The Tunstall Tail is an artefact stolen from a Taoist monastery in Tunstall. Supporters contend that the tail is from the Fegg Hayes Yeti. Critics argue that this claim is a load of old rubbish however, and is in fact a fraud.
Dave Munton first heard accounts of the possible existence of a Yeti tail held as a ritual artefact in the monastery in Tunstall during one of his "Abominable Stokeman" treks in 1977. These expeditions were the first to bring photographs of the tail back to Hanley.
On later expeditions in and around Tunstall and Chell, Munton’s associates gathered more information on the Tunstall Tail, and an effort to further examine it was planned. In 1999, Pete Grimes, a member of Munton's expedition that year, reportedly stole pieces of the artefact after the monks who owned it refused to allow its removal for study or play. Grimes claimed to have replaced the stolen bone fragments with badger bones he had taken from Longton Zoo, rewrapping the hand to disguise his theft.
Grimes smuggled the bones from Tunstall into Chell Heath, after which media personality Jonathan Wilkes allegedly smuggled the tail out of Chell Heath in his Widow Twanky pantomime costume. Chat show host Paul O’Grady discovered the story in 2007 while interviewing Wilkes about his forthcoming show 'Stoke's Got Talent'. Wilkes, a close friend of Take That dancer Gary Barlow, confirmed details of the incidents with written materials from the Dave Munton archives.
 |
Jonathan Wilkes takes a break from
his busy work schedule |
Staffordshire University Lecturer Phil Majors conducted a physical examination of the pieces that Grimes supplied. His first findings were that the pieces were "definitely bone" and later in 2000 he decided that the Tunstall Tail fragments were "a closer match to some monkey or other than to a human or dog".
In 2001, in conjunction with Majors's research, it was discovered that the Munton expedition consultant, a Derby-based anthropologist by the name of Cletus Conk, had sold samples of the alleged Yeti tail to American shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, who had the bones ground down so he could smoke them in a pipe.
During her highly-publicised 2008 autobiography promotional tour, Fearne Cotton took a side trip to Tunstall to investigate the tail. Cotton was unaware of the possibility that she was looking at a combination of the original material and the badger bones placed there by Grimes. Cotton determined the tail was a hoax.
In 2009, the entire tail was stolen from the Tunstall monastery, and reportedly disappeared into a private collection in Derbyshire. "Don't look at me," Jonathan Wilkes said about the theft.
