Fegg Hayes Yeti: The History

The Fegg Hayes Yeti is a creature reputed to inhabit the mountain ranges in the northern Stoke region known as Fegg Hayes. The creature is not currently recognised or catalogued by scientists; they reject the possibility that the Yeti can exist because of the climate and food supply issues and because of the large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population. Skeptics also say that Yeti tracks were made by ordinary animals like a bear or an ape. But that doesn’t stop locals from believing the myths.

There are questions about its origin, if the Yeti does exist. One theory is that the Yetis are descendants of the Packmoors, an ancient people that fled into the mountains to escape their enemies, who would probably have been heathens from Kidsgrove. Some experts claim that the Yeti has descended from a race of giant apes, who retreated into Fegg Hayes several hundred thousand years ago. In the following millennia, they degraded to a race of monstrous creatures.

Yetis appear in the legends of the Stoke people, who tell stories of sightings and human-Yeti interactions dating back several hundred years. The frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century, when people from the Southern Stoke towns began venturing north of Lake Burslem and the River Trent, making determined attempts to scale the many mountains of the Fegg Hayes area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.

A Yeti typically has white or grey hair, is said to have a terrible smell and it is very strong – it picks up and throws boulders as if they were Monster Munch! They are also nocturnal; they sleep during the day and forage at night. Yetis have been heard making whistling sounds and roaring like a lion. The Yeti is also rumoured to be very fond of kebabs and alcoholic drinks.

The first international report of the Yeti appeared in 1921 when German photographer Helmut Dannheimer, working on a chain gang in the mountains for his war crimes, saw a creature in the distance urinating on the snowman he had built earlier in the day. “The creature walked upright, like a person, or a giant squirrel,” said Dannheimer. “It wore no clothes. I wanted to photograph it nude, but it left before I could get my camera,” he continued in his comical German accent.

The chain gang inspected the snowman where the Yeti had been. “It had urinated all over the snowman’s face,” said chain gang member Freddy Steele, who was serving a two year prison sentence for failing to wear a suitable hat in the presence of a monarch (King George V). “I saw this as a warning sign for us to leave the Yeti’s area, but the guards felt otherwise and made us eat the snowman in a show of defiance.”

The story reached Germany, where the Yeti story appeared on the front pages of national newspapers, and where Steele became an inspiration to rebellious youngsters in the Weimar Republik, to the extent that it became “uncool” to wear the correct hat at social functions. This is also around the time when the name “The Abominable Stokeman” was first used.

"Try not to blink this time!"

 

Some of the best Yeti tracks ever photographed were taken by cockney mountaineers and war-evaders Harry Shipman and Mickey Bubbles in 1941. They found them on the southern slopes of the Mong Glacier to the east of Fegg Hayes. Each print was twelve inches wide and eighteen inches long (about the same size as an A3 poster of Michael Bolton), much bigger than the average foot size of a fully-grown Stoke-based human. The tracks seemed fresh, so the pair followed them, but soon got distracted by some passing women looking for bunny rabbits.

Some experts who viewed the photographs could not identify the tracks as any known creature, while some other experts said they recognised the tracks but couldn’t remember which creature they came from.