The Moratorium Of Cape Wrath

The Cape Wrath contract was conceived in a Little Chef diner at Newtonmore (just outside Aviemore in the Highlands), the morning after Friday’s Glasgow showings of WTKFBAMQ and the Pissing in the Wind episode. Bill and Jimmy appeared to be fed up with the reactions they were receiving to the film, which were mainly questions to them, rather than answers.

Not wanting to simply sign an ordinary sheet of paper they decided to use a van Gimpo had borrowed to write the contract on and then push it into the sea. Unsurprisingly, Gimpo got scared and drove it straight back to London. Thus abandoned Bill and Jimmy (and two witnesses both called Mark!) phoned Craig McLean, journo, now editor of Blah Blah Blah, in Edinburgh and offered him an exclusive story if he would drive them! By the time he got up to Cape Wrath (about 6hrs drive from Edinburgh), they’d hired a G-reg. Nissan Bluebird from Aviemore; and on the morning of the Sunday (5th Nov 1995) they drove it onto a helipad on a MoD live bombing range called Faraid Head, 10 miles down the road from Cape Wrath itself, painted the contract on the side and pushed it over the edge. Jimmy took off the radiator cap so “it smokes more as it goes over”. Photos of the painted (and falling) car later appeared in Blah Blah Blah and the book.

To quote the info-sheet, handed out during the latter stages of the film tour:

For the sake of our souls we the trustees of the K Foundation agree unconditionally, totally, and without hesitation to a binding contract with the rest of the world, the contract is as follows.

Bill Drummond + Jimmy Cauty agree to never speak, write or use any other form of media to mention the burning of one million pounds of their own money which occurred on the Island of Jura on 23 August 1994 for a period of 23 years after the date of signature.

Bill Drummond + Jimmy Cauty are free to end the K Foundation in all respects for a period of 23 years after the date of signature.

Bill Drummond + Jimmy Cauty agree to store all assets of the K Foundation, including the ash of the one million pounds burnt on Jura, for a period of 23 years from the date of signature. This is to be completed within 14 days of signature.

Bill Drummond + J Cauty agree to allow Alan Goodrick use, for whatever purpose, the film “Watch The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid” and all film rushes.

Bill Drummond + Jimmy Cauty agree to publish this contract as a one page advert in a broadsheet of their choice within 14 days of signature and to cover costs.

It is agreed that in signing this contract, the postponing the K Foundation for the said period of 23 years, provides opportunity of sufficient length for an accurate and appropriately executed response to their burning of a million quid.

(signed in Gold pen on the windscreen: J Cauty, B Drummond, (Mark 1), Mark J Hawker (Mark 2), 5 Nov 1995)

This developed later into:

On the 5th November 1995, Cauty and Drummond signed a contract agreeing to end The K Foundation for a period of 23 years. This postponement ‘provides opportunity of sufficient length for an accurate and appropriately executed response to their burning of a million quid’. Cauty and Drummond have rescued themselves from the burden of an impossible explanation. Their fate now lies irrevocably sealed in the imploded remains of a Nissan Bluebird nestling among the rocks 120 feet below Cape Wrath.

This was repeated in two newspaper adverts, one of which appeared in the Times on the 8th of December, the same day the film was due to be shown for the final time in Brick Lane, London.

The K Foundation announces its retirement (The Guardian, 8 Dec 1995)

While the moratorium would only have ended in 2018 (“23 years after the date of signature”) Bill and Jimmy decided to date this back to the actual date of the burning at some point, ending their self-imposed silence on the matter on the 23rd August 2017 with the Welcome To The Dark Ages event in Liverpool.