Light

It has since been realised that the source of the eerie, resonant sound on the night before we embarked for a hospital one hundred miles away was me. Upon our return we noticed that the inside of a central panel of nine identical stained glass panels had cracked from corner to corner with lots of fractures. The damage was occasioned from the inside. My spiritual energy was leaking due to increasing stress; coupled, of course, with Sarah's anxiety, over the invasive surgery I was about to undertake on my left groin to remove some lymph nodes. That was on Lord Byron's birthday last month. Since then I have had an MRI at New Hall, Salisbury, and an MRCP at the Royal, Dorset. Next I shall be returning to St George's, London, where I shall undergo the same lymph node removal operation on my right groin. This will take place on the morning of the day betwixt the feast of St Joseph of Arimathea, and St Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By a curious coincidence, Sarah has restored an antique church statue of the latter, and, of course, the former is of major significance because of my episcopal See at Glastonbury at which place Arimathean Joseph visited two millennia ago. I wrote about this in my book The Grail Church. I feel comforted by the pending uncomfortable time falling, as it does, on the day between these two saints. I shall have the pre-operation preparation at St George's on March 17th, the feast of St Joseph of Arimathea, the day prior to the operation itself. My recovery will take place on the feast of the Blessed Virgin's husband.

It has been decided that the damaged central panel of the large stained glass unit facing north will not replicate what was contained prior, but instead will feature a freshly designed "healing" panel in three colours that will have a direct association with Arimathean Joseph post-Crucifixion. The early light will then pour through the finished panel, and all those surrounding it. And its light shall hopefully heal ...

Peace

Perhaps not obvious to most people, I would have nevertheless liked to have been by my former foe's bedside eleven months ago when he breathed his last breath and fell into that sleep which awaits us all, but that was never going to be allowed in any circumstance because of our half century history. 

As I said in my obituary, absurdly described by the left-wing journalist Francisco Garcia as a "magnanimous self-penned eulogy," which it was not, I expressed my sadness over him shuffling off this mortal coil without knowing that in his last moment of supreme finality he had my forgiveness.

He remained in my thoughts, softly fading over the months, but not disappearing. Was he at peace?

Then, in the early hours of February 27th, between 4.00 and 5.00am, I had a strange dream that moved me to tears. Everything took place at night where I found myself watching the deceased arrive at a tall, sombre Victorian house. I stood and watched for a while until he left. Then I walked toward the old house and entered it. At this point, I should clarify that the place was unrecognisable to me, and quite unlike any other I have been familiar with. Darkness pervaded the interior which was drab with an overwhelming sense of desolateness. I walked down some stairs into a rambling basement area. A young woman appeared with dark hair. It was not someone I can say I recognised. She had a curious expression. If we spoke, I cannot recall her utterances. She was not friendly, nor unfriendly. She was just present. Then she slowly removed herself to a large area at the rear of the property.

Eventually, though I cannot say for how long, I heard the sound of someone quietly entering the house and descending the stairs. It was the deceased, the man with whom a fifty year feud had been fought. He seemed as I remembered him from all those years ago, plus much older and much paler.

This anomalous figure was illumined in the half-light where colour is a stranger; so his appearance could have been caused by the shadows out of which he emerged. I naturally recognised him straight away. For a moment neither of us did anything save stare across the void at the spectre before us.

I took a step forward, as did he. Then I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. He reciprocated in like manner and evinced warmth. I can only remember my words. He might have spoken, but I cannot remember what he said, or possibly it was communicated without sound emitting from his lips. Something empathetic and reconciliatory. I continued to hug the ghostly apparition before me, whispering: "I forgive you .... I love you."  The dream now began to fade. We were at peace. Finally.

Awakening

Most everyone has a story to tell, and mine, up to that point, became public on 27 February 1970 when, albeit reluctantly, I revealed some of that story in a front page feature article. From that moment, I ceased to have a private life, especially following the Reuters News Agency getting hold of it, and my being interviewed by a television programme, transmitted on Friday 13 March 1970, a short time later. I quite literally woke up and found myself famous. Yet it was a wholly unwanted celebrity.

Up until the end of the last century, notwithstanding one or two attempts to treat me in a lighthearted manner, I was received with impartiality and respect by film production companies, television and radio programmes, quality glossy magazines, including an appearance on the cover of The Sunday Times magazine, and others besides. As we entered the new century it became abundantly clear that people's beliefs, particularly belief in the supernatural, had fast begun to erode and become eclipsed by an aggressive form of atheism, often dressed up as something else, eg humanism etc. Interest in me did not lessen, however, but suddenly I was now, according to a new generation, see RationalWiki, and others of that ilk, "an unhinged British author." I was being painted as "unhinged" for one reason only: I was continuing to tell my story, but it no longer chimed with the atheistic, anti-everything considered supernatural, clique who dismiss all such things as fairy tales. My story now earned their opprobrium on a grand scale, and they were not slow to make their displeasure known.

“Ever since I became aware that Highgate Cemetery was the reputed haunt of a vampire, the investigations and activities of Seán Manchester commanded my attention. I became convinced that, more than anyone else, he knew the full story of the Highgate Vampire.”

~ Peter Underwood, ghost hunter & author, The Ghost Club Society, London, England

“I am very impressed by the body of scholarship you have created. Seán Manchester is undoubtedly the father of modern vampirological research.”

~ John Godl, paranormal researcher and writer, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

“Seán Manchester is to be congratulated on this fine piece of research work which I confess to enjoying to the extreme.”

~ Professor Devendra P Varma, vampirologist & author, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

“Fascinating in its subject matter and magnificent in the quality of its prose. Seán Manchester’s literary style is refreshingly reminiscent of the Gothic genre.”

~ Paul Spencer Vickers, Dept of English Literature, University College, London, England

“Seán Manchester is the most celebrated vampirologist of the twentieth century.”

~ Shaun Marin, reviewer and sub-editor, Uri Geller’s Encounters magazine, England

“A most interesting and useful addition to the literature of the subject.”

~ Reverend Basil Youdell, Literary Editor, Orthodox News, Christ the Saviour, Woolwich, England

“This book will certainly be read in a hundred years time, two hundred years time, three hundred years time ~ in short, for as long as mankind is interested in the supernatural. It has the most genuine power to grip. Once you have started to read it, it is virtually impossible to put it down.”

~ Lyndall Mack, Udolpho magazine, Chislehurst, England

Memories

Studio

Views

Dorset