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The Highgate Vampire Etc.

stu neville

stu neville

Commissioner.
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Mar 9, 2002
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Given the recent death of David Farrant, coupled with renewed interest in the Highgate saga and the personalities involved (not to mention this community now being beyond the influence of a publisher's custard-spined legals), we have decided it's high time we reopened the relevant threads.

I will be reviewing said threads first in case there is anything outright dodgy, and then bumping and re-opening.
 
I'll add that in order to avoid any entanglements, we'd ask our members to be particularly careful about respecting the copyright of words and images and not alleging illegal conduct without exceptionally strong grounds.
 
It'll be no fun without a Bishop to bait.
 
As someone who came along just after that whole farrago, I never quite understood it. Can anybody give me the rundown?
 
I was here for it all and never really understood it either!

A query about Sean Manchester and his church attracted the attention of the man himself, who posted under the alias Exorcistate, speaking in the third-person about himself and all his works. Farrantists and assorted sock-puppets showed up for a confused and protracted scragging-match, which started in Highgate and extended to the alleged grave of Robin Hood in Kirklees. A lady named Barbara Green was very interested in that place.

Anyone trying to comprehend it all would discover that the same conflict was being played out all over the internet on sites owned by the protagonist and antagonist as well as any message boards which drew their attention during their vanity name-searches.

For some, it became a blood-sport without the gratification of much blood seeming to be spilled.

Manchester had won a case against a tv shock-jock and felt empowered to threaten anyone who did not show him "respect." FT's lawyers were easily intimidated and the case was banned from discussion.

I was not entirely sorry. I hope that mention of the name does not bring it all back! :exor:
 
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JamesWhitehead said:
I was here for it all and never really understood it either!

A query about Sean Manchester and his church attracted the attention of the man himself, who posted under the alias Exorcistate, speaking in the third-person about himself and all his works. Farrantists and assorted sock-puppets showed up for a confused and protracted scragging-match, which started in Highgate and extended to the alleged grave of Robin Hood in Kirklees. A lady named Barbara Green was very interested in that place.

Anyone trying to comprehend it all would discover that the same conflict was being played out all over the internet on sites owned by the protagonist and antagonist as well as any message boards which drew their attention during their vanity name-searches.

For some, it became a blood-sport without the gratification of much blood seeming to be spilled.

Manchester had won a case against a tv shock-jock and felt empowered to threaten anyone who did not show him "respect." FT's lawyers were easily intimidated and the case was banned from discussion.

I was not entirely sorry. I hope that mention of the name does not bring it all back! :exor:
Click to expand...

I thought the whole episode was worthwhile because both Manchester and Farrant, for all their sins, were so relentlessly focused on pushing their own accounts of Highgate events that they would answer questions from pretty much anybody who asked. Yes, those responses were often irrascible, obfuscatory and very, very long, but tidbits were squeezed out. As I said in reply to the posts concerning Farrant's recent death on the RIP thread, I enjoyed having these larger than life characters play out their feud--and some of the flunkies (the non-fictional, non-socky ones) were also worth a read.

Note: The problem we (the mods) have recently discovered is that it appears that one of the two main threads concerning Sean Manchester (itself the product of a big merging) has been deleted—and not by any of the moderators as far as we can tell. It looks as if ADMIN may have acted under the instruction of the publishers, but it's impossible to say for certain.

I've gathered all we have in one place, but a lot has been lost. It's a shame as I seldom permanently delete anything; there's simply no need to do it.
 
Yithian said:
we'd ask our members to be particularly careful about respecting the copyright of words
Click to expand...
Unlike the Bishop himself, with whom the Guardian diarist (back in 2002) urgently wished to discuss certain similarities with preceding and similarly-themed if obscure literature.

Guardian Diary, Matthew Norman Fri 29 Nov 2002

Here is the relevant entry in full -

· There is no more from our Book of the Month, Old Catholic bishop Sean Manchester's 1985 bloodsucking classic The Highgate Vampire. All extracts are suspended until our lord bishop replies to Marina's email concerning striking similarities between another of his meisterworks, The Vampire Hunter's Companion, and the 1928 blockbuster The Vampire: His Kith And Kin, by another Old Catholic priest, the Rev Montague Summers.
Click to expand...

A Google search for 'Sean Manchester Guardian Diary' will turn up the rest. It fitted in here quite hilariously at the time. :chuckle:
 
This is a long shot, but is the original "The Haunting of Hell House" text, published in New Witchcraft 4, 1975 available somewhere?
new_witchcraft_1975_v1_n4.jpg
 
Yithian said:
: The problem we (the mods) have recently discovered is that it appears that one of the two main threads concerning Sean Manchester (itself the product of a big merging) has been deleted—and not by any of the moderators as far as we can tell. It looks as if ADMIN may have acted under the instruction of the publishers, but it's impossible to say for certain.
Click to expand...
This must have happened prior to about 2014 when I took over admin duties: Jen Ogilivie was content admin around then but technical admin was Dennis staff, not mag staff (I was supermoderator then but neither Jen nor I were told about a lot of the decisions made).

As Yith has said we rarely if ever fully delete important stuff: if need be we archive it.
 
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