Mysterious writing under wallpaper - what does it mean?

[Wigeon]

Having a bedroom redecorated and the decorator has stripped the wallpaper to find these mysterious messages! Pat Tate could obviously just be someone's name (although it wasn't the surname of the people we bought the house from, or as far as I can find out, previous owners), and a quick Google says was a drug dealer who was murdered and whose story was then fictionalised see here.

But no idea what the other wording means - could be "but I'm also anchormam" or "but I'm also anchorm am". Or a spelling mistake for "anchorman"?

Any ideas?!

A previous owner wrote on a wall in the second bedroom "George has been here a long time, he's harmless but do say hello - 23/7/71" we live in a Victorian house so presume he was their resident ghost.
Now if we hear any weird knocks/bangs/movement I say hi to George 🤣

If we redecorate that room again I'll add my own little line in.

It's actually quite common for decorators to piss about and write stuff prior to wallpapering. Sometimes it's just a name and date to 'mark' the work, but other times they'll write nonsense to simply have a laugh.

Op did you paint that on?or someone in the house now as that looks fresh.

It looks really fresh, not like its had wallpaper over it for years.

Also, why are your unpapered walls black OP? Old plaster is usually off white or pinky grey.

Reminds me of a weird neighbour I once had a a student. He invited me to his rabbit's funeral when I first moved into the flat, then turned up in the middle of the night many months later wanting to hold my hand through the letterbox and assuring me that just because he liked being in the same places as me, it didn't mean he was stalking me (tbh, I hadn't noticed). When he moved out, the guys clearing the place for the landlord asked my housemate if there had been anything odd about him and suggested that we go and see his room - every surface of the walls, shelves, inside cupboards, everywhere, was covered in noonsensical pseudo-religious ranting in tiny, tiny handwriting. Really creepy!!

Yes, you can see the walls are marked. But the painting is fresh , over it and unmarked.

but why paint it in then start a thread to ask mumsnet what it means.

Apart from the bits of wallpaper over some of the paint.

I imagine the unpapered walls are dark blue because that's the colour someone painted them and lived with before they were wallpapered over (which would be easier than covering the dark colour with paint!)

Just before our new stair carpets were fitted I wrote the names and date of birth of me, DH, our 2 adult children and the names of our 2 dogs. No idea why but I thought it might be vaguely interesting for whoever buys our house in the future (it won't be).

I can’t see this, I can see where they have painted over bits of wallpaper still on the wall yes, but I can’t see what you are and I’ve zoomed in and have a very high definition screen.

It's very clear on the Pat Tate photo.

Troll hunting is tedious.

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Dh always writes his name and date on the wall I said it was pretty boring thing to write. Most walls we've redone in the this house had the decorators name and the date he put the wallpaper up.
At our old house we were replacing carpets in the bedrooms so the floors were bare and Dh wanted to do a body online and spill some red paint around the outline. The carpet fitter arrived before he did it. So his chance was gone.

We always allowed the kids to do it if we were redecorating.

There are a series of films anout Pat Tate called Rise of the Footsoldiers. Very violent and sweary, covers drug gangs in Essex and Marbella in the 80s and 90s till 3 were found murdered in a Range Rover.

In a buried air raid shelter excavated in the garden, "I am not mad"

Anchormam- like anchorman but a mammy?

When we were kids, we wrote loads of stupid stuff on the walls, decorator papered over it, then it all came through on the new wallpaper!!

it all had to be stripped off, walls scrubbed and re papered!

It is easier to put up paper on a painted wall, as the wallpaper paste isn't sucked into the plaster. We uncovered all sorts of horrid, lurid colours when we stripped the paper off the walls in this house. Think 1970's orange and purple. People on a budget would paint rather than hang wallpaper as it was cheaper.

My dad would always write on the wall when he was papering a room, to remind him of how many rolls were needed. He'd wait until just before hanging the last piece and then make a note, so the information was there for the next time.

Those burgers... are crazy!

In my Mum's old house I carved my initials into a beam going up the stairs to the second floor, and put my date of birth. I was 13 at the time and my Mum didn't find it for ages but was furious with me when she eventually did. After Mum died and her house went I was quite glad I'd left my mark.

Maybe it's an early David Shrigley? You could be in the money.

My dad did the exact same thing, even down to the red paint 🤣

I've often wondered what the people who bought my childhood home must have thought when they redecorated. When I was between 7-9, I was obsessed with drawing horses and I was allowed to draw on the walls when my parents redecorated. Except I then went through a phase of drawing stallions with really enormous willies. I can still remember being told not to draw any more on the walls when my dad was redecorating the hall, and getting up at about 6 in the morning and covering every wall with more of my masterpieces 😆😆😆

@BloodyHellKenAgain - @SoupDragon is correct - the wallpaper which the decorator removed isn't over the plastered wall, it's over a painted wall. The paint is actually navy rather than black. You can just see some other paint colour under the navy too, but as the house is 140 years old i imagine it has been re-decorated many many times!

Someone must have painted the words in white paint over the navy painted walls just before they were about to wallpaper, then wallpapered and covered it up. Unless the white writing on navy walls was actually part of the decor intentionally, maybe a David Shrigley as @DuckBushCityLimit suggests! 😁 But the picture rail and other woodwork is the same colour as the big white writing, so I think the did that just before re-decorating.