Seven hours into Boxing Day and it’s all so quiet. A solitary car passed by about half an hour ago but the birds had not woken up yet in darkened Highgate Wood across the road; only a lone fox could be heard barking intermittently from its sleeping confines.
But all in all it was a very quiet day . . . at least from a ‘physical’ point of view of having to expend energy on socialising or entertaining guests. There weren’t any! We had just decided to have an uneventful Christmas day instead.
In fact, things have been very hectic of late, although perhaps not quite as bad as events leading up to The Highgate Vampire Symposium 2015 which took place last July. That involved a lot of organization and work but, after all’s said and done, it was a huge success and well worth it. The whole thing was successfully filmed throughout its 7 hours of sessions, but ‘unofficially’ it went on much longer than that as speaker Patsy Langley led an hour and a half long “Ghost Walk” around Highgate and the borders of its famous cemetery afterwards and, after that, quite a few people came back to my Highgate-based home for further discussion.
There are approximately 3 sessions left now, and these will be especially interesting ones: we have Carrie Kirkpatrick, a local TV producer and presenter from Highgate who is well acquainted with the area and has participated in Pagan ceremonies in mysterious Queens Woods; ex-Highgate Cemetery tour guide Samantha Perrin who runs an Internet site devoted to research into the history of The Magnificent Seven and its slumbering occupants – including Highgate Cemetery. In the following session we also have paranormal author John Fraser, a longstanding member of three of the oldest paranormal research organisations in the UK (the SPR, The Ghost Club and ASSAP) sitting with American Broadcaster Gareth Davies, Founder of Mindset Central, and author and parapsychologist, Andy Mercer, whose writings and research into the paranormal and the Occult have appeared in his many published articles and books.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the final two or three Symposium sessions when these are put up, but they’ll be advertised well in advance on line so you don’t miss them.
All the best from Della and myself for the coming new year.
David (Farrant).