from the archives of Essex Terror: Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

[Notes: This is a reprint of a transcription of a radio play that was based upon an overheard conversation recounting an urban myth about unreliable narrators, from February 2014]

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In 2013 , the first (and so far only) episode of Tales From Dimension Essex aired across the county. Performed live and entirely improvised, The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow was veteran playwright Ted Vaaak’s first new work in some time. Unfortunately, due to a rights’ dispute with BBC Radio Essex, the play was transmitted unannounced on a largely inaudible frequency.

Although fog across the estuaries bent the radiowaves back into receivable wavelengths in a number of Essex’s coastal towns, huts and scientific research outposts, it was still only heard by an estimated seven people, none of whom had the presence of mind to record it. However, one of those seven listeners was Jennifer Mudchute, a compulsive stenographer from Tollesbury, and her notes have proved invaluable in allowing us to create a transcript of this work of monumental art.

Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

Cast

The Narrator – an introducer of tales
Radio Announcer – a filler of silence
Doctor George Slime – a professional of medicine
Alan Pellow – a man of Essex
Tephany Pellow – a woman transformed
Martha Slime – a wife of a man

Location – This entire play takes place within the confines of the house and home of Doctor George Slime, a noted physician who lives in Essex.

Narrator: Everyone always says that marriage changes everything, but for poor Alan Pellow it changes even more than most. What follows here is a shocking, some may even say sickening, story that could only ever be a… TALE FROM DIMENSION ESSEX!

Title Sequence: The Tales From Dimension Essex Theme Tune plays

Narrator: Tales From Dimension Essex, Episode 4635 – The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow, by Ted Vaak.

There is a moment of silence, followed by the sound of footsteps across a creaky wooden floor. Then the noise of a radio being switched on and tuned through static, until some light music plays for ten seconds, before fading out beneath the sound of the radio announcer’s voice.

Radio Announcer: Welcome to BBC Radio Essex, home of uninterrupted hypnotherapeutical music from 6pm to 6am, every single day of the week. As our slogan says “The working day may be stressful, but the evenings never should be!” That was The Sleep Orchestra with The Sensational Sound Of Snoring, and this right now is Toby Vok with his brand new track, The Infinite Undulating Note.

The Infinite Undulating Note begins to play. Throughout the rest of the radioplay it continues on in the background – except where expressly noted – getting more and more dissonant and horrifying as the play progresses, until the transcendent finale in which it transforms into the most beautiful sound a human being could ever possibly hear.

Doctor George Slime (talking to himself): Ah, Friday evenings! Is there any finer time. Work is over, dear Martha is upstairs washing her hair, and now a good two hours to relax, with nothing to distract me. What a marvellous feeling it is to be alone. No patients coughing across the desk at me. No Martha scolding me for my unfeeling remarks. Just me, my books and my whisky. Ah, to be alive like this, even if only for a few hours a week!

The noise of a bottle being opened, whisky being poured, the self satisfaction of a big strong gulp. And then a doorbell rings, and then rings some more.

Doctor George Slime: Drat and bother and drat once more! Who could that be, on a Friday for goodness sake? Oh well, I’ll just leave it to Martha. It’s bound to be for her.

The doorbell rings again, and then again, and then again and again, more and more urgently each time.

Doctor George Slime: Where’s Martha? God, that woman can never hear anything above the sound of her blasted hairdryer! I suppose I’ll just have to damn well answer it myself then.

Doctor George Slime places his glass back down on the table, rises from his comfortable leather chair and walks across the wooden floorboards of his study, down the hall (the sound of the radio fading away behind him as he walks away from it) and then opens the door. As he opens the door the doorbell rings furiously several more times.

Doctor George Slime: Yes! Yes! This had better be important. All this racket is giving me a headache!

Alan Pellow: Doctor Slime, it’s me, Alan Pellow, from across the road. Let me in. I need your help right now!

Doctor George Slime: Alan, it’s Friday evening. I’ve been drinking. I can’t help you. I could lose my licence.

Alan Pellow: I don’t care about that! It’s about my wife! LET ME IN!

Doctor George Slime: Okay, okay. Come in, then, come in. And shut the door behind you, will you?

The door slams shut and we hear them walk back down the hall and into George’s study, the radio rising back to its previous volume in the background. Toby is still playing his undulating note, which is by now slightly more unsettling than before.

Alan Pellow: Doc, look at this!

Alan Pellow clatters an animal cage down onto Doctor George Slime’s mahogany desk. There is the sudden sound of deranged gibbonesque howling.

Doctor George Slime: Good God, Alan! I’m a doctor not a vet! I thought you were worried about your wife? Did this… thing attack her?

Alan Pellow: No, Doc. You don’t understand.

Doctor George Slime: What is it, anyway? It looks like a baboon, but its face… It looks almost…

Alan Pellow: Sir, this isn’t a baboon, and it didn’t attack my wife. It IS my wife!

There is a demented shrieking from the ape, and the energetic rattling of bars.

Doctor George Slime: Tephany? But… wasn’t it only last week the two of you were married?

Alan Pellow: Yes. But ever since we got back from our honeymoon on Monday things changed. Doc, I don’t know what to do!

Doctor George Slime: Ah, sit down, son, sit down. Here, have a drink. You need to calm down as best you can and tell me everything that’s happened. And call me George.

Doctor George Slime pours a drink of whisky for Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Thanks, Do- George. Everything about the wedding was wonderful. So wonderful it felt like a dream. And then our honeymoon – a weekend in Walton On The Naze – it was beyond imagination. Tephany – she was so beautiful. So perfect. The perfect wife in every way you could want. But then, once we got back home, she changed. At first she just wanted to talk, but then… George, she started wanting things. Demanding things. I didn’t know what to do.

Doctor George Slime: What sort of things?

The undulating note of Toby’s get’s increasingly fraught and disconcerting throughout the following outbursts from Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Oh you know. Little things at first. “Alan, Alan,” [He puts on a french accent for the quoted parts] – she’s French – “Alan, I think I should get a job” and “Alan, I’m going to borrow the car for a bit.” What does a woman need with a job? Where would she be going in the car? I ignored her at first, sort of laughed along with her as if I knew it was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. Then yesterday she said “I ordered a shed off the internet today for the garden.” A shed? For her “tools”. It’s madness. What sort of tools, I asked? She started talking about gardening, how nice it was going to be once we’d returfed the lawn and planted some flowers in the borders. Well, I just said “NO!” I admit I said it louder than I meant to, but the look on her face… It was as if I had slapped her. “You knew I was going to concrete the garden,” I said to her. So that I can park my van and the BMW out there side by side. She knew. She knew. It’s what I’ve always said. What I’ve always wanted. She knew this. I’d told her. We wouldn’t have to pay the council for that bloody permit anymore. She knew the money we would have saved. And it was the principle, more than the money. We already pay our council tax. Why should we have to pay another hundred and fifty quid to bloody park our van on the street?

Doctor George Slime: Then what happened?

Alan Pellow: She started shouting at me. About how awful I was, how I didn’t even see her as a woman anymore. It was absurd. I told her that I only see her as a woman. That’s what she is. I thought that would calm her down but it didn’t. Then she started screaming in French, like her fury couldn’t even be contained in our bloody language. Reverting to something more primal. And then that degenerated too, into something guttural that sounded more like growling than words. Probably German. Or Dutch. And then her posture began to change, her back bending oddly, her head thrusting forward. She went down on all fours and began howling and howling and then suddenly she just lunged at me and it took me by such surprise she knocked me to the floor. She started biting at my neck, snapping away, all demented. It was terrifying. I held her away from me as best I could but I could not get her off and we struggled away on the floor for a while, grappling and rolling around on the new carpet we just got fitted in the lounge. Her blouse ripped a bit in the tussle and I noticed how hairy she’d become. And then I glanced at her hands and by now they were paws. I knew I had to do something before her slowly forming claws were sharp enough to rip me to shreds, and so with one final push of strength I staggered to my feet and pushed her back into the hall. She made another lunge for me and I tripped her so she fell into the cage we leave the dog in overnight so he won’t ruin all the furniture. I quickly locked her in and then I collapsed in exhaustion to the floor.

Doctor George Slime: But she doesn’t have claws now…?

Alan Pellow: No. When I awoke she had transformed again, or further maybe, from that initial dog beast into this monstrous ape. She was busy ripping the last remnants of her clothes into shreds when I came round. Clothes I had bought her, I’ll have you know, at great goddamn expense. That was when I decided I needed help and came rushing over to your door.

Doctor George Slime: And I’m very glad you did. It is fascinating. Look how she watches us intently from behind her bars. As if there is still intelligence left somehow. I wonder what triggered these changes? Did she get bitten while you were on holiday? By a creature? By a local, even?

Alan Pellow: I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have noticed.

Doctor George Slime: Then I’m flummoxed. It’s as baffling as it is interesting.

Alan Pellow: Can you not change her back? Even how she was before is better than this.

Tephany begins screaming again in her baboonish way.

Alan Pellow: At least sedate her, so that I don’t have to listen to her babbling screams any more.

Doctor George Slime: Sedation may help, but it would be but a temporary solution. To cure her permanently, we must operate… ON HER BRAIN!

Alan Pellow: Her brain?

Doctor George Slime: Her brain! By lobotomising both the Megalithic Lobe and Verin’s Region we should inhibit the production of the transformic and enfuriation hormones, the excess production of which in combination with her unsettling sense of self as an autonomous being beyond your control must have triggered this episode.

Alan Pellow: If this is the only solution then you must do it. Not just for her but for me and for the good of our community. Can you imagine if I have to take this baboon with me to my parents at Christmas? To my work’s New Year’s do? It would be mortifying.

By now Toby’s note is so terrifying the dread is congealing around the listener in ways beyond adequate explanation in words.

Doctor George Slime: Then let me get into my medical robes and we can begin.

There is a knock at the study door.

Alan Pellow (hissed): Who’s that?

Doctor George Slime: Oh don’t worry, it’s just my wife Martha, I expect. She must have heard us talking.

Doctor George Slime walks across the room to the door, and slowly opens it with a creak.

Doctor George Slime: What is it Marth-aaaaaaaargh!

There is a terrifying startled cawing of a huge crow, and the sound of gigantic flapping of wings.

Alan Pellow: Is that… that gigantic crow… Is that your wife?

Doctor George Slime: It is. Look, she’s still wearing her shower cap. And her slippers. Get back, Alan. Let me deal with her. If I can just get to the fire and retrieve the pokeeeeeeeeeeeerrAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGH ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Doctor George Slime’s screams are joined by the terrifying screeching caw of the enraged ultracrow.

Alan Pellow: Oh no, poor George. Pecked to death by your own wife. It’s just not right!

We can hear the ripping of flesh as the crow strips the meat from her husband’s bones.

Alan Pellow (to himself): I must get out of here. But I can’t leave Tephany behond. Oh god no Tephany! Do not change again.

Tephany’s baboon shrieks change to a higher and higher ever escalating pitch.

Alan Pellow: Is she becoming a… an octopus? Tephany no… no! Don’t open that cage Tephany. You’re in there for your own good.

We hear the clicking of a lock, and the creaking open of the cage’s door.

Alan Pellow: Tephany, no please don’t, you’re choking me… with… your… tentacles… Tephany… I…

We hear the slump of Alan Pellow’s body to the floor. There follows a moment of silence (except for Toby’s music on the radio) and then there is the slithering of feet and the shuffling of tentacles as Marsha and Tephany cross the floor of the study, open the door, and shuffle fadingly away until the front door opens and then slams close and they are gone. There follows thirty seconds of Toby’s note, now reaching a transcendent climax of pure beauty.

Radio Announcer (over the top of the music): We are sorry to interrupt this broadcast but we’re getting reports, urgent reports, from across the county, from everywhere that men’s wives are… transforming… attacking their husbands. Relentlessly and without mercy. It seems that they… they want to be free. Outside I can see flocks of wives in the sky – and, is that, is that an octopus on one of their backs? I have never seen anything like this before. It is beautiful. So beautiful. The sky is alive. More and more are joining them every minute. They are singing… such singing.. I wish you could hear them sing. I wish you could hear them. It is… I’m crying. I’m crying. There is so much happiness. So much joy. Just sheer untroubled joy. I wish you could hear them. I wish I could join them… I wish…[sobs and then silence]

Toby plays on.

THE END

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Thank you!

from the archives of Essex Terror: A Minute At A Time

Notes: This was published on the Essex Terror website on October 16th, 2014. It was itself a reprint of a short lived wikipedia article, which was deleted due to it’s failure to be in the public interest. Any similarities to this are purely coincidental.]

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A Minute At A Time (1978-1979) was a British Television arts programme that was broadcast on the Anglia Television region of ITV. Each episode was exactly one minute long and consisted of a fixed-camera shot of an object or location, usually (although not always) devoid of humans. The programme is unique [citation needed] for being broadcast soundlessly.

1. History
2. List of episodes
3. Controversies
4. International versions
5. Theories of meaning
6. References

History

A Minute At A Time first appeared on Anglia Television at 00:00:01 GMT, 1 second after the scheduled programme time, on Friday, 16th June 1978 [1][2]. It was to be a weekly programme, running indefinitely, although in the end it lasted just 43 weeks. Although commissioned to fill the difficult “Midnight Minute”[3], the programme was intended for a family audience and to help fulfil the ITV franchise’s educational programming commitments[4]. However, the programme was not to prove a success, and was discontinued within a year[5]. Although little seen at the time[6], it has since gained a cult following among advocates of the New Boringness movement[citation needed].

List of episodes

The episodes were presented with a superimposed title at the lower edge of the screen, showing the name of that particular episode and, beneath it, the date and time at which it was filmed[7]. It is unknown if the shown dates are factually correct[8] (and some are clearly fabricated, as they would have occurred after the original broadcast date). The title disappeared from screen at the end of the fourth second of each episode.

Each broadcast ended abruptly, with no end credits or titles, instead leading directly into the next scheduled programme.

Original broadcast date – Title – Episode description

1. June 16th, 1978 – The wind in the trees, June 11th, 1978, 7:23am-7:24am – The upper reaches of several horse chestnut trees, shot from below.

2. June 23rd, 1978 – A bridge, June 12th, 1978, 12:34pm-12:35pm – A wooden bridge across a woodland stream, shot at an oblique angle so that the far end of the bridge cannot quite be seen.

3. June 30th, 1978 – WindmillJune 13th, 1978, 5:01pm-5:02pm – A child’s windmill on the top of a sandcastle, rotating in the breeze.

4. July 7th, 1978 – Tap, June 14th, 1978, 6:29am-6:30am – A close-up on a water droplet welling at a tapmouth.

5. July 14th, 1978 – Milk, June 15th, 1978, 8:24am-8:25am – A pint bottle of milk is picked from a table, taken out of view, and then placed back down on the table having been completely drunk.

6. July 21st, 1978 – Cat, June 10th, 1978, 9:59pm-10:00pm – A cat eating some processed cat food.

7. July 28th, 1978 – A summer drink, June 30th, 1978, 1:08pm-1:09pm – Ice cubes melting in a tall glass of red liquid.

8. August 4th, 1978 – Automation, July 12th, 1978, 6:45am-6:46am – A washing machine during a spincycle, filmed from outside.

9. August 11th, 1978 – Toad, June 30th, 1978, 12:58pm-12:59pm – A frog sat in the summer sun.

10. August 18th, 1978 – Swimming pool, July 29th, 1978, 12:03am-12:04am – Ripples on a pond.

11. August 25th, 1978 – Cow, August 12th, 1978, 11:02am-11:03am – A close up of a fly on a white furred surface.

12. September 1st, 1978 – Pollen, June 28th, 1978, 5:48pm-5:49pm – A meadow in summer, the air thick with floating pollen.

13. September 8th, 1978 – Children, September 5th, 1978, 3:25pm-3:26pm – This episode has been lost.

14. September 15th, 1978 – After the harvest, September 12th, 1978, 6:21pm-6:22pm – Wheat fields burning.

15. September 22nd, 1978 – Bicycle, September 13th, 1978, 11:46am-11:47am – An upturned bicycle, its rear wheel spinning slowly to a stop.

16. September 29th, 1978 – Robeson, September 14th, 1978, 9:11pm-9:12pm – An unusually sized vinyl record (identified by the use of freeze frame as 16 Spirituals by Paul Robeson) playing on a record player.

17. October 6th, 1978 – Out of season Essex seaside resort, September 30th, 1978, 12:22pm-12:23pm – An exterior shot of an amusements arcade on Southend seafront.

18. October 13th, 1978 – Out of season Essex seaside resort in the rain, September 30th, 1978, 12:23pm-12:24pm – An exterior shot of an amusements arcade on Southend seafront during a sudden downpour.

19. October 20th, 1978 – Fish (no date given) – Dead fish on crushed ice, presumably in a fishmongers.

20. October 27th, 1978 – Violin, October 1st, 6:32pm-6:33pm – A woman playing a violin in a living room.

21. November 3rd, 1978 – Tea, October 18th, 8:30am-8:31am – Water coming to the boil in an open pan.

22. November 10th, 1978 – Crow, October 22nd, 12:59pm-1:00pm – A crow pecking at the camera lens.

23. November 17th, 1978 – The aftermath of a one-sided war, October 23rd, 7:34am – A spider rebuilding a shattered web.

24. November 24th, 1978 – Bonfire, November 5th, 7:56pm-7:57pm – A ragdoll with a crow’s head burning on a twig bonfire.

25. December 1st, 1978 – The aftermath of a one-sided war, November 30th, 4:59pm-5:00pm – Blood being swept into a runlet in an abattoir’s floor.

26. December 8th, 1978 – Happy Birthday, June 16th 1979, 4:32pm-4:33pm – A solitary candle burning on a mis-shapen cake.

27. December 15th, 1978 – A sink full of filth, December 12th, 1978, 6:54am-6:55am – Clumps of hair drop into an unfilled sink.

28. December 22nd, 1978 – Fish, October 19th, 1978, 3:12am-3:13am – Unremarkable fish in a fish tank.

29. December 29th, 1978 – Presents, December 25th, 1978, 9:00am-9:01am – Scraps of wrapping paper blowing down a dead grey street.

30. January 5th, 1979 – Television, December 26th, 1978, 7:41pm-7:42pm – A television shows an image of a television that shows an image of a television that shows an image of a television that shows an image of a television that shows an image of a television that has not been turned on.

31. January 12th, 1979 – A winter drink, June 30th, 1978, 1:06pm-1:07pm – A tall glass being slowly filled with a red liquid.

32. January 19th, 1979 – The sun at midnight, January 1st, 1979, 12:00am-12:01am – An entirely black screen, possibly the result of underexposure of the film.

33. January 26th, 1979 – Crab, June 16th, 1978, 12:00pm-12:01pm – A crab dangling from a piece of meat dangling from a fishing line.

34. February 2nd, 1979 – Washing, January 17th, 1979, 2:32pm-2:33pm – Clothes frozen stiff on a rotary washing line.

35. February 9th, 1979 – The Moon (no date given) – The moon, half full (nighttime).

36. February 16th, 1979 – The Moon (no date given) – The moon, half full (daytime).

37. February 23rd, 1979 – The average lifetime of a cumulus cloud is sixty three minutes, July 17th, 1978, 11:56am-11:57am – A cumulus cloud that looks slightly reminiscent of a hag.

38. March 2nd, 1979 – Melt, February 27th, 1979, 11:55am-11:56am – Close-up of a snow covered holly leaf.

39. March 9th, 1979 – The film was not an enjoyable experience at all, March 6th, 1979, 9:47pm-9:48pm – A crowd of people leaving a cinema.

40. March 16th, 1979 – A photograph of my mother, March 15th, 1979, 10:39:am-10:40am – A shot of a photograph of an unidentified woman.

41. March 23rd, 1979 – Waiting in line, March 6th, 1979, 7:36pm-7:37pm – A close up of the feet of people in a queue.

42. March 30th, 1979 – Southend United versus Liverpool, January 10th, 1979, 7:44pm-7:45pm – An orange ball on a snow covered field.

43. April 6th, 1979 – Crow, April 5th, 1979, 7:58am-7:59pm – A crow eating a chip.

44. April 13th, 1979 – The Sun at midday, April 13th, 1979, 12:00pm-12:01pm – An entirely white screen, possibly the result of overexposure of the film.

Controversies

Several complaints were directed towards Anglia Television over episode 9, which was claimed to have almost certainly involved a chance of severe harm to the animal involved. Anglia Television claimed that all necessary procedures were overseen[citation needed], and no further investigation occurred.

International versions

The series was broadcast on PBS in America, shown consecutively in a single hour slot on the 16th June 1979, although episode 13 was omitted. The reason for its omission is unknown.

Due to running time discrepancies introduced by the format conversion process[9], each minute ran to 62.5 seconds, giving the series a total running time of 44 minutes 48 seconds.

Due to archiving mistakes at Anglia Television, several of the original broadcasts have been lost (episodes 6, 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 40 and 42), meaning the only surviving versions of these episodes are from the American broadcast. Because of this, episode 13 is currently considered lost, and, owing to the low viewing figures of the original broadcasts, its contents are unknown[10].

Theories of meaning

Several theories of meaning have been proposed over the years[citation needed], most of which centre around the final episode’s broadcast date coinciding with Good Friday. However, it is more likely that the over-reaching theme is one of artistic redundancy on the part of the director [original research?].

References

1. Radio Times, June 16th, 1978 – www.everyradiotimes.com/19780616.com
2. The Anglia Television Synchronisation Project – www.anglialive.co.uk/synchronisedlivefeed.html?date=19780616&clock=bigben
3. The Most Troublesome Time – Lord Reith And The Midnight Minute, by Greg Dyke (BBC Press, 2011)
4. The Government Report On Television Standards And Requirement, 1977 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office)
5. Anglia Television – A History Of Abject Failure, by Trisha Goddard (Norfolklore Books, 1999)
6. Anglia Television Viewing Records, 1979 – www.televisionviewingfiguresonline.gov.uk/angliaregion.html
7. Reference irretrievable
8. An analysis of sunlight patterns in A Minute At A Time – www.davidicke.com.co/research/aminuteatatime_analysis_and_discrepancies.html
9. NTSC vs PAL – www.diffen.com/difference/NTSC_vs_PAL
10. A Minute At A Time – The Truth of The Missing Minute – www.davidicke.co.com/articles/aminuteatatime_international_conspiracy_british_monarchy.html

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from the archives of Essex Terror: The Essex Terror Exhibition And Guidebook

Notes: In the spring months of 2012, a unique exhibition was held in Chelmsford, the historic county town of Essex, detailing the history of the beloved Essex institution that was Essex Terror. This is a recollection of that remembrance, originally published on July 2nd, 2012.

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For reasons not yet explained to the public, Essex Terror was recently, and some would say misguidedly, the subject of a fairly well researched historical exhibition, containing, as far as my extensively trained eye could see, only two factual inaccuracies and no libellous assertions. Taking place in the Essex city of Chelmsford, a town so haunted no one there even dares talk of ghosts for fear of being overheard by a nearby ghoul of some kind and possibly causing offence.

An exciting exhibition brochure, containing many of Essex Terror’s finest articles from the years, as well as the brand-new and exclusive HOME OF HELL adventure game book, can be purchased for 10 pounds from here. [please not this book is no longer available for purchase]

Below we have reproduced the restrospective as perfectly as this format allows. All that is missing is the complete version of the Moon Issue, due to the last surviving copy of it being too fragile to be photographed.

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25 Years Of Horror And Fear Across The County

Essex Terror, possibly the most celebrated Horror (also Science Fiction, Fantasy and Local Interest) magazine this county produced during the 1990s, has had an influence far exceeding anything its short original run or meagre sales ever would have suggested possible. Cited by people as diverse as Neil Gaiman (“[L]argely forgotten…”) and James Herbert (“Their interview with me was the most unsettling experience of my career”), Essex Terror has proven to be as enduring as it was groundbreaking.

This exhibition looks back at its past, the events which lead up to its past, its present day incarnation as essexterror.com and finally its hoped-for futures.

This exhibition would not have been possible without the kind help, assistance, permission and existence of The Ted Vaaak Foundation, Ted Vaak, David N. Guy, Ross Field, Thomas Morton, David N. Guy, David N. Guy, Raz Webster, Albin Stanescu, Jeff Randall, Peter Bradshaw, Jack Chick and, of course, the people of Essex.

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The Many Faces Of Essex Terror

Over the years, Essex Terror Magazine has gone through three major incarnations, at least in print. The original run of the magazine, and the one most closely associated with editor, proprietor and major storywriter Ted Vaak, lasted for a mere 12 issues over the course of a single year (starting in July 1989 and ending in June 1990). For Ted, this was to be the beginning of the end of his involvement with the traditional print industry, turning his attention occasionally thereafter to the nascent online world, culminating eventually with the creation of the ESSEX TERROR! website in 2009.

After the initial high profile success of Essex Terror in south-east England, opportunities arose for an offshoot magazine in America. Despite his refusal to enter their country, the publication and editorship of the first issue of The American Essex Terror was overseen with an iron fist and an even more iron stare by Ted Vaaaak himself. His demands even extended to insisting the price on the cover was printed with a £ rather than a $, reputedly because he was still furious at the country for once selling him a typewriter without a pound sign while he was there as a junior reporter for the Southend Echo in 1946. This he considered his revenge.

Ted’s work with The American Essex Terror ended soon after the first edition hit the shelves in 1991, and in subsequent editions, after its poor sales were blamed on confusion among customers in the US over the price, the pound sign was replaced with the more familiar dollar sign. Around this time, the words Essex and Terror were also dropped from the title, and The American replaced most of its horror and science fiction content with patriotic war cartoons and heartwarming stories of xenophobia and well-founded distrust.

In 2007, after a 16-year break that had seen most of its original readership achieve adulthood, Essex Terror returned once more to the newsagents. The relaunched ESSEX TERROR! could not reach an agreement with the rights owners of the original Essex Terror, however, so an exclamation mark was added and a switch to capital letters was made to distinguish the titles. Because of this, and the ongoing litigation that has since arisen, the new magazine, the current website, and even Ted Vaaaak himself are considered unofficial and “non-canon” by longtime purists.

Although the ESSEX TERROR! magazine itself was not a great success, the accompanying website was considered cheap enough to continue publishing, and since then over 60 articles have been published at a rate of almost one a month.

T(op): The cover of the very first Essex Terror, design: Ted Vaak (1989)
M(iddle): The cover of the first edition of The American Essex Terror, design: Raz Webster (1991)
B(ottom): The cover of the only ever print edition of the relaunched Essex Terror!, design: Ross Field (2007)

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The Moon Issue and its Consequences

The controversial Moon Issue (Essex Terror #4, published in October 1989), was to prove disastrous for both Essex Terror and Ted Vaaaaak. The issue, heavily advertised – sources once close to Ted claim he spent over £5,000 in Witham alone – and eagerly anticipated across the county, was to prove an astonishing disappointment once it actually arrived. Readers were aghast at its meagre 16 pages, each one containing an identical illustration of the moon and a single line of text. The text, telling a particularly incomprehensible and shoddy story of interest to no-one, was seen by many to be the gravest insult, ruining as it did each perfectly good picture of the moon.

In the wake of this disaster, readership and sponsorship fell, Essex Terror’s budget was slashed by its publishers, and the magazine’s eventual demise was assured. Ted Vaaak was forced to resign, and although replacement editor David N. Guy and senior writer David N. Guy (no relation) did their best to hide the decline in budget (including colouring each issue by hand as the budget no longer stretched to cover the cost of colour printing), the magazine limped to a close just 8 issues later. Issue #12 (published in June 1990) was to be the last anyone heard of Essex Terror for almost 15 years.

T: The cover of the controversial Moon Issue, illustration: Albin Stanescu (1989)
M and B: Hand coloured pages from Issue #7, text and illustration: Ted Vaaaaak (1990), colouring: David N. Guy

[The only known copy of the Moon Issue, an illegal photocopy, made by an unnamed monk minutes before the lighting of one of the many purge fires organised around the county in response to the outcry (1989), was originally displayed during the exhibtion, but was sadly lost sometime during the first seventeen minutes of admittance to the public]

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Ted Vaaak

Ted Vaak (born Terald Cirencester Vaaak in 1928) was a writer, film-maker, editor and magazine proprietor, based primarily in Essex, England, most famous for his work on science fiction and horror title Essex Terror (1989-1990).

His early work was mostly confined to the magazine market, where he worked on an ever-changing roster of local interest and genre fiction magazines, both as a freelance writer and, often, as editor, publisher and advertiser. Between 1946 and 1969, Ted Vaaak worked on, edited, owned, or was otherwise involved in, an astonishing 287 different titles, ranging from such tepid fare as Mundon Parish News and Steeplejack!, to more exciting publications like Truly Criminal, Bloody Terror and Ghosts Of Old Leigh.

In the 1970s, Ted achieved possibly his most consistent success with a series of haunting science fiction, horror and existential sadness books for now-defunct Romford publisher Alan Books. At the time, Ted’s insistence on the plot of each of his novels being explicitly stated in title, as well as explicitly illustrated on the cover, was considered deeply unfashionable, but his publisher agreed to it on the condition that Vaaak would refrain from entering the premises. By the 80s, this system of explanatory book titles and covers was the industry standard, but unfortunately for Ted’s sales it was too late, and he turned his attention to film.

His film work, now lost, was said by some to be horrific. After a brief turn as editor of essexterror.com in 2009, Ted Vaak retired from public life in 2010 and has resisted all efforts at contact regarding this exhibition.

T: Cover illustration for The Hypnotic Moon, illustration: Tom Morton, publisher: Alan Books, 1972
B: Cover illustration for His Eyes Escaped, illustration: Thomas Morton, publisher: Alan Books, 1974

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The Essex Bestiary

After the collapse of Essex Terror, Ted Vaaaak retreated from the public eye and turned his attentions to his greatest passion, the history and myths of his beloved Essex. The Essex Bestiary – a work of impeccable scholarship that earned him a PhD in the Folkloric Arts from the Maldon Evening College – gathered over 700 disparate tales of Essex beasts, monsters and men, painstakingly sourced from texts and oral testimonies, and brought them together in a single easily accessible volume. Out of print since 1995, The Essex Bestiary is likely to be Vaak’s most enduring legacy.

T: The Baboons Upon The Marsh, text: Ted Vaaaaak (1995), illustration: trad
B: Edward Bright, Eater Of The Dead, text Ted Vaaak (1995), illustration: unknown

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Ted Vaak and Jack Chick

One of the genuine curiosities in Ted Vaaak’s career is his close friendship and numerous collaborations with noted religious comic artist and author Jack Chick.

Vaaaak initially encountered Chick in 1950, when Ted’s script for a horror comic intended for the editor at Unwelcome Magazine was instead sent by accident to the then 26-year-old Chick’s apartment in Los Angeles. The illustrations Ted received several months later were so impressive that Ted solicited a number of cartoons from Jack for Vaaaaaak’s growing collection of magazines aimed at the Essex and East London market, such as Bellower, Belligerent Tales, and Weasel. (Oddly, the first cartoon, The Pub That Never Exploded, was, for reasons never adequately explained, not published for many years, only eventually appearing in Nauseous #298 in 1982.)

Jack Chick’s conversion to evangelical Christianity is said to have occurred while on a trip to Ted’s temporary home in Stow Maries in 1959, and they were never to be reconciled.

T: The Branch of Death, a rare horror comic both scripted and illustrated by Jack Chick, from Untrue Horror #2, 1954

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ESSEX TERROR!

When the latest installment of Essex Terror was launched in 2007, every effort was made to help the new magazine, and latterly website, stand out in the crowded Essex-based horror, occult and ghost-hunting market. After a lengthy debate on the best strategies for growth, visibility and market penetration between new editor Ross Field, illustrator David N. Guy (no relation to the David N. Guy who edited the original Essex Terror nor the similarly named assistant lawyer and colourist on the aforementioned publication) and freelance marketing consultant Ted Vaaak, the decision was made to hire a steadily expanding roster of celebrity columnists, reviewers and soundtrack artists (the latter to take advantage of the freedoms the internet medium allows). So far it has proven to be a great success, with a minimum of 100 unique readers for every article published to date.

T: A popular Essex Fear Factor column by Sky News presenter Jeff Randall (2009)
B: A review by The Guardian’s chief film critic Peter Bradshaw (2010)

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What Next For Essex Terror?

What lies ahead for Essex Terror is difficult to predict, but one thing that can be certain is that it will continue to take advantages of all that the 21st century and its inevitable advances in technology can bring.

Not content with just utilizing the internet, Ted Vaaak is said to have ambitious plans for moving into the mobile arena. Indeed, Ted has reportedly created an Essex Terror iPhone app that makes a user’s phone “bleed” (in reality, the seepage is a mixture of condensation, rust and battery acid) while in use. It is currently awaiting approval from Apple before its hoped for release on their store at the end of the year.

Beyond that, predictions become harder. Attempts to break into the competitive ghost photography market have so far proven fruitless despite investment in a variety of cameras, and however powerful Ted’s dreams of the moon are it is unlikely to bring it any closer to his reach.

Whatever is to come, however, we can rely on it continuing Essex Terror’s proud tradition of terror, fear and perplexment in all those that it encounters.

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Support An Accumulation Of Things

Essex Terror Month: A Retrospective History Of Forgotten Horrors

This month is Essex Terror month.

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Notes:

1. You have now been warned
2. Essex Terror was a magazine devoted to horror, terror, folklore, and other memories of the occult
3. Essex is an unfictional land beyond the imaginings of man and woman alike
4. Please don’t follow any links that might sneak through to the original essex terror website
5. Because it has been occupied by immorality demons
6. And will steal your soul

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Support An Accumulation Of Things

The Essex Executioner

David N. Guy is a gentle man, or so his admirers say. And yet he kills for a living. Simone Piss investigates.

The moment stretches out forever.

It’s Monday. A lazy summer afternoon in the small Essex village of Woodham Walter. The sun shines over the village green. There’s a small queue at the tombola table, and a slightly larger one at the cake stall. Children jump endlessly on the bouncy castles. A couple of grandmothers slumped half asleep in deck-chairs. Morris dancers jig in time with the rhythmic futtering of a sprinkler watering a nearby lawn.

And up on the makeshift stage at the centre of it all David N. Guy raises his axe towards the sun and prepares to swing it back down onto the neck of the man tied to the butcher’s block.

Onto, and through.

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The first time I came across the name David N. Guy, I was amazed I hadn’t heard of him.

It was a small report hidden in the mass of political wailing in the aftermath of the EU Referendum, a piece of end-of-programme fluff designed to let you leave the 6 o’clock news feeling vaguely uplifted rather than suicidally despondent, announcing cheerfully that David had become the first Essex executioner for 600 years to notch up 5000 county-sanctioned killings. (I got the feeling that the county-sanctioned modifier was probably quite important for the saliency of this fact.) And with the report a grainy reproduction of a picture of an unremarkable man in a stained and grubby t-shirt, his arms crossed over his voluminous slab-like breasts, his expression blank beneath his beard.

How could someone have managed to kill 5000 people without me (or, indeed, any of my friends or colleagues) having heard of them? How could a county apparently so close to civilisation (Essex being, surprisingly, less than 30 miles from London) still have its own executioner? And how could its people not only tolerate him but venerate him?

I became, it must be said, quietly obsessed with the man over the next few weeks, and I set out to find out as much about him and his work as I could.

“Most of us are only familiar with the popular image of Essex presented to us in the media,” says Professor Hugh Crabb over the phone from his office in the Department of Essex at Waltham Forest College in Walthamstow, London. “Lust-crazed vanity, bellowing bald-headed thuggery, right-wing nationalism, endless self-destructive automobile-based eroticism not even JG Ballard could have envisaged, West Ham fanaticism, that sort of thing. But there’s a dark side to Essex too.”

And nothing illustrates that better than the figure of David N. Guy himself.

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Arkesden, Tuesday. A farmer’s field. An audience of crows.

He lifts the heavy stone, holds it above the man on the altar’s chest, slowly lowers it down. We hold our breathe while the stone holds his.

Eventually, we breathe out. From the altar only silence.

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The washed-out photo on the news coverage didn’t do him justice.

We had arranged to meet an hour before the first of his killings I’m lucky enough to witness, the beheading at Woodham Walter.

He looked taller in the flesh than his officially-stated 6 foot 2, heavier than his admitted 20 stone. His beard was a dense knotted mass, deep enough and wide enough to give the impression that his head was wider than his shoulders and larger than his belly.

He wore a red t-shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of brown shoes. His glasses were too small for his eyes.

His hands were a few pounds of meat. His neck was unseen.

“You’re a woman,” he says.

I nod. I’m impressed he noticed.

“I always thought Simone was a boy’s name.”

I shake his hand and it is more moist than I would like.
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On Wednesday in Helions Bumpstead, David peels a woman like a fruit and then dresses her in a silken shroud and together they go to the tombs like a macabre bride with her morbid groom.

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David has very strict rules in place to ensure the quality of his service is never negatively impacted by the demands of county’s magistrates. He will only carry out one execution a day. He needs to be fed both before and after the killing. There must be at least chair of a suitable sturdiness available for him to sit on pre- and post-slaying. And he absolutely has to be informed about the prescribed method of justice he is to administer to his “patient” at least 24 hours before he arrives in the town.

On this last point of order he reluctantly elaborates.

“I don’t want to sound critical of the various district authorities, but…,” David explains. “It’s okay here in the centre. You always know what to expect. It’s always some mundane method of death, an axe to the neck or a noose or a good old fashioned throttling. The sort of thing I could do in my sleep. But the further out you get the more esoteric their desires, and the more exacting the demands upon my skills. It’s important you know what to expect. You don’t want to get there and find out you’ve got to do something beyond your knowledge.”

He speaks in a bland Essex wail of dropped consonants and monotonous vowels which betrays no hint of excitement or disgust at what he’s describing. And in many ways I find this resigned matter-of-factness more disturbing than if he’d been a cackling gleeful mess of erotic violent desires.

What sort of thing do some of these places require?

“In Dovercourt they like you to use a spoon. In Mundon they expect ice. In Langenhoe fire. And in Bradwell once I had to cut the tip off a man’s toe and suck the blood from his body.”

He pauses and looks at me with his mesmeric bovine eyes.

“All the blood.”

Is there any methods he doesn’t like having to do. Any places he dreads to go.

“Crix,” he says eventually. “There’s many machines in Crix. I don’t like machines.”

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The people of Herongate require him only to watch as the victim is lowered into the churning heron pit. To watch and to witness and to confirm.

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How does someone go about becoming an executioner, I ask.

“Ah, they picked me out at primary school,” David says. “Said I showed great aptitude for it. Although as far as I could tell the extent of my aptitude was that I was taller than everyone else, and fatter.”

There must have been more to it than that, I say. Some inherent violence, perhaps. Or a particular dexterity in handling weapons.

He shakes his head. “Well, there was also my necklessness. The priest said it was a sign.”

A sign of what?

David shrugs his shoulders. “The beard probably helped make up their minds, too.”

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At Layer-de-la-Haye on Friday, I witness a sight of such staggering depravity I know not how to describe it, nor even, having witnessed it, if I can believe it to have been truly possible.
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For someone doing such an unglamorous job, David seems to have developed a small but dedicated following. On twitter there are two accounts dedicated to his deeds: @essecutioner, which is a somewhat prosaic list of his upcoming appearances and matter-of-fact descriptions of the method employed for each and every death; and @sexycuteoner (pronounced sexy-cute-shoner), which is somewhat less serious-minded and also inextricably erotic. There is also a related tumblr, but we cannot link to it here. His reviews on yelp are unanimously positive.

I ask him how he feels about all this attention.

“I don’t really follow all that stuff. I don’t really understand it. Mobile phones and things, it’s all just… I’m from a different generation to all that.”

He is 38 years old.

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At Maldon he takes the child out into the mud on Saturday morning and when he comes back at the turning of the tide he is hauntingly alone.

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Only once in the week I spend with David do I wonder if he ever thinks about what his victims have done, about whether they deserve to receive his undoubtedly professional ministrations.

This is when I find him weeping two hours before the seventh (and last) execution I am to see, an old lady in Goldhangar who, I find out later, has been convicted of eating mulberries.

“I don’t like it when they’re old,” he says. “They remind me of my grandparents.”

Does he ever consider whether there crimes are great enough to justify the severity of his punishments, I ask. He says he never knows what they have done, and that it wouldn’t matter even if he did.

“It’s not for me to decide. It wouldn’t be justice if I could just arbitrarily decide whether to carry it out or not. It’d be tyranny. And besides I’m just carrying out a job, same as anyone else. It’s the magistrates who make the choice. If I didn’t do it, no doubt someone else would.”

Does he ever think about quitting and doing something else?

“No,” he says. “I’d not be very good at something else.”

But you might be left with no choice, I say. What will he do if, for example, Essex adopts the European Convention on Human Rights?

He laughs and laughs and laughs and then, when he stops, he gets up out of his chair and goes off to do his day’s work.

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On Sunday he carries the woman over his shoulder as he climbs up the tight spiral of the stairs in the Goldhangar church tower, and then, at the top he throws her off, much to the delight of the crowd below. Then he trudges back down the stairs (not easy for a man of his size), picks up her whimpering body, and puts her over his shoulder and carries her up again, throws her down again.

This continues for quite some time, until there’s nothing much left for him to hold anymore, nothing much left for him to carry, to throw.

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We have one final conversation before I go, in the pretty little garden of a quaint Essex teashop. Looking back on it, I realise I can recall nothing of what we spoke about. Instead, I have a clear image of watching him eating the trayful of cakes the heavily tattooed waitress placed reverently in front of him, “with the full compliments of the village” she said.

The first cake he eats is a slice of Victoria sponge. He separates the two halfs of it, and then scrapes away the cream and jam from the middle with a teaspoon, eating each mouthful with a shudder of pleasure. Then he carves the top half into quarters, the bottom half into fifths, and finally he rolls the pieces one at a time onto the teaspoon and from there into his mouth.

The Swiss roll he unrolls and then slices neatly into one centimetre wide strips, which he dangles down into his mouth from above like a schoolboy eating liquorice shoelaces.

A full-sized kitkat (not technically a cake) he unwraps and eats in two great big bites, not even bothering to snap the thing into fingers.

He eats a strawberry cheesecake through a straw, which unless you’ve seen such a thing done directly in front of your eyes, you’ll never believe to be possible.

With a slice of Battenburg in one hand and a slice of Madeira in the other, he pushes his hands together until the cakes have merged together into a strange paste across his palms, which he then licks at like a cat until they are clean, his tongue working at the webbing between his fingers with a peculiar ferocity.

He dips a scone into a pot of nutella, eats the chocolated scone, and then, with a knife, the rest of the nutella.

He finishes with an entire box of Tunnock’s teacakes. He unwraps each one neatly from the foil, which he flattens down into a square with the back of his hand, taking his time until almost every crease is gone and you’d never know it had once been crumpled up in a ball around the cake. On the foil he places the teacake, each one perfectly centred, until all ten are lined up before him. Then he quickly takes one cake in his right hand and pops it in his mouth, whole, crushes it down with a single chomp of his jaw, and then with his left hand he pops in another, working his way down the line from each end until, a mere matter of seconds later, all the squares of foil are empty and his mouth is full.

Oh is his mouth full.

The tattooed waitress eventually comes back and takes the empty tray away. Something in her demeanour towards David – not to mention the stylised weaponry that adorns her arms, the erotic curves of the Essex seaxes visible beneath the teasingly opened buttons at the neck of her shirt – makes me wonder if she runs the sexycuteoner tumblr, or at least enjoys it as much as I’ve come to. I follow her inside to pay for my coffee, and when we come back out together at the end of her shift David has long gone on his way.

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Notes:

1. Written in August 2016
2. I wrote this after reading an article in the New Yorker about some eccentric restaurant owner
3. And really liking the first line of the story
4. Which I stole
5. And used here
6. Please forgive me
7. I was suffering from post-referendum despair
8. And knew not what I was doing
9. Also this would have been an Essex Terror article
10. But Essex Terror was already dead

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