Brown Pocket

Note: The author wishes to make it clear that there is no connection between The Brown Pocket and any rock band of the 1980-1990's with a similar sounding name.

Brown Pocket derives from public school slang and refers to the origins of the tea bag. Also this has nothing to do with Minchenden Grammar School, North London.

"Harry! Get some brandy - I think Hector has been drownded!"

Origins

It was in 1913 at the prestigious Tetley School for Boys that an accident-prone form one fag absentmindedly put a surplus scoop of tea into his prefect's waistcoat pocket. The unfortunate was then made to wear the waistcoat and subjected to a rigorous "hot dunking" for his carelessness. When the boy was removed a rich mahogany brew remained in the tin bath. The infusion was free of nuisance tea-leaves and was found to be of excellent flavour.

Development

The process was repeated the next time the prefects fancied a cup of tea with the same excellent results. In order to spare fags for other duties tea was later made using a modified waistcoat pocket, detached and sewn across the opening to retain the tea-leaves.

Tradition

"Pocket mashing" became a tradition within the school. The innovation was seized upon by the grocery industry and with a few modifications the modern tea-bag was born. This has revolutionised the preparation, marketing and brewing of tea in Britain. To this day students at Tetley wear brown waistcoats with one pocket missing and a flat cap styled to resemble a soggy tea-bag. However this tradition is now inextricably connected to a more recent phenomenon, a cult known simply as "the Brown Pocket".

Brown Pocket Cult

Typically but not exclusively among white collar colleagues in the service sector (it is rumoured following their recruitment from Public Schools) a secretive cult emerged in the late 1980's and continues to grow. The cult persists among small groups in the wider society.

Noted for its brutal initiation rites the cult was exposed in a BBC 4 documentary "Who's Afraid of the Brown Pocket?" August 1997, in which former acolytes, their identities concealed were interviewed about their experiences. They revealed details of the practices and codes of the cult. These included the wearing of a brown-stained shirt pocket, the depth of its hue an indicator of rank, and significant phrases and shibboleths whereby members could make contact and schedule activities. The programme took its title from the most intimidating of these, a phrase intimating the imminent initiation of a new member. A grey knitted monkey is frequently adopted as a mascot, periodically subjected to "flash dunking" in hot tea in a parody of the original fagging episode.

Suppression

Following revelations of the psychological trauma inflicted on impressionable initiates, attempts have been made by campaigning groups and individual legal action, to suppress the activities of the cult on humanitarian grounds, though with little success.