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.
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| "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.
The Tunstall Tail
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.
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| 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.
Fegg Hayes Yeti vs. Sir Edmund Hillary
Fegg Hayes Yeti vs. Sir Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Well, he was the first white man to reach the summit. The first white man from a sensible Commonwealth country, at least.
When news of the Fegg Hayes Yeti reached New Zealand in 1942, they inspired a young Edmund Hillary to vow to visit Stoke one day and explore the Fegg Hayes mountains and find proof of the Yeti. "I vow to visit Stoke one day and explore the Fegg Hayes mountains and find proof of the Yeti," he is reported to have said.
Sir Edmund finally started his famous expedition to look for the Yeti in 1959; he had been the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest in 1953. Since Shipman and Bubbles had found their tracks some years earlier, many other explorers had searched for and found more. Sir Edmund had even found giant foot prints on the way up to the top of Mount Everest, in 1953, thought to be of the Nepalese Yeti, probably a distant descendant of the Fegg Hayes Yeti.
Edmund lead the 1959 trip in association with local businessman, philanthropist and sexual adventurer Dave Munton. The expedition was sponsored by Coca Cola and Tunstall Assurance and was well equipped.
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| Dave Munton, yesterday |
The party had ten Sherpa, cameras, including infrared and night vision equipment, a portaloo and a mobile disco. Despite a six-month stay the group failed to find any convincing evidence of the existence of the Yeti. The artefacts they did find, two skeletons and a scalp, turned out to belong to two circus midgets and a dwarf.
At the time Hillary came to the conclusion that the Fegg Hayes Yeti was a legend and nothing more. "I have come to the conclusion that the Fegg Hayes Yeti is a legend and nothing more," he said.
Later, Munton concluded that the problem with the expedition was that it had been too big and clumsy. "The Sherpa spent most of their time lugging around all of the coke bottles Coca Cola had given us," he explained. "Also, we forgot to take a map with us. In the end, we didn't see a Yeti, which disappointed us, but we did see a UFO and some ghosts." Munton would later fund further expeditions to search for the Fegg Hayes Yeti.
Fegg Hayes Yeti: Case Studies
Fegg Hayes Yeti: Case Studies
One of the strangest Yeti encounters occurred in 1932. Professional gambler and opium dealer Bill Williams was in town for a black jack tournament at the city's number one nightspot, The Ca$hino. After going on a drink and opium bender, Bill wandered into the mountains where he either became snowblind, or went blind from intoxication. As death drew near, he was saved by a giant Yeti, who took him back to his cave and nursed him back to health. Williams wrote a book about his experience called 'The Fegg Hayes Angel'. He later died in a fire at a patisserie.
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| Bill Williams's sketch of the Fegg Hayes Yeti |
Mountaineer Phil Stevens claimed to have gotten into a drunken fight with a yeti in 1986. "He came from nowhere and tried to nick one of my beers. I was like, 'I don't think so you slag,' and wrestled him for the beer. I won, obviously, and he ran off again like a little bitch." Some people doubt Phil's testimony. But not because he is black.
In 2006, a Bangladeshi Kabbadi team, in the mountains for altitude training ahead of a tournament, witnessed a Yeti and photographed its footprints. The team's leader, Uddin Hossain, claims they observed the Yeti during training. "We were practising our defensive skills, in particular the crocodile hold, when a Yeti ran past us whilst wearing L-plates and a traffic cone on its head. It must have been a hen night celebration."
So far, there is no firm scientific evidence to support the existence of the Fegg Hayes Yeti, but there is no way show that he doesn't exist either. If he indeed lives in the barren, frozen, unwelcoming, upper reaches of Fegg Hayes, where few men dare to tread, he may find his refuge safe for a long time to come.
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