Vampires Among Us

I studied accounts of demonic predators such as vampires, not least those chronicled by Montague Summers, from the onset of the 1960s. When confronted with what appeared to be the stark reality, I found myself not choosing to do something about it but, moreover, being chosen; especially when one of the two convent girls fell victim. Nightmare shrieks continued to pierce the air as other people witnessed something materialising and swooping from behind the iron cemetery gates. Peter Underwood, president of The Ghost Club, soon to become a member of the British Occult Society, and author of more than fifty books on the paranormal, would record in an anthology about real vampires (in which I was also invited to make a separate contribution):

“In 1968, I heard first-hand of such a sighting and my informant maintained that he and his companions had secreted themselves in one of the vaults and watched a dark figure flit among the catacombs and disappear into a huge vault from which the vampire, ghost or whatever it may have been, did not reappear. Subsequent search revealed no trace inside the vault but I was told that a trail of drops of blood stopped at an area of massive coffins which could have hidden a dozen vampires. Other reports in 1968 and 1969 told of a similar figure visiting graves and appearing and disappearing in circumstances that ruled out the possibility of the figure being human. … A motorist whose car broke down near one of the cemetery gates reported seeing ‘something’ peer at him through the iron gates … he could not believe that it had been anything human. His recollection of the ‘thing’ that looked at him was of staring eyes and white teeth disclosed by what he described as a snarl.” (The Vampire’s Bedside Companion by Peter Underwood (Leslie Frewin Books, 1975, page 76).

The study and research into phenomena which seem to equally concern the psychical and physical sides of human nature were to prove invaluable in pursuing this case. This is a portal, and indeed a subject, that should not be entered without great caution. The beginning of the 1970s blurred with the watershed decade that preceded it. I took a sabbatical from commercial photography and musical performances as a saxophonist and keyboard player. The lease on the photographic studio expired. The three floor premises next became a jewellery shop. Much had happened by that juncture. Much more was about to happen. More than anything, I sensed a personal spiritual awakening unfolding. 

The young live in hope, and never more so than in the 1960s. But this revolutionary period had now passed away. John Lennon, icon of that decade’s artistic and musical sub-culture who would be assassinated ten years later, declared: “The dream is over.” The dream had translated for all too many into a something more akin to a nightmare.

Yet a a very real nightmare had already begun to unearth itself in residential Highgate at the turn of the 1970s as reports of a predatory demonic wraith preoccupied local and national newspapers; also some television programmes. Apart from getting himself arrested in August to headlines such as “Man, A Cross, A Stake - And A Vampire” (Evening Standard, 18 August 1970) surprisingly very little was heard from David Farrant during the early months of 1970; though he repeatedly threatened to stalk the cemetery’s vampire by himself ... and alone. It would not be until August of that years that he ostensibly carried this out, and, it is alleged, orchestrated his own arrest to guarantee the sort of publicity that would bring his name back into the fray.

“As lurid stories fueled more interests, vampire hunters and the curious continued to enter the cemetery at night. In 1974, a group of vampire hunters claimed they had found the vampire and had destroyed it, but others disputed this,” claims Rosemary Ellen Guiley in Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters (2005).

By 1974 there was no claim by anyone that a vampire was still active at Highgate Cemetery and it certainly was not claimed by anyone to have been “destroyed” in the cemetery. The predatory demon was known to have been exorcised at an entirely different location on the borders of Highgate and Hornsey, not remotely close to what had now become Highgate's notorious graveyard. Guiley misleadingly states: “To discourage occult activity and vandalism, the cemetery was closed at night and access was severely restricted.” The cemetery had never been open at night. It always closed by late afternoon throughout the year. Access was only restricted in the daytime because safety could not be guaranteed and Friends of Highgate Cemetery (FoHC), who had taken on the responsibility from Camden Council who purchased the graveyard - for a sum reputed to be fifteen pence from the private cemetery company who owned it throughout the contagion years - could not accept the liability of people walking about with gaping holes in the ground and trees falling.

Guiley finally claims: “From 1977 to 1980, mysterious animal deaths were reported in the areas near Highgate Cemetery. The bodies of pets and various small wild animals were found with wounds in their throats. It was speculated that dogs or wild animals were the culprits, but the 'vampire theory' also stayed in circulation.” Anyone who has researched this case would be aware that the mysterious deaths of animals attributed to vampiric activity had in that period moved completely away from Highgate and was now centred several miles from Highgate Cemetery. The authoress is confusing the mysterious death of foxes at Highgate Cemetery in early 1970 (see below) with the deaths of hundreds of pets a decade later in neighbouring Finchley and Southgate.

When her work Vampires Among Us was published in 1991, I found much about my research and indeed me to be inaccurate and careless; though it was not intentionally malicious. The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters was published in 2005 and, though not identified by name, it thoroughly misrepresented facts surrounding the Highgate Vampire case where I was at the epicentre. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of Washington, Seattle, and in 2001 obtained a PhD from the International Institute for Integral Human Sciences in Montreal in recognition for her work in the field. She is also a member of various paranormal societies, the London Dracula Society and the New York Vampire Empire (formerly Count Dracula Fan Club). She describes herself as a “full-time paranormal researcher” residing in Marlyland, near Baltimore, USA. Since 1991, she has been a columnist and consulting editor for Fate magazine and has made frequent media appearances. This makes what she wrote in her Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters of some significance because she is not claiming to be a disbeliever or sceptic; plus she “advises” several paranormal groups. Guiley has now written three books ostensibly about vampires; two of them, including the 2005 work, refer to a case I investigated from start to finish. We first met in 1990. The following year she wrote Vampires Among Us which misinforms, misleads and gently mocks. Fourteen years after publication of Vampires Among Us, her next stab at the Highgate Vampire case manifested as an entry in her Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters.