Dr David debunks 'curse' of the Crying Boy picture
DR David Clarke, the great debunker of the weird, rifles through a sheaf of newspaper cuttings and the Diary senses another cherished belief is about to be destroyed.
Flying saucers, ghosts, angels in the sky in World War One and phantoms in the Peak have all come under his beady gaze and been shot down in flames.
Now he's doing it to a poor defenceless little boy.
"Have you ever heard of the Curse of the Crying Boy?" he says at his home in Walkley, Sheffield.
"It was a big story in the Eighties. Fires would break out in houses all over the North and the only thing which survived would be a mawkish print of a crying boy."
Indeed, it was on the front page of The Sun and even made Esther Rantzen's That's Life, the TV headquarters of everything oddball back then.
"I've traced it back to a chip pan fire in Rotherham," he says triumphantly.
When he's not writing books Dr Clarke is lecturer in journalism at Hallam University and he's doing a course – there will also be a book – on media myths and urban legends.
In September, 1985, Star reporter John Murphy covered a routine story about a chip pan fire in Pagenall Drive, Swallownest. The house was badly damaged but the Crying Boy picture survived.
Being a good journalist he picked up the angle that the householder's fireman brother had warned him of the curse.
The Star's story was nicked by a news agency and, says Dr Clarke, was spotted as a 'filler' by The Sun's legendary editor Kelvin MacKenzie.
"He cleared the front page to lead on the curse. His colleagues thought him mad. And he appealed for other Crying Boy fire stories – and the pictures.
"They were all burned in a bonfire lit by a Page 3 girl on Hallowe'en," chuckles Dr Clarke.
Convinced there was nothing supernatural about the print, he started digging. The fireman was Peter Hall of the Erskine Road station who, with station officer Alan Wilkinson, had compiled a list of 50 chip pan Crying Boy fires.
The picture (there are several versions), described by one art critic as "a mawkish continental urchin with globular tears coursing down his podgy cheeks," was a big seller in Northern stores like Woolies and Boots.
A lot of people who bought them made frequent use of the chip pan.
It didn't burn because "it was printed on high-density hardboard which is difficult to ignite."
Dr Clarke, who says it echoes the superstition that a painting falling off the wall foretells death, is keen to find firemen involved at the time and to hear more stories.
John Murphy, who started it all, is bemused by the interest. Now a magazine publisher, he says: "The family were absolutely convinced and I sensed it was a good story."
Dr Clarke has a pay-off line. "When Station Officer Wilkinson retired they presented him with the picture but he gave it back. It was hung at the station. The oven overheated and burned the firemen's dinner."
Dr Clarke can be contacted in writing c/o Dept of Communication & Journalism Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, Psalter Lane campus, Sheffield S11 8UZ.Jarvis has his foot in the door
THE city's gone celebrity mad this week with some local heroes feted with the council's Hall of Fame brass plaques around the Town Hall.
It's Seb Coe today and it was Michael Palin on Monday, so who's next to follow in the footsteps of these and previous heroes such as Helen Sharman and Gordon Banks?
A council official let slip the name of Jarvis Cocker on Monday, and that sounds right as there's already a plaque to the rather noisier band Def Leppard.
Notable Sheffielders have to be first nominated, and then approved by a vetting committee.
The Diary hears that Peter Stringfellow has only reached the first stage.
Can anyone suggest why the King of Clubs has not got any further?Asidelines
As you like it – or not
SAM West, who directed As You Like It, currently on at the Crucible, is a man who can take criticism on the chin.
The Diary hears that he insisted a quote from the Daily Telegraph's review of his production was included on the theatre's website and so it is, although down at the bottom after all the superlatives, it reads: "A load of old b******s."
Library love fest
THE Central Library in Surrey Street has a 'wall of love' with messages on heart-shaped notepaper for the Love2B festival.
People have to say who – or what – they love about the city. Sam West gets a billet-doux. Best one of all is the one that reads "I love myself."
Getting sniffy
HOLIER than thou? An electric cooker is being advertised (75ono) on the noticeboard at Sheffield's Blue Moon cafe on St James's Street with a right-on selling point.
"Owned by vegan couple so no unsavoury smells."
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Weather for Sheffield
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -6 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: -4 C to -1 C
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