A Man Called Welch

"An informal group of vampire researchers, including M J Welch [...] a sprinkling of others and myself had informally organised into a research group at the beginning of the Sixties. [...] The group grew and became a specialist unit within the British Occult Society in 1967 — the year I accepted presidency of that organisation. [...] The unit concerned with vampirology became autonomous in February 1970. It is known as the Vampire Research Society. [...] I remained oresident of the British Occult Society until its formal dissolution on 8 August 1988. It did not engage in the practice of occultism, but existed for the purpose of examing occult and paranormal phenomena. Dr Devendra P Varma and Peter Underwood were both life members. Many other notable authors and scholars were among the esteemed membership. Unfortunately, the nomeclature of the Society was usurped in the early Seventies by a curious individual, known as David Farrant, who was to gain considerable notoriety through his unashamed publicity-seeking and court appearances which culminated in an almost five year prison sentence in 1974." — †Seán Manchester (Introduction, The Vampire Hunter's Handbook, Gothic Press, 1997)

"Acclaimed war photographer Don McCullin and his younger brother Michael were pupils at the [Tollington Park] school, and in 1962 Don composed a very bizarre character portrait of an acquaintance of theirs who lived in Mercers Road, Upper Holloway. The photograph, titled 'The Headhunter of Highgate' or 'Collector of Death,' depicts a man perhaps in his late twenties, holding a bamboo cane in each hand surmounted by a human skull. This man, who strongly resembles a young Charles Manson, had been known to the McCullins since their schooldays. In the early years of their friendship he confessed fairly openly to the boys not only that he was 'heavily into black magic,' but that with a group of similarly inclined deviants he regularly obtained skulls and even whole skeletons in their coffins from Highgate and Kensal Green Cemeteries. According to an interview given in 1980, McCullin and his brother were fascinated by the bones, human hair, bottles of formaldehyde and coffin-opening toolkits which littered the rank-smelling basement flat." — "Della Farrant" (Haunted Highgate, page 29, The History Press, 2014).

"Della" is careful not to name the person referred to by her as "a modern-day body-snatcher" in her written account of 2014, but the following year she not only saw to it that he was identified by name, she had McCullin's portrait of him from the early 1960s projected onto a large screen in front of a paying audience. This leaves her wide open for a libel suit should Welch ever gain knowledge of what she has published in her book, and what she organised to happen at her symposium in 2015. 

Yet "Della Farrant" was not alive when any of these alleged occurrences were supposed to have taken place, and she has certainly not spoken to Welch himself. Indeed, it is in serious doubt that she has spoken to anybody remotely connected to the fabrications told to her by David Farrant. Where did he get the stories from? The man in whose cellar he was living from August 1969 until August 1970.

Welch did not live in "a basement flat," In fact, he has never lived in any kind of flat. In the 1960s he lived with his parents who owned a substantial Victorian house in Mercers Road, which they left in its entirety to their son. Welch was an only child. The man who allowed Farrant to occupy his coal bunker was constantly winding-up his tenant with wild stories of all sorts. They were not true, however, and it should be made abundantly clear that neither this man nor Farrant ever met Welch. Tony Hill, the person whose ground-floor flat's cellar in Archway Road provided a temporary habitat for Farrant, almost certainly learned of the name from an acquaintance of Seán Manchester who would talk about the history of the Vampire Research Society openly with anyone who showed an interest.

Don McCullin did not take his photograph of Welch until two years after Seán Manchester had already made a portrait showing him between two skulls. This was plagiarised by McCullin whom Seán Manchester has tried to contact on numerous occasions down the years to question the defamatory captions used by McCullen. Following the symposium in July 2015, he sent McCullin messages regarding the libellous attributions made by Paul Adams before an audience. Don McCullen did not respond. The simple truth of the matter is that McCullen, Adams and "Della" have all defamed Welch.

Eight minutes and twenty seconds into the video (click on the image to view), Paul Adams, a lackey of "Della Farrant" who organised "The Highgate Vampire Symposium," makes the following allegation:

"What we do know in the 1960s is that Highgate Cemetery was being utilised as a source for occult supplies in the form of stolen skulls and other body parts during the period of 1962 at the latest. In that year famous war photographer Don McCullin composed this astonishing photograph [a black and white image of a bearded man between two skulls is shown on the screen] of a local character, a man he knew by the name of Welch. Now according to interviews he's given over the years, Welch was heavily into black magic, and other contemporary sources confirmed that he was also involved in a small and highly secretive body-snatching ring operating in both Highgate and Kensal Green cemeteries."

The image attributed to Don McCullin emulates a photograph Seán Manchester took of Welch prior to McCullin. Our concern, however, is the appalling libel committed by Paul Adams' allegation, which is known to be completely false. Moreover, Welch did not give interviews, being someone who valued his privacy. Seán Manchester found Welch an introverted and unusual person, but he was most certainly not "a source for occult supplies" and most definitely not "heavily into black magic." Welch would have treated such a thing and anyone involved in it with contempt. He became aware of David Farrant when the latter fed a false story about Welch, a name learned from another party, to a Hornsey Journal newspaper reporter by the name of Roger Simpson. This is where the "occult supplies" and "black magic" fabrications have their origin. The journalist realised he had been led up the garden path by Farrant and no story was ever published. Indeed, it is from this point, partly due to the manufactured nonsense fed to them, that the Hornsey Journal started to gather incriminating evidence against Farrant.

It should be added that Paul Adams is a close friend and supporter of David Farrant who is seated to Adams' left on the stage in the video. This is the context of the defamation. Farrant, of course, was found guilty of graveyard vandalism, tomb desecration and black magic at Highgate Cemetery in 1974 and, together with other offences, was sentenced to four years and eight months imprisonment.

M J Welch is a name that crops up in The Vampire Hunter's Handbook (Gothic Press, 1997) as someone involved at the outset in an informal group researching strange phenomena in the early 1960s. Welch himself was a sceptic who held no beliefs and dismissed all practices, whether black magic or religious, in equal measure. In other words, he was an atheist who had no time for supernaturalism. He was, however, a student of taxidermy who also studied anatomy and osteology. His collection of preserved animals and bones of all sorts was considerable. His knowledge helped determine whether something was human, animal or other when certain discoveries were made. 

Being such a sceptic, and therefore unlikely to be impressionable, was also a useful control to have present when examining alleged haunted areas. Seán Manchester was introduced to him by a mutual friend who was an an enthusiastic researcher with an open mind and part of the same group.

Fifteen and a half minutes into the video, Paul Adams mentions the British Occult Society and falsely attributes its formation to David Farrant. In fact, the British Occult Society were among the first to expose Farrant as a publicity-seeking nuisance from 1970 onward. When Farrant fraudulently usurped the British Occult Society's name in the media the B.O.S. were equally quick to have retractions published. Adams alleges that this "involvement" of Farrant's led to him investigating the remains of a black magic ritualism at Highgate Cemetery. A picture is then screened of a Highgate mausoleum containing strange symbols. This was one of a number of photographs successfully used by the Crown in the summer of 1974 to find David Farrant guilty of tomb desecration and black magic. Farrant is then heard describing the picture as "proof of Satanists using Highgate Cemetery." 

It was David Farrant who was jailed after the charge was proved to the satisfaction of a jury that he was responsible for this very satanic outrage. A series of further images from the inside of the mausoleum are shown in the video which carefully omits a photograph taken at the same time by Farrant of a completely naked Martine de Sacy in a ceremonial pose before satanic symbols.

 

In the conclusion of the so-called occult section, Paul Adams wraps it up quickly following a brief interaction with the audience who are barely audible and invariably comprise satanic apologists.

This video is even more tedious than the first part of the session, if that can be imagined; until, that is, someone in the audience asks a question about Welch who had already been libelled by Adams.

Forty-one minutes and thirteen seconds into the video (click on the image to view) the audience were once again treated to Don McCullen's misdescribed photo of Welch on a screen behind the panel.

Forty-two minutes and forty-four seconds into the video, David Farrant states:

"It appeared in a book called The Highgate Vampire which was written by Mr ... [Farrant is suddenly overcome by a fit of seemingly uncontrollable coughing at this point in the proceedings and takes quite a while to recover, sipping from a glass] ... Seán Manchester. Yes, they knew each other."

This time Seán Manchester's name has not been bleeped out on the video. Farrant obviously had what's left of his feathers ruffled by comments made about its censorship in the first session.

Someone unseen in the audience asked something about Don McCullen, but it is so muffled as to be totally inaudible. Indeed, the sound quality throughout is very poor, given the controlled situation. 

Then we hear a discarnate voice ask whether Welch was prosecuted. Paul Adams turns to Farrant:

"Was he prosecuted, David?"

Farrant tersely responds:

"No!"

Seán Manchester, of course, knew M J Welch, as, apparently, did Don McCullen whose back-story to the picture captioned "The Head Hunter of Highgate" was inspired by the fabricated nonsense Farrant was disseminating at the time to journalists such as Roger Simpson, plus all and sundry. 

McCullen's photograph of Welch had various captions down the years. McCullen and Seán Manchester are photographers, and the latter had already photographed Welch in the exact same pose. Welch must have shown Seán Manchester's photographic portrait to McMullen who, more or less, copied it when he posed his subject between two human skulls in precisely the same manner.

Does the picture appear in The Highgate Vampire?

Well, yes and no.

It does not appear in the 1991 Gothic Press edition, but is a minuscule part of a composite of cuttings and images in the 1985 British Occult Society edition. Welch can barely be seen; less than one inch by almost half an inch in the bottom left-hand corner of a picture which fills the entire page.

The Vampire Hunter's Handbook, published a dozen years later, acknowledges at the top of page 10 that Seán Manchester knew M J Welch; so Farrant is hardly the master of revelation he likes to pretend to be. 

Farrant had to admit, when asked by the audience, that Welch has not been prosecuted. How could he have been? Tales about Welch originated entirely with Farrant who acted out the very things he falsely attributed to this associate of Seán Manchester. As we know, David Farrant was prosecuted and found guilty of interfering with and offering indignity to corpses at London's Highgate Cemetery.