Stupid People Tricks

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Card tricks

The saga of Craig Shergold and the unending flow of various types of cards it has produced is one of the most well known chain letter stories/ULs. One of the earliest FAQs on this topic is Professor Gene Spafford's (Spaf of Usenet fame) of February 17, 1992. For some of the original stop sending cards pleas, see the July 19, 1990 New York Times (p. 24) and People magazine on June 10, 1991, p. 63. Even Ann Landers tried to stop this flood (June 23, 1991). A recent story on ANANOVA indicates that the family had received over 150 million cards - which of course does not include cards directed to Make-a-Wish and other similarly named foundations.

Documented: Craig Shergold, UK cancer kid, sought get-well cards to break the Guinness record, overwhelmed with over 80 million.

In the late 1980's Craig Shergold was diagnosed with a brain tumor that he was not expected to survive. In 1989 the UK media and some US charitable organizations started publicizing his wish to break the Guinness record for the most get well cards. He broke the record in less than a year and the Guinness people stopped counting at 33 million in 1992 (some recent estimates put the total number of cards over 200 million). See The Guinness Book of Records 1992, p. 207.4 for his listing. In addition, an American billionaire, John Kluge, paid for Craig to come to the United States for an operation which appears to have cured him.

Despite the fact that he broke the record long ago (which Guinness has since retired) photocopied and emailed pleas continue to produce an outpouring of cards to the Royal Marsden Hospital, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Children's Wish Foundation International, and other similarly named organizations. All cards are now shredded and recycled. Guinness, The Make-A-Wish Foundation and numerous similarly named organizations have gone to great lengths to stop the flow of additional cards.

There were a number of variations of the Shergoldian plea includes a call for business cards [Classic American UL in this genre is "Postcards for Little Buddy" in Curses, Broiled Aagain]. Other versions have included recipes and Rolodex cards according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution (12/13/1996, E5) and business cards, holiday cards, greeting cards, birthday cards according to the Boston Globe (10/9/94).

His name has been misspelled several times in various pleas. Sherwood, Sherfold, Sherford, or Sheford among others, also Greg for Craig.

On September 22, 2000 The Daily Telegraph (a rightpondian newspaper of some note) published an article "Ministers and Lawyers caught up in an unstoppable chain." In this story Joshua Rozenberg reports that one of the varaiations of the Shergold story requesting a compliment slip (TWIAVBP)for a 7 year old boy named John Craig with terminal cancer who just happens to live at the address of Craig Shergold in Carshalton, Surrey. Included on some of the forwards tracked by the Telegraph were Alan Greenspan, Sean Connery and more MPs, QCs, Barons and Lords than you can shake a stick at. According to that story even at this late date 10,000 letters a day come for Craig.

According to the May 24, 2002 Shropshire Star, reporting on a version that refers to him as John Craig, Consignia (formerly known as Royal Mail) stated that that the family was still recieving 3,500 letter a week - which is about 10 bags of mail a week!

Documented: Craig Shergold's 13th birthday was June 24, 1992. From now June 24 is AFUday

References:

• AFU on Craig
• A bad old picture of Craig
• Gene Spafford FAQ
• New York Times Article
• Chicago Tribune Article
• Make-a-Wish on Chain Letters
• ANANOVA Story