Broadway Market ‘alphabet thief’ still a mystery as missing shop sign letters returned

You couldn't make it up: a missing 'r' is returned to Fabrications. Photograph: Fabrications

A miscreant dubbed “the alphabet thief” has been blamed for the disappearances of lettering from shop fronts in a market street.

The letters P, E, R and V were nicked from businesses in Broadway Market earlier this year but have now reappeared as mysteriously as they vanished.

Barley Massey from textile gallery and studio Fabrications said her shop’s R had been returned by post. She said: “I’m intrigued to know where it’s been. To take off one letter , there’s no value in that for scrap metal. It must be someone collecting letters for something. What is it that they’re spelling out and why? And where?”

The letters, which anagrammatically spell the abbreviation for pervert, may have been pinched as part of an artistic project.

The thief took the P from the Perseverance pub, V from Davey Stone estate agents and E from Trutex, the school uniform shop.

Broadway Market is no stranger to the attentions of creative types, and a piece of graffiti art showing a youth stealing one of the Olympic rings recently appeared on a wall in the street. It is signed by street artist Pure Evil.

Broadway Market manager Alistair Maddox said: “The market has always had a connection with street art. Ben Eine (the noted street artist) did all the shutters down here. He used to live round here.”

Andrew Veitch of Broadway Market Projects said: “The whole thing has intrigued me. The letters spelt a word. A hundred to one someone was exhibiting them. But who, for God’s sake, and why? Because why would
you risk someone prosecuting you by giving them back when you have already got away with taking them?”

Pictures of happy business owners reunited with their long lost letters have now appeared on Broadway Market’s Facebook page.