Ban The Mind Reader

The mystery began in the 1960s. Graffiti - BAN THE MIND READER - huge white letters hand painted on the brick-walls and railway arches of the Medway towns. Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham ablaze with a prophetic message.

"BAN THE MIND READER... THE MURDERING COMPUTER... IT HAS CAUSED A NUMBER OF FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS... IT MAKES THE CRIMINALS... IT CAUSES SICKNESS, BENDS AND VOMITING ... "

The message was plain. But who had done it? Who was the activist who demanded the ban? And was there really a danger of fires and explosions? I was too young to know the answer. I was just a small boy. But neither did my mother or father - nor any of the other adults I asked. And though they were as bemused as I was, as time moved on, the graffiti was forgotten.

But I never forgot it. And though the words faded into the brickwork I continually wondered. And others did to.

Billy Childish, the maverick Chatham artist, was reminded it of as he staggered across the Chatham Lines, drunk and incapable. He fell against the hospital wall where the words were still written - and remembered.

Sexton Ming, poet and demented genius, sung songs about it.

And Sean Ridgeway, stand-up comic and philosopher, delivered a moving discourse in Old Gun in Strood on the deeper meanings of the message.

But I was not content with the ramblings of these artistic losers. I needed to know what it was really all about. Was the Mind Reader a man or a machine? Were the dangers of bends and vomiting real or imagined?

I decided to find out. I searched the internet. I questioned the hard-men of Darnley road and the White Road estate. I drunk beer in the Eagle Tavern and the Man of Kent. I hung around massage parlours and questioned the whores of the New Road.

They told me that it was the work of a drug crazed loony. They told me that it was the work of medical students determined to play a prank. They told me that it was the work of a bewildered man who was convinced his employers were building a mind reading machine.

The first two theories are easily dismissed because I don't like them. But the third is interesting. A man who worked for the Chatham industrial-military complex discovered that his employers were building a mind reading machine. He saw the results of their tests. There were a number of fires and explosions. The crime rate soared. And sickness, bends and vomiting became epidemic. He had to expose what was happening. The Mind Reader could not be allowed to proliferate. He had to act. He waited for a moonless night and went out with paint and pot and brush. But it was too late. His employers caught up with him. He was sent to a home for the bewildered, and his warnings were dismissed as the rantings of a mad man.

And so he was forgotten. The warnings were ignored and the words faded into the brickwork.

The Warnings Were Prophetic

But I believe that the warnings were prophetic. Today - nearly 50 years later - the Mind Reader is a reality. Evil geniuses have built the Mind Reader. Computerized brain scanners map the mind and predict our thoughts. The mind is no longer a sanctuary. They search for maverick ideas. There is no hiding place. They prescribe their drugs to cure us of our eccentricities. There are fires and explosions. The criminals are made. And we await only the sickness, bends and vomiting.