Death's Winged Angel Hovers over Highgate

“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.” — Brendan Behan

In 2019, the Angel of Death struck, and three icons with strong associations to Highgate Cemetery fell within a short time of each another. The first was David Farrant whose name became synonymous with weird goings-on in the graveyard after being arrested within its confines on 17 August 1970.

In less than a month after the death of David Farrant at seventy-three, Gerry Isaaman, editor of the Hampstead & Highgate Express had passed away at the age of eighty-five. In later years he attempted to downplay the wampyr which had boosted his circulation to the highest ever recorded. 

The wampyr, of course, was exorcised and burned to ashes in the grounds of a derelict neo-Gothic Victorian property on the borders of Highgate and Hornsey, which itself was afterwards demolished.

Highgate Cemetery fell into the hands of a bunch of do-gooding "conservationists" after being made a "charity" in 1975, becoming very much their personal "plaything." A form of aesthetic vandalism occurred. The unique and special character of the place was eroded by a radical "conservation" programme, plus tours were organised where any mention of the wampyr was strictly prohibited. Was a second opinion sought by Ian Dungavell and his colleagues before the removal of Highgate’s historic cedar – and was the council informed of developments? It seems, from the report, that only days elapsed between the recommendation of removal and the arrival of the chainsaws. The cemetery is privately-owned and managed, but it would have been courteous to inform the borough’s arboriculturists of the tree’s intended felling; which might have helped ensure it wouldn’t be removed as a hedge against possible insurance-claims in the event of a falling branch. In a litigious society and a climate aware world, the public needs to hedge against any possible spurious, self-serving claim.

In the same year that Isaaman and Farrant passed into Highgate's history, the 200-year-old Cedar of Lebanon at the heart of the circle of mausoleums where the wampyr was first located, itself gave up the ghost. The normal lifespan of these trees is at least one thousand years. Despite all the protestations to conserve the cemetery, a decision to hack and tear down this iconic tree was made.

There can be little doubt that when tales come to be written about David Farrant and I they will be as far removed from the truth as has been the reporting in newspapers when he was alive. The intelligent observer, however, will appreciate that nothing is as cut and dried, black and white, and straightforward as those who pigeon-hole everything would have it. Things were said by both parties that were heated and harsh, but that was for public consumption because of the circumstances. The flames grew ever more intense with each parasitical journalist and interloping band-wagoner gleefully splashing fuel onto any ember they could find. Embers, of course, existed. We were a product of our time when unfettered expressionism was the accepted prerogative of those caught in the sturm und drang. Hence we drew swords in an apparent duel that persisted for half a century. Yet we never ceased to share an affection; something that can neither be fully understood, or put into words.

Those who let down David Farrant most were those who claimed to be his friends, while his real and possibly only friend, described as his arch-rival by the world at large, was someone considered his foe. The scenario took on a life of its own; especially after we lost contact. I believe we had every chance of resolving matters prior to his imprisonment in 1974. There was still a softness in our relationship that was fertile enough despite the public statements. Behind closed doors it was very different. I remember a mutual friend, Pamela Wright, cooking vegetarian meals with plenty of garlic for the three of us. She was not a girlfriend; just a truly beautiful person. Farrant drifted so far that I ceased to recognise the man I had known privately. He had become a projection of himself, boosted and amplified by others, some of whom bought into the illusory public image via smoke and mirrors. He was almost a hologram of his public persona. Yet I remembered the real person; the person I had known in the beginning. Before the circus came to town. Joining that jamboree, he was relegated to little more than a clown. I nevertheless believe the soft spot we each had for the other, not reflected in his latter-day cronies, survived deep within our souls to the very end when he breathed his last.

I knew he was dying. I felt it. That is why, in 2018, I began contacting people thought to be close to him. This continued into 2019. I was told he was absolutely fine. I knew deep within that he was not.

In the unlikely event of a film being made of our half century of dramas, I am fairly confident that poetic licence would be taken with the final scene where my visiting Farrant on his deathbed at a nursing home in an insalubrious borough of London would be included. But, like the 1954 film Beau Brummell, where the ending has a deathbed reconciliation between a dying Brummell and George IV that did not happen in real life, neither did our story contain that reconciliatry reunion of old friends. 

David Farrant died ignominiously in a Tottenham care home at 9.20pm on 8 April 2019 (some distance from his attic bedsitting room at 142 Muswell Hill Road where he had lived since his parole release in 1976, and the neighbouring Highgate he adored, on which border he was born on 23 January 1946 at 34 Shepherds Hill). A handful of passing acquaintances commented in either tweets or something similar. Those he had known longer to whom he seemed more intimately connected over a greater period of time, eg Jean-Paul Bourre et al, appear to have totally ignored his passing.

Three days after his death, I painted a posthumous portrait of him (below) using oil on canvas. R.I.P.

“There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” — David Farrant