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Phyllida Law with the returned gargoyles |
'Please lift curse of the stolen gargoyles’ plea from sick thief
Culprit admits he has been ill since actress put up jokey warning after statues disappeared
TWO years after they mysteriously vanished from the front garden of Phyllida Law – actress mother of film star Emma Thompson – two stone gargoyles have suddenly reappeared alongside a heartbreaking note.
“Help me please. I have been very, very ill since I stole these. Please lift the curse. Sorry,” said the handwritten message that accompanied them.
The stone statues were found in a black rucksack outside Ms Law’s home in Crediton Hill, West Hampstead, over the weekend. They were addressed “To the householder”.
The curse referred to by the anonymous message was a joke played by Ms Law, 77.
When the gargoyles, popular with children in the area, went missing from outside her house in August 2007, Ms Law, casting herself as a “neighbourhood witch”, posted a warning on shrubs outside her home that a curse would be placed on the thief.
For dramatic effect, she added a photograph of herself dressed as a hook-nosed witch, taken one Halloween.
The New Journal publicised the stunt at the time. Neighbours speculated at the time that it had been inspired by her daughter’s role as Professor Sybil Trelawney in the Harry Potter films. Ms Thompson opposite her mother.
Ms Law said this week that the sign had been a “complete jokey notice” which she didn’t expect anyone to take seriously.
“His guilt was too great,” she said of the thief who returned the gargoyles. “It is the most fantastic story. What happened was a very good black rucksack was put outside my door. It stayed there for 48 hours until I thought: it’s so heavy what can be in it? Probably bombs.
“So I very gingerly opened the lid and it was the two gargoyles. In the pocket of the rucksack was a little note, saying: ‘Help me, please. I have been very, very ill since I stole these. Please lift the curse. Sorry’ on a piece of lined notepaper ‘to the householder’.”
Ms Law has put up a new sign outside her home, along with the rucksack, dry cleaned and hanging from a tree waiting to be reclaimed.
“Thank you for returning the children’s stone statues. All curses lifted, thank you,” the sign reads. “Hurrah.”
Ms Law, whose films include Peter’s Friends and whose first book Notes To My Mother-In-Law is about to be published, said her wall was currently “a bit crowded”, but that room would be found for the returned gargoyles. |
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