Recollections of the Late David Farrant (concluded)

"What if David, whose life was a hundred percent Highgate Cemetery, what if he is now part of the story but in a different realm?" — Andrew Gough

David Farrant's life was not "a hundred percent Highgate Cemetery," and were his shade to be sighted anywhere, it would be in the Prince of Wales and kindred pubs he gleefully frequented in Highgate. The cemetery was merely a means to an end. In the beginning, it helped him become a focus of attention, having boarded what he perceived to be a potential publicity bandwagon. Andrew Gough visited Farrant at his Muswell Hill bedsit, and included him in a documentary* when I was unwilling to participate in it. Yet, like so many journalists, he did not know Farrant. He only knew the persona Farrant presented.

                      * 

Now there is no longer Farrant to promulgate his "ghost," journalists are attempting to turn the deceased figure of Farrant into a ghost to enable them continue their exploitation of what was a fabricated story in the first place. Farrant didn't even believe in ghosts, and certainly not vampires, but he utilised both to attract the attention of newspapers and the broader media. He had listened to tales of a vampiric entity in the pubs he frequented in Highgate Village after his return from France and Spain to marry his wife in 1967, and, at the turn of 1970, conspired to spook locals with a ghost story of his own. His plan was, after two or three weeks, to expose the ghost in the local newspapers as something he had invented; thus proving that supernatural phenomena was hysteria and not real. To assist in this scheme, he enlisted the help of a handful of acquaintances, many patrons of the Prince of Wales, to write fraudulent correspondence to the editor of the local press. Their fake letters were published, and, sure enough, what appeared to be genuine testimonies followed. By which time Farrant was caught under the armpits and was no longer willing to abide by his original plan. This angered some of those who had helped in the charade. But Farrant now felt himself being carried off by something that soon turned into an addiction to self-publicity. From March 1970, he jumped on the tail-coats of the emerging vampire revelations. His doing so was unwelcome, and I let him know this in no uncertain terms. The rest really is history.

"Alex thinks that the voice he heard [recently in Highgate Cemetery] was Farrant." — Steve Higgins

I do not see these claims made by the likes of Alex as anything other than wish fulfilment to serve the ravenous appetite of unscrupulous journalists who want to replace one fake ghost with another. As someone who knew Farrant in those most crucial years between cellar and prison cell better than a lot of people, I would opine that he does not walk beyond the grave (bearing in mind that he was cremated), and is now frozen in eternity in a form of spiritual limbo. May his soul finally find peace. †