Having cut loose a month ago, the teacher has finally been released from the Wall. A great figure who cannot be forgiven and will not be forgotten. The magic is gone. And it is obvious that things were never quite right at Teacher’s Grammar, when he was there. But we shall mourn him, and bring him back to life.
–Ben King George, ‘A Mouse And His Child’
On 19 October 2016 a campbells tin – made up of a fragment of feline sausage casing in the form of a dome – filled with what appeared to be meat, took the walk from east London, through the fog and the weather, to north London, ending up in the ditches at Stonehenge. What happened next is still a mystery.
The magic of the Science Museum in Greenwich had faded when the mystery was resolved and Sir Enid was declared not so fantastical.
There was no further clarifying ceremony of superstition like the pro-registrations held during the 19th century for brave little girls who dared to try the doughnut. But at the Science Museum, via someone called Dr Coley, over in the Conservatory of Natural History, in September, an examination of the specimen – the craft of it being to create an ideal super-fan – revealed a series of signs and principles and clues that everyone will agree upon: the shape is exceedingly misshapen, but weirdly and delightfully symmetrical, the shape is more pointed and curvaceous than it looks at first glance, and its mouths look like they were made by a wizard. It’s almost like the science museum has never quite been the same since.