The Discoveries Behind the Stories
The Stumpy Sanderson stories were discovered within two extraordinary Time Capsules.
Buried in 1979 and 1983, with each then being unearthed some forty years later, both these capsules held an astonishing treasure trove of stories, songs, notes, scribblings and drawings made by Stumpy Sanderson about growing up in 1970s Dunstable.
Together, the two capsules contained forty-four stories and fifty-five songs, providing the surreal source materials for the Stumpy Sanderson storytelling podcasts, live shows and musical performances.
The First Time Capsule
(Buried in 1979 – Unearthed in 2019)
In early 2019, the Dunstable Archaeological Society was urgently called to a site on Blow’s Downs by some local council workmen who had discovered a highly unusual artefact whilst laying some new sewage pipes.
This artefact was a Watney’s Party Seven can, sealed with a strange asbestos lid.
On opening the can, inside were found several scrolls of text and a couple of old blue exercise books which were cushioned and protected by a shroud of 1970s sweet and chocolate bar wrappers. There were also various sayings, notations and codes scribbled on the backs of old fag packets, as well as a sketchbook of primitive and rudimentary pencil, crayon and felt tip drawings.
With these exercise books, the archaeologists knew they had discovered something extraordinary – the stuff of legend and myth whose existence had been whispered about for some 40 years.Now at last in their hands they held the written testimony of some of the most astonishing events of the badlands of the schools and streets of Dunstable in the1970s. Events that had been recounted by that infamous diarist, historian and chronicler, Stumpy Sanderson.
With my storytelling background, and my past performances of earlier discovered draft versions of Stumpy Sanderson stories, the Society very kindly handed these exercise books over to me in early 2020.
The scripts for the stories were then carefully and accurately transcribed by myself and a team of trusty scribes and translators, and in 2021 and 2022 I released these stories as podcasts. I narrated each one in the first person just as Stumpy had originally written these works for me to tell them. Stumpy was always the storyteller, I was always the narrator. Also, just like Stumpy, I witnessed at first-hand all the momentous events that took place and are described.
(Note to audience – earlier versions and performances of some of these stories were based upon duplicate texts that were found in 1999 stashed inside one of Stumpy’s old school bags that he had stored in his parents’ loft).
The Second Time Capsule
(Buried in 1983 – Unearthed in 2023)
There had been long held rumours of the existence of a second time capsule (although our gang knew of its actual existence as we had buried it in the first place!).
This capsule had been buried by us in 1983 on the site of what was the Bedford Trucks factory, and which is now a retail park.
Through the diligent private detective work of Wainwright & Singh, who located this burial site, the Dunstable Archaeological Society was once again called in, and the capsule was duly unearthed in 2023.
Within the capsule were found another twenty-two previously undiscovered stories.
These stories were written in quite different styles from Stumpy’s original works – in what were known as Stumpy’s Ronnie Corbett, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack Kerouac phases. Also, although these stories were written between 1980 and 1983, each one still told of the momentous events that happened to our gang back in the 1970s.
Once again, the Society kindly handed these stories over to me, and working with the same team of trusty scribes and translators, these works were released as storytelling podcasts in 2025 and 2026.
I again narrated each story in the first person, just as Stumpy had originally written these works for me to tell them.
A Surreal Lost World Unearthed
The materials in the two Time Capsules provide a unique, hilarious and bizarre account of growing up in 1970s Britain.
Part surreal and hilarious comedy, part nostalgic memoir, and part suburban social history, the stories preserve a world of anarchic classrooms, playgrounds and playing fields, suburban mayhem and adventures, unlikely heroes, fearsome foes, larger-than-life characters and outrageous exploits.
Whether you remember the decade yourself or are discovering it for the first time, the Time Capsules open a singular single glazed window into a Britain that has long since disappeared, but which lives on in the stories of Stumpy Sanderson.