Monday 26 November 2018

Forum on Facebook



There is now a Facebook page for The Strange Case of Ramsey Campbell to keep the topic updated.

Click on any of the images to view the forum, and, if you so choose, engage in any of the discussions.



Response to the Rupert revelation from Seán Manchester (as found on the forum):

"Ramsey Campbell (born 1946) would have been less than two years' old when he received his Rupert annual at Christmas 1947; so I am not entirely convinced that a toddler as young as that would be quite so disturbed by one of the most enduring and well-loved children’s characters in British fiction who made his first appearance in the Daily Express on 8 November 1920. Rupert enjoys a safe, cosy home life. He has doting parents who are supportive of him in everything that he does, no matter how daring or dangerous, and who only get mildly anxious when he comes back late from one of his expeditions. Rupert has been delighting generations of children for over eighty years. Indeed, I remain enchanted by the character whose calendar containing monthly vintage annual images is always on my Christmas list."






Saturday 24 November 2018

Summary by †Seán Manchester



Ramsey Campbell and I are very different people. When I first clapped eyes on him all those years ago I never gave him another thought. It was accidental contact; I would not call it a meeting because we were not introduced, and I cannot remember any words being exchanged between us. 

After the television programme I didn't think it likely I would see him again. I never referred to him or mentioned him publicly; certainly not in print. Whether he was busy mentioning me hither and thither I have no idea, but before long he was in the business of maligning me and my wife in print, ie Shock Xpress. I saw it as opportunistic exploitation, something I was quite used to in those days, but he defamed my wife, whom he has not met, and that began the ugly situation in which we now find ourselves.

His interest in me has, in my view, become toxic. Our beliefs, needless to say, are not shared. Yet I have many acquaintances with whom the same beliefs are not shared, and we get along absolutely fine. Friends, too, do not have to agree with me in order to be my friend. So why exactly is Ramsey Campbell so different? What makes him so antipathetic?

I suspect he disliked me on sight, but that is conjecture. There must be many people he finds outside his comfort zone, but doesn't spend his time and energy writing about in no less than three publications. He also comments about me, raises questions and makes asides on groups where I am trolled.

I have only made mention of Ramsey Campbell (in passing) in a publication in two very brief paragraphs on page 94 of my Handbook, published six years after Shock Xpress, in order to clarify that the libel was never put right, as promised by the publisher, in a further printing because there were no further printings. Thus I wrote:

"No correction or apology ever appeared in print or on public record. After two years of pressure from his publisher (Titan Books), Campbell privately conceded in a letter to myself:

"Dear Bishop ... I apologise for any distress this has caused you and your wife. ... It remains a mystery to me what could have influenced me to pen such a grotesque and obvious error. Yours sincerely, Ramsey Campbell."

My wife, of course, did not receive an apology directly, and had to content herself with what is written above. The nature of the libel is such that it is impossible to repeat here. It is probably the worst thing imaginable.

You might have thought the matter would have been allowed to be effaced with time, but Campbell was busy resurrecting his essay from Shock Xpress to a new book, ie Ramsey Campbell, Probably, where the precise libel is omitted, but referred to nonetheless. He explains his original error, tongue in cheek, of course, as him having fallen under the influence of demons. The irony of that suggestion is not lost on me.


Sarah Manchester, wife of Bishop Manchester, at Glastonbury.

Friday 23 November 2018

Source of the Antipathy



"Little is sacred in these pages ... The critique aims high, low, and in between, tackling everyone from academic icon Leslie Fiedler to vampire-hunter Sean Manchester ..."

— Douglas E Winter (Introduction to both editions, 2002 & 2015, of Ramsey Campbell, Probably)


Douglas E Winter

Douglas E Winter (born 30 October 1950, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American writer with a lifelong interest in horror which has led him to develop a career as horror writer and horror critic. Winter edited horror anthologies Prime Evil (1988), and Revelations (1997) as well as the interviews collection Faces of Fear (1985, revised 1990). He is also the biographer of Stephen King and Clive Barker. He is a lawyer, concentrating on complex litigation, product liability, and entertainment law. 


This very early photograph of Ramsey Campbell shows him sat in what appears to be a graveyard before a vandalised stone angel memorial. Why would he want to have such a picture taken? Moreover, why would he want to share it. It is reminiscent of early images of David Farrant who took it a step further by being photographed alongside desecrated monuments and coffins that had been broken open. He, too, shared his pictures with all and sundry, including the press who swiftly contacted the police. Farrant was arrested and jailed after an archive of similar material was discovered at his home which also included a black magic altar. Neither Campbell nor Farrant are sympathetic towards Christianity, especially where it is traditional and Catholic. This might explain their shared loathing of Seán Manchester who, as a Traditionalist, is at the far end of that spectrum.

"Our man has usually been able to trace any attempts to discredit him back to Satanists, not least David Farrant of the coal cellar," Campbell informs his readers without so much as a hint of an explanation as to what Farrant was doing residing in a coal cellar in the first place. (It was due to bankruptcy, and being evicted from his Highgate flat in 1969). Yet Campbell has nothing negative to say about the man of the coal cellar despite there being such a wealth of seemingly horrific material.

Born on 23 January 1946, David Robert Donovan Farrant came to prominence in February 1970 when he wrote a letter to his local newspaper claiming to have had three sightings of a ghostly apparition as he passed by the gates of London's Highgate Cemetery.


The Daily Express, 19 August 1970, reported that Farrant told the police (as read out in court from his statement): "My intention was to search out the supernatural being and destroy it by plunging the stake [found in his possession when arrested by police on the night in question] in its heart."He later reconstructed what he was doing on the night of his arrest for BBC television's 24 Hours. While inside prison, Farrant had written to Seán Manchester to request support from the British Occult Society to which Farrant owed no connection. He was visited while on remand and told that the Society could not countenance his behaviour. Soon afterwards, Farrant began to falsely associate himself with the BOS, which immediately led to rebuttals appearing in various newspapers. It was only a matter of time before Farrant began to fraudulently describe himself as "president of the British Occult Society."


Readers letters to the Hampstead & Highgate Express in early 1970 included reports of a ghost wearing a top hat that had been seen in Swains Lane and just inside the gates at Highgate Cemetery. With the benefit of hindsight we now know that some of these letters bore the names and addresses of friends and acquaintances of Farrant. Phoney letters were sent to the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 13 February 1970, using the names and addresses of Farrant's friends Audrey Connely and Kenneth Frewin. Farrant wrote those letters in order to give his hoax some credibility. He used the names and addresses of friends with their consent. He used his close friend Nava Grunberg's address in Hampstead Lane, but her name was changed to a pseudonym. He also used Nava Grunberg, now adopting the nom de plume "Nava Arieli," when she used an address in Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, belonging to a friend of hers. Residents and passers-by might have witnessed Farrant in his familiar black mackintosh pretending to be a ghost. It has since been confirmed that he wore an old grey topper and ghostly make-up to convince local people that the cemetery was haunted. Then Farrant heard tales of the legendary vampire in pubs he frequented and decided to board what he perceived to be a publicity bandwagon. The rest is history. The vampire sightings and experiences by others were genuine enough. Farrant was not. His part in the saga was utterly fraudulent. He pretended to be a "vampire hunter" for the next few months before turning his attention to malefic pseudo-occultism which guaranteed a far bigger return in the publicity stakes. This quickly led to criminal convictions which included indecency in Monken Hadley churchyard under the Ecclesiastic Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860. Victoria Jervis was also found guilty. Her revelations under oath when called as a witness during Farrant's Old Bailey trials two years later are damning, to say the least. 


This is what she said:

"I have tried to put most of what happened out of my mind. The false letters I wrote to a local paper were to stimulate publicity for the accused. I saw him almost every weekend in the second half of 1972 and I went to Spain with him for a fortnight at the end of June that same year. I was arrested with him in Monken Hadley Churchyard. That incident upset me very much. Afterwards, my doctor prescribed tranquillisers for me."

Facing David Farrant in court to address him, Victoria Jervis added:

"You have photographed me a number of times in your flat with no clothes on. One photograph was published in 1972 with a false caption claiming I was a member of your Society, which I never was."

On another occasion, she recalled, how she had written pseudonymously to a local newspaper at Farrant's request "to stimulate publicity for the accused."

Back in 1972 during the indecency case, "Mr P J Bucknell, prosecuting, said Mr Farrant had painted circles on the ground, lit with candles, and had told reporters and possibly the police of what he was doing. 'This appears to be a sordid attempt to obtain publicity,' he said." (Hampstead & Highgate Express, 24 November 1972).

Speaking at the April 1996 Fortean Times Convention, Maureen Speller commented: "The programme came up with ‘His investigations had far reaching and disturbing consequences’ which I said meant he’d been arrested a lot. Strangely enough, this is more or less what he said. God, I felt old being the only member of [my] group who could remember this nutter being arrested every few weeks.” 

“The wife of self-styled occult priest David Farrant told yesterday of giggles in the graveyard when the pubs had closed. ‘We would go in, frighten ourselves to death and come out again,’ she told an Old Bailey jury. Attractive Mary Farrant — she is separated from her husband and lives in Southampton — said they had often gone to London’s Highgate Cemetery with friends ‘for a bit of a laugh.’ But they never caused any damage. ‘It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs shut,’ she said. Mrs Farrant added that her husband’s friends who joined in the late night jaunts were not involved in witchcraft or the occult. She had been called as a defence witness by her 28-year-old husband. They have not lived together for three years.” (The Sun, 21 June 1974).

“All he talked about was his witchcraft. He was very vain.” (Julia Batsford, an ex-girlfriend quoted in the Daily Mail, 26 June 1974).

"Au pair Martine de Sacy has exposed the fantasy world of David Farrant, self-styled high priest of British witchcraft, for whom she posed nude in front of a tomb. Farrant was convicted last week by a jury who heard stories of Satanic rites, vampires and death-worship with girls dancing in a cemetery. Afterwards, 23-year-old Martine said: 'He was a failure as a lover. In fact, I think his trouble was that he was seeking compensation for this. He was always after publicity and he felt that having all these girls around helped. I'm sure the night he took me to the cemetery had less to do with occultism than his craving to be the centre of something.' ... While Martine told her story in Paris, customers at Farrant's local — the Prince of Wales in Highgate, London — chuckled over the man they called 'Birdman.' One regular said: 'He used to come in with a parrot on his shoulder. One night he came in with photos of Martine in the nude. We pinched one, and when she next came in, we told her he was selling them at 5p a time. She went through the ceiling.' ... Farrant called his estranged wife Mary, in his defence. She said: 'We would go in the cemetery with my husband's friends when the pubs had closed. We would frighten ourselves to death and come out again. It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs close. Nobody was involved in witchcraft or the occult'." (News of the World, 30 June 1974).

“I cannot believe for one moment that he is a serious student of the occult. In fact I believe him to be evil and entirely to be deplored.” (Dennis Wheatley, Daily Express, 26 June 1974).

“I think he’s crazy.” (Canon John Pearce Higgins, Daily Express, 26 June 1974).

“But for the results of his actions, this scruffy little witch could be laughed at. But no one can laugh at a man who admits slitting the throat of a live cat before launching a blood-smeared orgy. Or at a man who has helped reduce at least two women to frightened misery.” (Sue Kentish, News of the World, 23 September 1973).

“The jury were shown folders of pictures of naked girls and corpses, and told about a black-clothed altar in Farrant's flat with a large drawing of a vampire's face. When questioned, Farrant said: 'A corpse was needed to talk to spirits of another world'.” (George Hunter & Richard Wright, Daily Express, 26 June 1974).

“The judge said any interference with a corpse during black magic rituals could properly be regarded as a ‘great scandal and a disgrace to religion, decency and morality’.” (The Sun, 26 June 1974).

“Judge Michael Argyle QC passed sentence after reading medical and mental reports. He said that Farrant — self-styled High Priest of the British Occult Society [sic] — had acted ‘quite regardless of the feelings of ordinary people,’ by messing about at Highgate Cemetery.” (Hornsey Journal, 19 July 1974).




In the summer of 1974, David Farrant was convicted of malicious damage in Highgate Cemetery by inscribing black magic symbols on the floor of a mausoleum; offering indignities to remains of the dead via black magic rites in Highgate Cemetery where photographs were taken of a naked female accomplice amidst tombs; threatening police witnesses in a separate case where his black magic associate was subsequently found guilty of indecent sexual assault on a young boy. His associate, on his website, describes himself as a “master of the black arts.” Farrant was also convicted of theft of items from Barnet Hospital where the offender worked briefly as a porter upon his release from Brixton Prison where he had been on remand in August 1970. He was further convicted of possession of a handgun and ammunition kept at his address, which also contained a black magic altar beneath a massive mural of a diabolical vampiric face that had featured in various newspapers, not least full front page coverage of the Hornsey Journal, 28 September 1973.


Farrant received a prison sentence of four years and eight months. Two libel suits brought by him resulted in the News of the World (who had quoted his girlfriend's claims that his publicity-seeking antics were compensation for him being a failure as a lover) failing to produce their principal defence witness due to Farrant making sure she remained in her native France, and him losing against the Daily Express (who had accused him of being a black magician and also of being insane) where £20,000 court costs were awarded against him. He had also brought suits against Canon Pierce Higgins and Dennis Wheatley (who sadly died prior to the case) that failed. In the News of the World action, which he won on a technicality, he was awarded the derisory sum of £50 and ordered to pay costs. The newspaper’s star witness who failed to appear for their defence was Martine de Sacy, his ex-girlfriend who had been identified as the naked female in the infamous “nude rituals trial” at the Old Bailey in June 1974. He persuaded her not to make an appearance at court causing the newspaper to lose its star witness. 

Farrant's blatant exploitation was a parody aimed at garnering maximum publicity. It fooled nobody, but, unfortunately, his concocted claims gave the press something sensational, ie "naked virgins," to write about. This is what an article in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 15 October 1971, recorded:

"Despite a warning from police that he could be prosecuted, occultist David Farrant said this week he might return to Highgate Cemetery to 'exorcise a vampire' and fight a black magic sect. In the early hours of last Friday Mr Farrant, who is founder of the British Occult Society [sic], performed an exorcism ceremony involving six other young men and two naked girls at a chapel in the cemetery. After the ceremony, one of the girls claimed she saw a shadowy figure which Mr Farrant said was the cemetery's vampire, 'the king of the undead.' ... Armed with a crucifix, a bible, herbs such as camomile, dill and garlic, and holy water taken from St Joseph's Church in Highgate Hill, and accompanied by six other society members, he had climbed over the cemetery wall just before midnight ... etc."

Later in the article one of the alleged naked females is identified as Farrant's girlfriend Martine de Sacy. The newspaper reported: "He denied the ceremony involved sexual practices." Then it quoted Farrant explaining: "That's black magic, which involves getting your rewards before you die — wealth, prosperity, sex. Christian belief is that you get your reward after death. The elaborate things involved in the exorcism were purely symbolic, the most important thing was to have people present who believed in God and the bible. The girls were naked as symbols of purity — they were virgins."

This, at least, is what he had told the Hampstead & Highgate Express in October 1971. Four years later, however, he told readers of New Witchcraftmagazine, issue #4, something far removed from the supposed exorcism with naked girls which he had stated did not involve sexual practices, as had been told by him to the Hampstead & Highgate Express. When describing the same ceremony is an unedited article penned at the behest of the magazine's editor from his prison cell, David Farrant now claimed:

"The intrinsic details regarding this part of the ceremony however, must remain secret; suffice it is to say here that the entity (in its now omniscient form) was to be magically induced by the ritual act of blood-letting, then brought to visible appearance through the use of the sex act. ... I disrobed the Priestess and myself and, with the consecrated blood, made the secret sigils of the Deity on her mouth, breast, and all the openings of her body. We then lay in the Pentagram and began love-making, all the time visualizing the Satanic Force so that it could — temporarily — take possession of our bodies."

On his 1975 article, Farrant later recalled (to his friend and collaborator Kevin Demant): "When I had time to spare I wrote a few articles. I sent one to New Witchcraft which was used, and I mean, every single word was used. It was written on old scraps of paper, anything I could get together because obviously, they wouldn't have given me official writing paper to do that, apart from which, it would have been stopped anyway. That was smuggled out and used. I also wrote one for Penthouse, because ... they'd played up the sex angle in court and all the papers were implying ... I thought, well, it's a magazine, they could be half-serious. I mean, bloody hell, it was sold in W H Smiths!"

At this point, Farrant had contrived an infamous persona where necromantic diabolism overshadowed his earlier attempts to mimic Seán Manchester. He adopted a phoney form of witchcraft where he manufactured quasi-satanic stunts for the benefit of the media, principally newspapers. These cost him his liberty and he ended up being sentenced to four years and eight months imprisonment in 1974. Though similar publicity stunts ensued upon his release, he would never again catch the attention of the media in the same way as he did prior to and during his notorious trials at the Old Bailey, and slowly returned to the bandwagon he originally boarded in 1970. Once again, David Farrant began to impersonate Bishop Seán Manchester, having temporarily publicly eschewed the trappings of manufactured devilry. In May 2011, he published pictures of himself dressed as a Christian priest carrying a bible. Such impersonation, needless to say, is illegal in the United Kingdom.


David Farrant was arrested in December 2002 and charged with the harassment of Seán Manchester, Sarah Manchester, Diana Brewester, and Keith Maclean. The Crown Prosecution Service did not proceed with their case, however, due to him taking great care to stagger the frequency of incidents so that they fell just outside the remit for the minimum number of offences required per month for a case to be successfully prosecuted via the precise charge brought under the section of the Protection from Harassment Act invoked. This was confirmed by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Had the police merely charged him with sending malicious mail, Farrant would have undoubtedly been found guilty but his punishment could only be a fine. Whereas the actual charges for harassment brought by the police were more serious, and if the CPS had allowed the case to be taken to trial it could have resulted in a custodial sentence.

Diana Brewester sadly died of cancer in December 2003, having been harassed and libelled by Farrant in her latter years. Farrant invariably sends his malicious pamphlets to his victims. One such item contained Diana Brewester's private address which he published and circulated viathe pamphlet. He also published false and disgusting claims about her private sexual life, none of which were true. Farrant has absolutely no regard for the way he maligns people, steals, lies and causes grief to whomsoever he pleases. Throughout his life he has not shown any remorse for his behaviour and crimes. Indeed, he has always sought to capitalise on them; bragging to the press and regurgitating them in self-published pamphlets crammed with libel and copyright infringement. His entire life has been predicated on the execution of grievances, vendettas and depraved pranks. Apart from a week or two as a porter in late 1970, he has received state benefits throughout his entire life. Yet this is the man who has incredibly managed to hoodwink some latter-day academics, writers and journalists.

Wendy Jane Paterson is the CEO and Founder at House of Isis (2003 to the present) and speaks from her own personal experience. Her observation appeared on Facebook (16 January 2014):

"David Farrant is nothing more than a silly alcoholic. I've met him on numerous occasions and he is a drug infested alckie. As for Della, their flat is flea ridden pit of filth."

David Farrant openly worships Lucifer, as seen four minutes into this video clip — the naked female is Colette Sully aka Colette Gee whom Farrant married three years after his release from prison in 1976. She became his second wife, and espoused a form of witchcraft. They divorced after a short marriage. He did not remarry  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCSrqSsaJw



Farrant would later claim a third marriage to a certain "Della Vallicrus" (not her real name), but this turned out to be a sham, as "Della" (real name thought to be Anna Hinton) is believed to be a lesbian practitioner on the Left-hand Path with a disturbed history of seeing "ghosts" and fantasising.

At least two people Ramsey Campbell relied upon for material regarding Seán Manchester for the expanded version of his 2015 essay are strongly connected to Farrant, the source of all the antipathy.

Those drawn to the dark arts, no matter what the excuse, will eventually find emissaries of the dark arts being drawn to them. It would appear to be the case with that author of so much gratuitous horror, blood and gore in print, Ramsey Campbell ...


The Voice of Arrogance



Early on in Ramsey Campbell's essay about Seán Manchester, he opines: "Having met him twice on television, where I was invited as the voice of reason, I can confirm that no frenzied fluttering is visible." The reference to frenzied fluttering comes from The Highgate Vampire where its author is describing "a force so dight with fearful fascination that even legend could not contain it," and speaks of his revelations as "hopefully the last frenzied flutterings." Such hope proved to be forlorn.

Campbell's arrogance, however, knows no bounds. He believes he was present as "the voice of reason" when on the first occasion he was on the programme, separately, to flog his lurid horror stories in paperback. The two men did not speak to each other beyond, perhaps, a quick "Hello," if even that. Campbell filled an entirely different slot in the programme which had nothing to do with Seán Manchester's much longer interview with both presenters, and later the public ('phoning in their questions) on live television.

How, then, was Ramsey Campbell "invited as the voice of reason"?

The second occasion was a Saturday night live television appearance with Seán Manchester as the guest speaker. The host of the show asked the questions while the studio audience listened. Some questions were put to the evening's special guest, Seán Manchester, by audience members. No questions came from Ramsey Campbell who remained quietly in his seat. His presence was due to the fact that most of the audience comprised all sorts of people with an interest in the supernatural, vampires and Gothic tales etc. Seán Manchester did not notice Campbell seated among the large audience, much less did the two men meet or indeed speak to one another.

Once again, how was Ramsey Campbell "invited as the voice of reason"?

Campbell quickly gets around to telling readers of his essay: 

"I ordered a copy of The Highgate Vampire to review in Shock Xpress. In a letter to the publishers of that august tome, Sean Manchester protested that a 'completely revised and updated' version was about to appear, though he seemed most put out that any version should by analyzed by 'a pulp fiction writer ... a bizarre and singularly inappropriate reviewer ... a hack like Campbell'."

Quite.


Thursday 22 November 2018

A Question of Representation



If there is one thing that Ramsey Campbell has harped on about more than anything else over the decades since he read the book, it is a photographic representation of what the vampire looked like after being exorcised. The image appears on page 142 of the first edition of The Highgate Vampire.


This representational picture gets Ramsey Campbell agitated and excited like nothing else. He regards it as his coup de grâce in his mission to dismember and destroy Seán Manchester's book.

Nota Bene: Dictionary definition of the word representation — one that represents; such as an artistic likeness or image, ie a substitution. (Ramsey Campbell, please note).

Seán Manchester took the image from an old copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland which he had hung onto for sentimental reasons. In the early 1960s, he had a robust and friendly correspondence with the magazine's editor, Forrest J Ackerman, which, a quarter of a century later, led to him requesting use of the magazine's image for his foray into telling the full and unexpurgated account of his Highgate Vampire investigation. Permission was granted and the picture appears in the 1985 edition bearing the caption: "A representation of the vampire in its final moments of dissolution."

"It is nothing of the kind," protests Ramsey Campbell. "It is an early makeup by Dick Smith for an American television production of Dorian Gray, and perhaps that is why it has vanished from the reprint." It was dropped by Seán Manchester in the revised and significantly expanded edition of The Highgate Vampire, which, as Campbell of all people should know is not a "reprint," with good reason. It was no longer necessary to provide a dramatic and sensational picture to illustrate what the vampire looked like in its final moments because the expanded edition, unlike the first edition, contained multiple images from a strip of 35mm film of the actual vampire decomposing. 


The first edition published a rather dark and obscure image from the same roll of film, but so close  to the case itself (closed three years prior) it was considered imprudent to reveal anything too stark for very obvious legal reasons. Farrant's trials at the Old Bailey were still relatively fresh in people's minds. However, one thing is clear about the pictures of the representation and the real thing. They are very different. The captions leave the reader in no doubt that they are not one and the same.

Having provided the address on YouTube where the Dick Smith makeup process can be found, Campbell proceeds to nit-pick about how one of the genuine images in the 1991 edition is "balder" and "has been superimposed onto a different background." Quite what that would achieve is not explained, but the sequence on the original 35mm roll shows the exorcised vampire disintegrating.

Once again, Campbell overlooks the fact that the images themselves have been viewed by all manner of people, and television production companies inspected the film in negative. This was done when Seán Manchester was interviewed for an hour long programme in the UK, and also for a documentary film made by a foreign television company. They had no quibble over the background and understood from the book's narrative exactly what was happening, which explained why everything was changing from frame to frame. Campbell, of course, dismisses all things supernatural.

He ends his penultimate paragraph, his coup de grâce, with this sarcastic salvo:

"But enough, I should respect Seán Manchester's aversion to publicity."

This about a man who, unlike Ramsey Campbell himself, has long since ceased to permit interviews or partake in the media; indeed, a man who shuns publicity now it no longer serves a purpose. 


More Farrant Lite than Farrantite



Ramsey Campbell makes very little mention of David Farrant in his essay about Seán Manchester, which is strange in view of the fact that ultimately the source of much enmity communicated about the latter via others, notably Anthony Hogg, springs solely from the utterances of Farrant. What passing reference that is made is purely for use as a brickbat against the subject in question with Farrant receiving a sympathetic treatment in as much as he receives any treatment at all. Such gems as him having "the temerity to found the British Psychic and Occult Society, apparently in opposition to our investigator's British Occult Society, before (according to Manchester's account) he is convicted of interfering with corpses and sent to Blunderstone Prison." Is that what Seán Manchester wrote?

Here is the relevant extract from The Highgate Vampire (British Occult Society, 1985):

"In July 1976, almost exactly halfway through his sentence, Farrant was released on parole from Blunderstone Prison in Suffolk." That is found on page 80 of the first edition, and on page 82 of the same edition: "For the record, David Farrant was found guilty of malicious damage to a memorial, evidenced by chalk symbols on the floor of a mausoleum, and offering indignities to remains of the dead which was the result of being photographed next to a vandalised coffin in the terrace catacombs." He served his sentence in various prisons, Blunderstone being the last. These crimes resulted in two years of Farrant's four years and eight months sentence. In the first edition its author did not feel the other offences (not related directly to Highgate Cemetery) for which Farrant was found guilty, necessary for his narrative. The enlarged second edition, however, does include them.

Another mention is made of Farrant in Campbell's essay: "David Farrant has a last confrontation with him in a wood before they 'each dissolved into the night's shadows in opposite directions'." He is now quoting from Seán Manchester's From Satan To Christ (Holy Grail, 1988), a story about salvation.

The book was ridiculed in Shock Xpress, and both editions of Ramsey Campbell, Probably.

Does Seán Manchester describe a "confrontation"? This is what we actually find on page 73:

"The venue was a mist-shrouded Highgate Wood. He dodged between the trees and when convinced that I was alone made himself available. We strolled along the isolated paths until a seat was found in the middle of the wood. Only words were parried, and they were softly spoken. As night's canopy spread over the desolate spot bebeath the trees where we talked, I could not repress a sense of pity as the nervous Farrant gradually stammered his grievance. ... We spoke for several minutes in that fatal place still haunted by the memory of witchcraft, and indeed once the scene of his own peculiar brand of devilry. Walking slowly towards the exit I think we both sensed that this was our final meeting."

And so it transpired.

A final mention is made of Farrant in the essay: "Seán [Manchester] still has books in him. 1997 saw The Vampire Hunter's Handbook. ... Admittedly, it's the one about David Farrant and an identity crisis. The Handbook's author asks us 'Who knows what went through [Farrant's] mind as he listened to my improvised harmonic structures, accompanied by a perspiring rhythm section in that dimly lit venue for modern jazz aficionados?' Who indeed."

Once again, Campbell carefully omits a crucial piece of information, ie Seán Manchester was totally unaware of David Farrant's presence in the audience. He only learned about it at a later date.

Ramsey Campbell's raison d'être throughout his treatment of Seán Manchester, especially in Ramsey Campbell, Probably, is taking things out of context while omitting a crucial qualifying item which either makes sense of the extract, or completely alters what would be deduced when it is isolated.


Wednesday 21 November 2018

Demons on the Brain



"What kind of person would be the best for the job of vampire killer?" These are the opening words to the chapter ergo essay on Seán Manchester in Ramsey Campbell, Probably. "The narrator reveals more about himself than vampirism," says Campbell. "This at least it has in common with The Highgate Vampire, Sean (now Seán) Manchester's account of his experiences with vampirism."

Seán Manchester, of course, was always Seán Manchester, but certain formats in the past were not always able to facilitate the fada accent over the "a" without which the forename sounds phonetically the same as the word "seen." Such minutiae appears to be of importance to Campbell, ie that most publishers printed the author's name without a fada over the second vowel in his Christian name. Thus nit-picking plagues Campbell's commentary on Seán Manchester. It is really quite tedious.

What is apparent from the outset is exactly how much of Seán Manchester's The Highgate Vampire Campbell is prepared to quote at length. He literally retells the entire book, annotating it with churlish remarks of his own, and he gets very personal in the process; mentioning Seán Manchester's nanny, and, more unpleasantly, his wife about whom he has nothing particularly nice to say. You would have thought Campbell would have learned his lesson after having defamed the lady in an earlier publication in the previous century, and being obliged to apologise in writing at the behest of his publisher. Yet he ploughs on with one error after another, even attributing the wrong university degree to her. He half-remembers, half-forgets things; relying on sources who know even less than him. 

"Our man is unable to prevent Sarah from undergoing an impregnation by a demon," Campbell claims rather alarmingly. All complete twaddle and utter poppycock, of course. This is something more redolent of one of Campbell's own horror fiction paperbacks. It was not written by Seán Manchester. 

At this point in Campbell's narrative he feebly explains: "In the original version of this review my mind must have been clouded by some demonic influence, causing me to misread Manchester's hypnotic prose." Campbell is now referring to the libellous allegation he made in Shock Xpress in 1991. He remains unrepentant, and probably resentful of having been forced to apologise all those years ago. 

Here the narrator reveals more about himself than "some demonic influence." And Ramsey Campbell's essay tells us far more about Ramsey Campbell than it does about Seán Manchester.


Bishop Seán Manchester with his wife Sarah.


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