RIP + David Farrant 1946 - 2019 +

The Human Touch Blog ~
David Farrant

No Sense Of Sleeplessness

© Della Farrant

Very, very late again last night: in fact, didn’t get to bed till traffic started moving on the road, and by then it was light.  But I like working by night.  Everything is quiet; most people are asleep and nothing to disturb you.  Della was asleep in the back room, so in turn I didn’t disturb her.

She has to start getting ready for work about 8, but it never really surprises her to find me still working.  I don’t do it that often; only when there’s projects to get finished which can’t be done so easily in the with disturbances in the daytime.  Phone ringing, messages coming in; screaming cat to feed, book orders to answer, other mail to deal with . . . the list seems endless.  I’m not complaining though.  I realize that’s just the price of being well known in the paranormal field.  But it’s a price that also brings a lot of personal responsibility and commitment – commitment not only to the work itself, but towards those people who approach me and whose support has enabled me to have my work recognized in the first instance.  After all, if people take the trouble to attend my Talks and read my books, that itself is sufficient to bring about a sense of ‘oneness’ with others who share similar interests.

Having confessed to my occasional ‘sleep patterns’ (although some might argue with the word ‘occasional’ here!), it should not be assumed that I spend the day having to catch up on missed sleep. No.  Not at all.  Believe it or not, I am often up well before lunchtimes, so in that respect, I probably get less sleep than most people!  Its just that I take sleep at different times to ordinary people and so no sense of ‘sleeplessness’ ever applies!

Anyway, that particular project is finished now, and so I can relax just a little.  Until the next one comes up, which it inevitably will!

But in the midst of all the serious stuff, life often provides some lighter moments: some would say ‘amusing’!

It is a well known that I have a well known ‘stalker’ on the Internet who follows me everywhere with a fanatical obsession that could reasonably be compared to the Third Reich mentality that provided Adolf Hitler with such power during his rise to fame that resulted in the Second World War.  Of course, in the greater scheme of things, this was only a temporal power (we all know what happened to him!), but it was all too real during the process in which it ‘reared it ugly head’.

Of course, there was no Internet in that dark period of human history, and the black propaganda had to be spread in other ways.  (State control of the Press and over the right of the individual to believe what they wanted, to name an obvious two) But the underlying principle remains the same . . .  keep repeating a lie often enough, and in the end some people come to believe it.

One story currently being spread by this particular individual (and most people realize who this bonky person is) is that this author (that is myself, David Farrant) ‘colluded’ with a friend of his (whom he refers to as “The Eggmanne” or “Mad Arthur” when not giving the person’s real name) to ‘hoax’ a ghost story at London’s Highgate Cemetery back in 1970.  He states that the ‘Eggmanne’ has secret tape recordings that can ‘prove’ this and passed to himself (the bonky individual) as ‘evidence’.

Well, despite the fact that these tape recordings have never been produced (and this has not been through lack of trying on my part), it would seem that this claim only serves to back up my original observation and example given just previously i.e. tell a lie often enough, and people will come to believe it, etc.

But perhaps I could  set the record straight here . . . by simply telling the truth!

I was living in a converted basement (or ‘coal cellar’ as the bonky one keeps referring to it) for a short period in very late 1969 when the ‘Eggmanne’ and his wife kindly put me up.  It was after my first wife had moved out of my Highgate flat, and I was awaiting the tenancy to expire on another flat in Highgate for which I had signed a new Tenancy Agreement.  So I lived at their house just across the road while this was in the process.

There was absolutely no ‘bad feeling’ between these people and myself, although the ‘bonky person’ I’m referring to often used to visit their home there., which is on one of the earlier occasions I first met him.  But as the basement was self-contained, I frequently used to entertain friends there and some of these just happened to be young ladies. (Yes, no evasion here, some of them used to stay overnight!).

One of these people was a young lady, I will just refer to as ‘FB’.

Often we would be awakened during the night to hear the sound of ‘crackling’ or ‘electrical echo’s’ which seemed to come from above; somewhere on the ceiling.  We didn’t take too much notice of this, but my suspicions were slightly aroused on day when the ‘Eggmanne’ confided in me that that particular room was ‘haunted’.  By whom or ‘what’ exactly, he did not say – indeed he only mentioned this in the first place when I happened to mention these spasmodic nocturnal noises.

Then one day, I was upstairs having coffee with the ‘Eggmanne’s’ wife and I also mentioned these noises to her and the fact of what her husband had said about the ‘ghost’.

Well, she burst out laughing, and eventually told me that her husband had been trying to get recordings of me with young ladies who I took back for the night.  I asked her ‘why’ and she said he was ‘just a pervert’ and that I should know what he was like.  She also said that he used to take pictures using a powerful tele-photo lens which he had focused on girls sharing a flat which over-looked their bathroom window.

So, no ‘ghosts’ whatsoever! Just her husband trying to satisfy his own rather peculiar perversions!

End of story really.  I never heard any of these tapes, but would certainly like to do so.

When I told ‘FB’ what the real cause was, she just thought it was funny.  I seem to remember her saying that ‘thank God it was only a portable tape recorder’ as he’d sure ‘seen something worthwhile’ had he ‘managed to get  a camera down there’!

But so the Internet nonsense goes on.  As I said earlier, at least it provides some amusement away from Highgate Cemetery and its alleged vampires!

Well, that’s it for tonight everyone,

David

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