessed greetings cards.
ii. For more information about TV broadcast signal intrusions, see the 1975 We Watch You While You Sleep video.

"Infant Catcherbots" Public Information Poster (1975)

After last week's post about the Bladder Clown surgical toy we thought it seasonally appropriate to show you another artefact filed in our Automaclown Archive B.  

Parents in the 1970s were required to submit their children to civic trials, the details of which are not fully clear to us now. We do know, however, that the few children who survived them developed debilitating paranormal powers such as retrospective-clairvoyance - the ability to see the future of people who lived in the past.

Perhaps understandably, many children went unregistered for "The Trials" and the council was forced to track them down by ever devious means. By 1975 the council had developed Catcherbots which, in various guises, lured and apprehended unregistered children. In addition to the Clown Catcherbot (see the council's Halloween poster campaign above) there were also the Jesus, 'lovely Nana', pony-demon and Noel Edmonds Catcherbot models.

Once an offending child had been identified, Catcherbots sucked them up through their 'catcherholes'. Early quantum technology made it possible for dozens of children to be imprisoned inside the Catcherbots in a space no larger than a shoe box. At least, that was the theory: many of the children were never seen again. The same technology was later used in recycling machines that crush and process plastic bottles.

Happy Halloween/Samhain! Do you know where YOUR child is tonight?

Possessed Birthday Cards (1978)

Bubbles, the clown who appeared in the BBC TV testcard, was very popular in the 1970s. He even had his own animated public information series and range of merchandising including toys, T-shirts, mugs, greetings cards and surgical instruments.

However, in 1978, parents became alarmed when they discovered that many of the products were possessed by the spirit of an embittered ex-TV presenter, Simon Gomorrah, who had hosted a daytime programme called 'Housewife versus Anaconda!', before it was suddenly cancelled without warning. It wasn't until several months after Gomorrah's suicide that Bubbles merchandising began displaying supernatural activity.

For example, the Bubbles birthday greetings card, as pictured above, appeared to be perfectly normal when it was sold in the shops. But, once it had been given to a child, Bubbles would transform during the night into a demonic, vulgar entity that shouted out vulgar profanities and urinated at anyone who came within shot.

Gomorrah's body was eventually exhumed and his feet were fitted with oversized, concrete-filled clown shoes so that his spirit could no longer wander the earthly plane.

"Natal Truancy" Leaflet (1974)

A 1974 study by the NCC (Natal Crime Commission) in Scarfolk discovered that 2 out of 5 pregnant women were not turning up for the birth of their own child. 

Doctors rejected the hypothesis that backstreet, occult practitioners might be responsible, but failed to solve how babies were bypassing the traditional medium of a biological mother and delivering themselves into the world.

When some of the absentee mothers were tracked down they couldn't account for their lack of attendance, though eye-witnesses placed the women in various locations at the time that they should have been giving birth: at cocktail parties, playing Bingo, watching the radio, reading grimoires in the coven library and communing naked with a black-pelted half-man, half-goat in supermarket car parks.

Children born as a result of maternal misdemeanours tended not to get along with other children, particularly because they levitated uncontrollably. Many schools were forced to enclose their grounds inside large nets or perspex domes to catch the drifting minors.

"Sense a Presence?" Public Information (1970)

In 1970 a council public information campaign warned citizens that they should be afraid, though it didn't clarify exactly what it was they were supposed to be afraid of. Inevitably, this lead to widespread panic. Police, council and coven telephone helplines were inundated with calls by distressed citizens of Scarfolk who had been previously unaware of the danger they were in.

In an attempt to define what the campaign's 'presence' might refer to, the Daily Ail newspaper printed what it believed everyone should fear. What began as a ten-point list quickly grew into a publication as thick as a telephone directory and included: Foreigners; magic gypsies; diseases with a foreign origin or name, e.g, Asian Squid Flu; asylum-seeking succubi and other demons that haunt Britain without the appropriate paperwork; 'other foreigners' not included in the first mention of foreigners; and the threat of rabies from migrating continental bats which refuse to make any attempt to learn the English language.

By the mid-70s Scarfolk was in a frenzy and adults and children alike were accusing all and sundry of being invisible, malevolent presences. Eventually, to allay the fear of its citizens, the council allocated a handful of social workers to each household. Every evening, these workers (actually, mentally-ill criminals sentenced to community service) would conceal themselves beneath beds, in wardrobes, in cellars and attics to ensure that sinister entities had no place to lurk.

"Watch Out! There's a Politician About" Election Week Posters (1975)

The general election will soon be upon us so we thought we'd upload a new poster every day during the week's run up.

All the posters are from the 1970s 'Watch Out! There's a Politician About' campaign.

Just before the Scarfolk election of 1975 the ruling party was keen to permanently eradicate all political opposition and set out to smear what it called a 'hazardous surplus of politicians and others suffering from civic delusional disorders'. The incumbent's aim was to bring about a state of emergency that would permit a legal postponement of the election, a postponement that could, in theory, become indefinite.

The smear campaigns knew no bounds as one politician after another was exposed for corruption, sexual and moral improprieties, and poor table manners. The media was awash with reports that many election candidates were telepathically controlled by immigrants, who, it was alleged, were all born of the same non-human mother and functioned as a hive mind.

As the campaign gathered pace, there were even 'false flag' acts of terror. For example, when a bomb destroyed the headquarters of the National Health Service in May 1975, it was blamed on exploding lice carried by the children of liberal and intellectual parents, and in the same month a plot was uncovered to shackle the UK to mainland Europe with billions of tonnes of string below the waves of the English channel.

Use your vote wisely. Alternatively, vote for one of the parties currently on offer.

"The Anti-Weeping Campaign" Magazine Advertisement (1977)

This advertisement appeared in children's magazines in the 1970s following studies into child behaviour. Researchers found that children were essentially miniature sociopaths and the only reason they didn't run amok on murderous rampages was because they couldn't reach the knife drawer in the kitchen.

Unable to kill en masse, they instead demanded attention by intentionally causing accidents and feigning injury or distress: knocking over boiling pans, slipping in dog excrement, leaping out of police helicopters.

In addition to being irksome, infant tears were deemed to be nothing short of psychological weapons. Parents were warned to arm themselves against the emotional assaults of their offspring, particularly because, if left unchecked, their child might eventually develop dark supernatural powers.

Indeed, for many years people believed that infant sobs contained potentially lethal occult messages. For example, the often-heard whine "Please help me, I'm trapped under the front wheels of this bus", when played backwards sounds like "The Moomins will come; they will fuck you up."

Pedestrian 'Bastard Lanes' (1970s)

'Bastard Lanes', as they came to be known, were devised for unwed mothers and their unclean offspring. The narrow pedestrian footpaths were identifiable by their double black lines and electrified fences which ran in the gutters of most town streets.

In these two posters, nearly a decade apart, we can see how social policy evolved in Scarfolk. In 1970, the local church authority proposed the lanes as part of its 'campaign for moral decency', but the council banned the campaign, claiming that the church's principles were 'in contravention not only of human rights, but also the rights of foreigners'.

However, it became apparent that the council had only condemned the church as part of a strategy to coax citizens away from traditional religion and toward the state-funded, shadowy cult of Officism (see Discovering Scarfolk).
As the later poster from 1979 shows, despite the council's declared opposition to the church's ethics, the unwed mother lanes were still very much in operation and the alleged injustices of the original religious campaign had simply been rerendered in secular terms.

By the late-1970s, 'Bastard Lanes' had become sites of intense paranormal activity. They were littered with ectoplasm and all over town malevolent pagan spirits wreaked havoc as they brazenly flouted the Green Cross Code.

"Where's your child?" Public Information (1974)

Scarfolk's Junior Detonation Task Force was noted for its over-enthusiasm in regard to unattended children. It was known to test a parent's attention by luring them away from their child, beyond the legal 4 metre supervision zone, with the offer of weekend caravanning holidays, expensive kitchenware and ice-creams.

The sound of controlled explosions became commonplace in airports, bus stations, libraries, supermarkets and public playgrounds.

However, parents could not be held responsible when their children were at school or any other of the town's many infant indoctrination covens. Scarfolk education authority, keen to avoid staff culpability, redefined concepts of supervision and attendance by making the child responsible for its own proximity to its teacher.

For example, the education board decreed that a member of staff could not be held accountable if a child daydreamed. Apart from the fact that daydreaming was technically deemed to be truancy, it took a child well beyond the supervision zone, psychologically speaking, and staff could not be expected to go into a trance every time a child needed to be retrieved from its reverie. This form of mental agility was particularly taxing for gym teachers. Yet children found it hard not to daydream, largely due to the plethora of medication they were expected to imbibe daily.

Children all over Scarfolk eventually became disgruntled about the frequent detonations which continually disrupted classes, and they trained a group of pre-school mediums to wander the psychic plane alerting absent-minded children before they were spotted by the Junior Detonation Task Force.

'Deformed Anonymous Infant Demon' model kit (1977)

In the 1970s there was a plethora of plastic model kits for children to construct and paint: ships, planes, space rockets, as well as favourite characters from children's stories such as Peter Pan, Humpty Dumpty and Idi Amin.


The most desired model kits were those based on popular childrens' television programmes, one of which was a show called Deformed Anonymous Infant Demon, or DAID for short.

DAID was a crime-fighting eight year old with a difference. He had 4 arms and one leg because his psychic mother had smoked and drank during trances while she was pregnant. For some reason, this also made DAID a demon.

Because he wore a roller skate on his only foot, he found it very difficult to propel himself forward without assistance; however, he did have a special power: Devil Jam, which he smeared over his foes. The sticky, supernatural substance also afforded him the ability to communicate with the ghosts of consumed plums, which reluctantly acted as informers during his investigations.

DAID was also accompanied by a sidekick: the reincarnation of his dead sister who, due to a radioactive occult mishap, had come back as a pork chop. She went by the name Sibling Chop, though her real name was Julie. Together they solved crimes and offered culinary advice to the under 10s.

Deformed Anonymous Infant Demon ran for two series between 1977-78.