CLEAN GROUND — handout pack · print instructions

A4 portrait, scale 100%, background graphics ON. Without backgrounds, H02 prints white and the almanac loses its rules.
Four sheets, one per page, in handing order: H01 (Act One), H03a (Act Two), H02 (Act Three, depot), H03b (Act Three, laid beside H03a).
H03a and H03b must come off the same printer, same tray, same session. Two different papers and the trick dies before anyone reads a word.
Staging: H03a is given in Act Two and nothing is said about it. H03b goes down flat on the table beside it in Act Three. Do not explain. The table will do it out loud.
Body text is 11.5pt throughout. Do not scale below 100% to fit.

CG-H01 · Act One

HM CORONER — NORTH NORTHUMBERLAND PRELIMINARY NOTE

Ref: NN/1174/26 Not for release

DECEASED: Unidentified male
FOUND: 29 August, stone sheep pen, Sike Head march
BY: Mrs M. Swinburne, of Sike Head

Estimated age at death, from dentition and general condition: forty to forty-five years.

Bone density, joint surfaces and vascular condition are those of a man in his ninetieth year. I have written that sentence three times and I am content with it.

No dental record answers to this mouth. No fingerprint record answers to these hands. Enquiries with the National Insurance index return nothing. He is not a missing person anywhere I can reach.

Dressed in wool and cotton of good but old manufacture, mended repeatedly and competently by hand. The boots have been resoled, by my count, nine times, and not by a tradesman.

Lungs, turn-ups and hair carry a fine grey particulate which I am not equipped to identify and have sent onward.

Cause of death: exhaustion, on a body that had no reserve left to draw on. There is no injury. Nobody did this to him.

I would be glad to be told what this was, in due course, if anyone is ever able to tell me.

J. A. Corbridge

Assistant Pathologist

CG-H03a · Act Two

DAY	WEATHER	WALKED	TO CLEAN GROUND	NOTES
Mon	low cloud	7 mi	41 mi	Ground softer.
Tue	dry, cold	8 mi	41 mi	Passed the lorry.
Wed	rain	5 mi	41 mi	Rested at noon.
Thu	dry	8 mi	41 mi	Thursday again.
Fri	low cloud	7 mi	41 mi	Alec is tired.
Sat	rain	6 mi	41 mi	Passed the lorry.
Sun	dry, bright	9 mi	41 mi	Good day. Sang.

Counted this morning: forty-one.

CG-H02 · Act Three

COMMITTEE ON CONTINGENT ARRANGEMENTS SECRET

Minute of the meeting of 26 October 1962 Copy 3 of 4

RESERVE ENTRY (NORTHERN) — AUTHORISED

The Committee approved the entry of a reserve holding of ground in the northern march, of eleven miles and a fraction, to be recorded twice in order that one record may be drawn upon without disturbance to the other.
The purpose of the reserve is to hold persons displaced by a general exchange, in a place which is not on any list that an adversary may obtain. Members were reminded that an unrecorded place cannot be targeted and cannot be requisitioned.
The entry is pegged to the standing boundary oak at Sike Head, being the feature to which the march was recorded before the survey of 1861 and therefore the older of the two authorities. The Committee was satisfied that the tree is in good health.
The Registrar drew the Committee's attention to the consequence of paragraph 2. A place recorded as the place to which the displaced go is a place the record must afterwards furnish with displaced persons. The Committee noted this and did not regard it as an obstacle.
The entry is to be reviewed at the rising of the emergency, and cancelled if it is found not to have been drawn upon.

Signed(illegible)
Chairman Minuted byA.E.W.
Clerk (Junior)

CG-H03b · Act Three

DAY	WEATHER	WALKED	TO CLEAN GROUND	NOTES
Mon	dry	8 mi	41 mi	Passed the lorry.
Tue	rain	6 mi	41 mi	Ada's chest again.
Wed	low cloud	7 mi	41 mi	Ground softer.
Thu	dry, cold	8 mi	41 mi	Thursday again.
Fri	dry	7 mi	41 mi	Passed the lorry.
Sat	low cloud	6 mi	41 mi	Rested at noon.
Sun	rain	5 mi	41 mi	Nobody sang.

Counted this morning: fifty-three.