Hallowe’en 2012 at the Gatehouse, Highgate

Another Hallowe’en performance, but at least this year’s event was more interesting than others.

It was headed by Mickey Gocool, Founder of North London Paranormal Investigations, and took place at the Gatehouse pub in Highgate Village yesterday (Oct 27^th). Hallowe’en is not until Wednesday this year, but it was obviously scheduled a bit earlier to enable people to attend at the weekend.

I was invited to give a keynote talk on the so-called Highgate Vampire. Among the other speakers were Patsy Langley (Secretary of the British Psychic and Occult Society and author of the Highgate Vampire Casebook); Jason Hollis who is presently preparing a book on North London ghosts which is due for publication next year; Shar Ray, a private investigator and paranormal researcher who came over from America especially for the occasion, and Mickey Gocool himself who demonstrated some of his ghost hunting equipment and later led a long ghost walk through Highgate, taking in many of the haunted locales in the area.

It was a long but pleasant day, starting at 3pm and not finishing until after midnight. People were invited to wear fancy dress for the last part of the evening, and a mysterious figure, eerily resembling the Gatehouse ghost appeared seemingly out of nowhere at the appointed time.  He/she spoke to nobody, but appeared to be paying close attention to regulars of the pub, seemingly gleaning some information which was found greatly amusing for at some points he/she was observed to dissolve into great thundering guffaws of laughter whilst listening to the locals’ recollections of events in the late 1960s concerning myself – and a generally apparent lack of recollection regarding a certain other individual’s name. Who this mysteriously garbed person was still remains a mystery – although undoubtedly their presence was not entirely coincidental. He/she did not escape the numerous cameras present however, some of which managed to capture this tall, dark figure looming amongst the crowds. I must say, it ‘freaked a lot of people out’ to the extent that many locals were witnessed trying to converse with the silent figure and observed saying … ‘Take that bloody mask off – I don’t like talking to masks!!” It didn’t. The mysterious figure just kept observing and listening in on the renegade locals in question.

Anyway, it was getting on for midnight, at which point an impromptu party was suggested back at our house, which continued until around 4am.
Still getting over that! Well we all had a great time, and it was a day well spent – even if it did freak out a few locals. Well what do they expect living next door to the most notorious cemetery in Europe – and its only once a year these days.

Seriously, thanks to everyone who took part, and my thanks to Mickey Gocool and his team for hosting the proceedings so seriously throughout. In fact, Patsy Langley’s talk and my own were recorded separately with permission and I hope to be able to upload these to YouTube soon.  I understand that Mickey had arranged to have the whole event filmed separately (and there was a lot of media presence there to boot), so this will also be up online in the near future, including the live investigation of the basement and the ghost walk. So look out for all that as it will be online very soon.

So I shall leave you all with the following pictures from yesterday’s Hallowe’en at the Gatehouse, all of which are copyright property of the BPOS who were out in numbers last night, and which might give some indication of the atmosphere of the proceedings.

Enjoy!
David