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David Farrant

To Escape The Racket! . . .

You asked me how I met that ‘Bonky person’, Cat.

I will tell you here because many others have asked the same question and don’t believe his claims that we met for the very first time in March 1970.

Well, I first met the person in late 1967 in a pub called the Woodman in Highgate. I had brought Mary back from Spain to London in March 1967 after she had discovered that she was pregnant. We got married in a Roman Catholic church in September 1967 and it was around this time that we used to frequent the Woodman pub just across the road from where we were living in Highgate.
Mary had become friendly with a young mother nicknamed ‘Zibby’ who was married to a man named Tony and sometimes the four of us would go into the Woodman and spend a few hours there.
Now, at this time, a small trio jazz band used to play in the Saloon bar from a make-shift wooden platform at the back. There was somebody on drums, an electric guitarist and another individual who played the saxophone – or tried to play the saxophone!

I describe this in my recently published autobiography when I say . . .
“The sound was amplified by two huge speakers either side of this, and so was pretty deafening in the somewhat confined area. This group consisted of just three people: one on an electric guitar, a drummer and a ‘lead’ who played – or attempted to play – the saxophone. This person sometimes tried ‘solo’s’, although the racket was so off-key and intense that when he started many people would pick up their drinks and make for the public bar which was divided from the Saloon bar by a small glass partition door. They did not return until the noise had subsided; and even then, some people chose not to return to the Saloon bar at all to escape the racket!

It was during one such social evening that I learned that the bombastic character on the saxophone was a friend of Tony’s. He was called P.S.M. (although he hated the name ‘Patrick’ but answered to the nickname of “Bosley”), a somewhat over-weight character with a high-pitched voice, who dressed in a suit resembling undertaker’s clothes. On another occasion I learned that he had an avid interest in ‘ghosts’ and the supernatural, although he was later to say that his ‘speciality’ was vampires. He suggested that we must all meet up again when he wasn’t playing , and have a chat about the subject”.

[Adapted from “David Farrant ; In the Shadow of the Highgate Vampire” February 2009]

I should point out, that this character I was describing was very ‘mean’, and never once did I see him buy anybody a drink. He seemed fascinated with myself (Tony had obviously told him I investigated ghosts and the paranormal) and he would frequently try to get me onto the subject of ‘ghosts’. In fact, I told him very little as I simply didn’t trust his motivations; or come to that, believe any of the yarns he used to spin about ‘vampires’! All this took place in the autumn of 1967 and continued on into 1968.

So I hope I have answered the question put to me by Cat. No doubt Cat (or that wretched ‘Overseer’) will get back to my if they are not satisfied (they always do!).

Now . . . I have some ‘breaking news’ about the ‘Yorkshire Pudding’. ‘Breaking’ is probably the key word here as I have just been ‘leaked’ some papers that absolutely confirm what a little ‘unchristian liar’ that person is. I kid thee all not! But I’ve decided to hold everybody in suspense at the moment until I get further confirmation (although I don’t personally consider any is needed now!).
Stay with me folks and I shall reveal ALL!
David

NEWS UPDATE:

Cat has opened a new Blog called “The Cat’s Miaow” – or should that read ‘satarical Blog’!
Craig can you please colour this link into blue and make sure it works, you lazy so and so! http://baldrycat.blogspot.com/ Thanks David…done
No time for another Blog today, but before I go, allow me to ‘lessen some of the suspense’ a little:

Yesterday I received a complete manuscript written by a would be lady author about the so-called Highgate Vampire case. Bonky is mentioned in it, as am I – well, you could say that I am the ‘star’ of it! Its pretty vindictive and bitter, but at least the person had the courtesy to refer to myself as the President of the British Psychic and Occult Society and The Highgate Vampire Society (well I guess she couldn’t say otherwise really as she used to handle all the membership forms!).
Anyway. more to follow on all this.

Right now I’m expecting Gareth.
David

PS Poor innocent little girl ‘caught in the middle’ . . . like hell!
Baldry’s Cat’s Litter Tray

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10 Responses

  1. Sorry Cat
    I forgot your link yesterday. I have asked Craig to do in an ‘NB’ to my main post.
    Miaow!
    David

  2. Hi, David,
    How are you. I’m intrigued by the revelations about Bonky’s post-filming nuptials in H.CeM. No wonder he is known as ‘bonky’. Any idea who the canera operator was ? Please don’t say it was you :-]
    Rob

    1. Hi yourself, Rob. Where have you been?!
      No, that home-made vampire film (circa 1969) was nothing to do with myself. I knew nothing about it until I was first invited to the ‘private showing’ over tea and coffee. It had been made in 8 mm cine film in colour (it had no sound) but I really don’t know who the camera operator was.
      I do know that this film was shown to other students, and it was explained to one of them (who I won’t name here for obvious reasons) that the scene at the end (showing a ‘decomposing vampire’) was done by meansof using flour and paper mache, then ‘reversing’ the film after the flour had been blown away with a fan heater. This was the famous picture of the ‘staked’ vampire which was shown on national television on at least two occasions, and published all over the Internet and in books and magazines as ‘proof’ that vampires really existed! But the whole thing (the ‘decomposing vampire’ shots anyway) was done by using trick photography.
      In a Talk I gave in London on May 23rd 2007 someone in the audience actually verified that she had been told exactly the samething by somebody else who had been shown this film.
      Don’t get me wrong. If people want to believe in vampires, let them! (Hollywood do it all the time!).
      But ‘vampires’ just don’t exist. People who imitate them, may well do. Yet that’s surely another matter!
      Thanks Rob. Hope you’re liking the new house.
      For the moment,
      David

  3. Thanks for modifying that link Craig. Owe you a beer!
    Now I guess most of you would have seen the latest on Net Curtains” now (well you bloody well should have done now the links have been done properly by my dear friend Craig!) and realised that vetran war hero and ex-cop Don Ecker’s full report on the dubious Highgate ‘vampire’ case has now been published.
    The news is really that I offered to publish this report in official book form and Don Ecker AGREED! Well that really is good news. I think the world public should be made aware of Don’s report as it comes from a distinguished author and (former) police investigator whose views and findings are highly respected.
    So I shall be published all 3 of his reports together with all the illustrations and photograohs. To be realistic, this probably won’t be finished until early Autumn as I am working on two other books at the moment. But it will be done! I think most of you know me well enough by now to know that if I decide to do something, I just do it!
    I am not talking about an Internet copy here (well that’s already been done – its already on the Net) but a book-form publication that can be distributed and forwarded to interested people ‘physically’ – in hard copy form, that is.
    I am also toying with the idea of publishing a very recent manuscript that was recently sent to me (on myself no less!) with permission to use. OK.it was by some irrate female who considered that I had ‘jilted’ her, but it makes fascinating reading. (Gosh! all these ‘soap operas’ – I should be in the TV business!).
    Well, I should be in some sort of business. Really had my work cut out lately!
    But at the end of the day, I guess I’m just a humble author. But who knows . . . ??!!
    For the moment,
    David

  4. Hi David,
    I for one would be very interested in reading that manuscript. Any chance of some preview ‘snippets’ anytime soon. And, to be totally self-obsessed, does the pudding mention me in connection with those bloody duvorce papers in there ? Cheers for now.
    Rob

    1. Hi Rob
      Funnily enough Rob, there is no apparent mention of yourself having sent the Court papers in the manuscript about myself.
      Which goes to prove another thing really . . . That the Yorkshire Pudding only came out with this yarn after it had later been put into her head by Bonky.
      The defunct book is really self-incriminating, in that it really displays much more about the state of mind of the person who actually wrote it!
      For now
      David

  5. I have been reading Don Ecker’s comments about the 1970s BOS “duel” pamphlet and have a question. Who wrote the text of it? It waxes flowery about how Bonky “saw his adversary as a brother for the first time”. Did Bonky see you as a “brother”? Why would he write this? Did he discuss it with you? Certainly you must have had a discussion about the photo session you posed for. Please don’t tell me you posed for a photo which portrayed you as killing someone with a sword yet you did not feel it was in any way odd or perhaps ill advised! (And are you familiar with the term “bromance”?) Thank you in advance for working your fingers to the bone to provide comprehensive and candid answers to these questions even though you’d rather have a litre of wine and a nap. Miaow.
    NB: What’s your opinion of Michael Jackson?

  6. I will endeqavour to answer you a little later Cat, about that ‘duel’ and Bonky’s write up about it (yes, Bonky’s write up – not mine!).
    See a bit later,
    David
    PS You’re right about the ‘nap’ and the wine!

  7. I’m doing this from memory, Cat, not having the general question in front of me. Reason is, I’m working from two computers at the moment and its difficult (for me) to keep going from one to the other.
    You asked about the ‘duel’ in 1978 I believe and why he said ‘for a brief moment’ before I struck the ‘lethal blow’ he ‘saw me as a brother’. First, this was an ‘obituary notice’ that the person wrote about themselves – part of an on-going publicity stunt to the effect he had been ‘slain’ by myself in an occult duel that had supposedly taken place in Northern France. The purpose of this ‘Notice’ ( rather press release) was to attempt to raise money to get his body shipped back to England so that he could be laid to rest at ‘his beloved Glastonbury’! This Press release was widely circulated and resulted in myself getting a visit from the English Police asking me . . . ‘what I had done with his body’?!. All funny at the time, I suppose, but it was a bit embarrassing as the person in question wasn’t really dead!
    So why did I go along with the story (I hear you asking in your long-dead Cat brain?
    Because I had no idea exactly just how far the person was going to pursue the ‘duel story’. (At my expense, I should add!).
    Yes, I did pose for the original pictures for the ‘duel’, but only under the impression that these were for a book he was writing on myself and only for local release. He did not tell me he intended to release these to the National Press! The pictures were taken by a girlfriend of his at the time (whom I had first been introduced to in 1976) called “Katrina”.
    Should I have gone along with this publicity scheme? Clearly not.
    But I think many of us do a lot of things when we ere younger that we may regret in later years. I was no exception!
    I was not in any sense a ‘brother’ in any sense of the word – just somebody else that he was trying to exploit. (Well did exploit!).
    What did I think of Michael Jackson?
    The answer to that is more simple . . . “Bless him”!
    For the moment
    David

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