The Vampire Question

David Farrant claimed on 17 March 2015: "[Seán Manchester] believes in vampires literally – I don’t – so maybe that’s a big part of the problem!"

While Farrant was stammering on about his manufactured "ghost" and orchestrating a handful of fake letters to his local newspaper nobody was much bothered about him and he would have quickly become yesterday's news. Gerald Isaaman, editor of the Hampstead & Highgate Express, changed all that when he interviewed Seán Manchester in February 1970 and a balderised version of that conversation was published across the front page of the Ham & High on February 27th under the headline "Does a wampyr walk in Highgate?"

That led to Farrant immediately jumping on what he saw as a convenient publicity bandwagon by confusing his phoney "ghost" with the vampire that had been pursued by people like Seán Manchester and Peter Underwood since the mid-1960s. Tony Hill had Farrant living in his coal bunker at the time and Farrant persuaded Hill to take photographs of him "vampire hunting" with a cross and stake in Highgate Cemetery. These are some of them:

 

Farrant made clear his intentions in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 6 March 1970:

“Mr David Farrant, 24, who reported seeing a ghost last month, returned to the spot last weekend and discovered a dead fox. ‘Several other foxes have also been found dead in the cemetery,’ he said at his home in Priestwood Mansions, Archway Road, Highgate. ‘The odd thing is there was no outward sign of how they died. Much remains unexplained, but what I have recently learnt all points to the vampire theory as being the most likely answer. Should this be so, I for one am prepared to pursue it, taking whatever means might be necessary so that we can all rest'."

Seán Manchester was naturally concerned about the effect this interference at the cemetery in that context might have on his own investigation and publicly warned against Farrant's proposed lone vampire hunt a week later on television's "Today" programme, 13 March 1970.

Farrant was determined to grab the headlines for himself and five months later entered Highgate Cemetery armed with a cross and stake. He was alone but had an accomplice standing by in Highgate to alert the police by telephone of an intruder entering the graveyard. Farrant knew he had to get himself arrested if he wanted to command maximum attention.

He was duly arrested on the night of August 17th and later appeared on BBC television's "24 Hours" programme to not only confirm that he was hunting a vampire, but to also to reconstruct his actions of that night.

This report by Barrie Simmons, accompanied by several photographs showing Farrant stalking a vampire with a cross and stake, appeared in the Evening News the day after the TV interview in October 1970:

"I joined a macabre hunt among the desecrated graves and tombs for the vampire of Highgate Cemetery. ... David, 24, was all set, kitted out with all the gear required by any self-respecting vampire hunter. Clutched under his arm, in a Sainsbury's carrier bag, he held the tools of his trade. There was a cross made out of two bits of wood tied together with a shoelace and a stake to plunge through the heart of the beast. Vampire hunting is a great art. There is no point in just standing around waiting for the monster to appear. It must be stalked. So we stalked. Cross in one hand to ward off the evil spirits, stake in the other, held at the ready. David stalked among the vaults, past the graves, in the bushes and by the walls. When we had finished he started stalking all over again."

Farrant was always after publicity and Hill regrets that momentarily he assisted him in his ambition, but he knows he is telling the truth when he says he does not believe in vampires. He doesn't believe in ghosts either. Farrant has only ever believed in his own self-publicity and futile attention-seeking.