Phantom crapper
I’ve only just read ‘Brown Study in Brighton’ [ FT402:17], covering the activities of a phantom crapper. This reminded me of a similar but more protracted series of incidents, which occurred at my school in Bolton, Lancashire, the last term before I completed my A levels, 47 years ago.
Someone, generally assumed to be one of my disgruntled contemporaries about to leave school, took it upon themselves to relieve themselves in a variety of places other than the school lavatories. Pupils’ desks, (usually full of text and exercise books), pupils’ briefcases and satchels, left behind in classrooms overnight, and also sports bags replete with cricket or gym kit, were targeted many times over a period of three or four weeks. In the more innocent age of the 1970s, schoolrooms were generally left unlocked overnight, so the perpetrator had wide-ranging access.
The incidents were kept under wraps and no announcements were made in assemblies. However, school prefects such as myself were informed discreetly by the headmaster in our weekly briefings, presumably in the hope of one of us catching someone – literally – with their pants down. The final reported incident occurred during the last week of term when a huge deposit was discovered by the school sergeant in the store next to his office – left in a large pallet-sized cardboard carton of toilet rolls. All very amusing and snigger-worthy stuff – even to us tight-lipped and shock-feigning prefects.
The end of term arrived, and my tenure as prefect ended, and from what I could glean later, so did the phantom crapping. However, it didn’t stop my contemporaries speculating on who the culprit might be.
Focus fell on one of our year – a real trickster – who had been involved in an escalating series of incidents similar but different throughout the sixth form. Despite starting a university degree, his career spiralled out of control, culminating in a series of prison sentences. We had heard, and were all under the impression, that he had subsequently died.
Prior to and over lockdown, I have been re-united with some of my school contemporaries for a weekly zoom meeting, regular email exchanges and the occasional face-to-face rendezvous. During this past week [late July 2021], having read the article ‘Brown Study in Brighton’, I intended, but forgot, to mention the incidents and ask for reflections – a typical format for some of our discussions (despite the passage of nearly half a century). As I was composing an email to this group of friends reminding them of the incident and asking for comment, one of the group emailed me to say that completely out of the blue he’d just been contacted by our old trickster friend – the suspect individual in question. Not only was he alive and kicking, but had now been out of prison for the past three months.
Given the oddball nature of the subject, the fact this individual was the widely acknowledged prime suspect, and the almost instantaneous time frame of recalling the incident, and reaction from the alleged key player, I thought it worthy of recording in the great annals of forteana.
Dave Berry
Sheffield, South Yorkshire