Amateur Vampire

Hunters

The mass vampire hunt at Highgate Cemetery on 13 March 1970, following reports in local and national newspapers, plus a television interview with various witnesses earlier that evening on British television, led to a spate of amateur vampire hunters inflicting themselves on the area with home-made stakes, crosses, garlic, holy water, but very little knowledge about how to deal with the suspected undead if they encountered it. The VRS president had made an appeal on the Today programme at 6.00 pm to request the public not to get involved, nor put into jeopardy the investigation already in progress. Not everyone heeded his words. Over the following months a wide variety of independent vampire hunters descended on the graveyard ~ only to be frightened off by its eerie atmosphere and what they believed might have been the vampire. Some were quickly arrested by police patrolling the area. The public were advised that a full-scale investigation was taking place. However, individual efforts by those merely seeking thrills served only to endanger all concerned and frustrate the official hunt. Simon Wiles and John White armed themselves with a crucifix and a sharpened stake, and set off to see if they could locate the vampire’s tomb. Like others who followed in their wake, they were arrested by police who found their rucksack and its contents: an eight inch long wooden stake, sharpened to a point. White later explained at Clerkenwell Court: “Legend has it that if one meets a vampire, one drives a stake through its heart.” He was wearing a crucifix round his neck and Wiles had one in his pocket. They were eventually discharged. Thus began a trend.

Alan Blood.

A 25-year-old history teacher from Billericay, Alan Blood, also descended on Highgate after seeing the Today report, but he at least had the good sense not to enter the infamous graveyard. Though described by the Evening News, 14 March 1970, as a “vampire expert,” Blood, in a later interview given to the Hampstead and Highgate Express, 20 March 1970, admitted that he was no such thing. “I have taken an interest in the black arts since boyhood, but I’m by no means an expert on vampires,” he told them. Following a drink in the local pub, Blood joined a crowd of onlookers outside the cemetery’s north gate, but he did not enter.

The VRS president (on the Today programme, 13 March 1970) warned against one man’s declared intention of staking the vampire by himself, which went “against my explicit wish for his own safety.” Police searching the cemetery inevitably arrested amateur vampire hunters throughout that year. Many were found to be in possession of home-made stakes and crosses.

It should have ended at that point. Several people had either been cautioned or arrested in the area when discovered to be engaged in amateur vampire hunting. Nothing more was heard of them once they retreated into their former obscurity, but some persisted with alarming consequences. A chapter is devoted to the disturbing phenomenon of amateur vampire hunting in The Highgate Vampire (Gothic Press, 1991).

The icy path beyond Highgate Cemetery’s notorious north gate.