Top Hat Tantrums

"Could Farrant be telling the truth about attending a party in Christmas 1970? Based upon weather alone, the Met Office report is rather vague. London Weather says ‘sleet and snow fell at times’ during the last week of December. Once again there is no mention of how much snow settled. Hmm. So I am no closer to solving the mystery of when those Farrant-in-a-top-hat photos were snapped." - Trystan Lewis Swale (20 January 2016)

Highgate Vampire obsessive Trystan Lewis Swale includes a copyright protected picture from the British Occult Society's blog that provided the material he filched and used just to confuse matters even further. Notwishtanding Swales' cynical exploitation and infringement of the 1970 top hat photograph of Farrant pretending to be a ghost, this is what David Farrant said on 9 March 2015:

"The black and white photograph or photographs of myself taken at the top gate of Highgate Cemetery in the snowy winter of 1970 were [of] a small group of us [who had] left the Prince of Wales pub in Highgate Village en route for a Christmas fancy dress party about half a mile away. To get to the house, we walked down Swain’s Lane, a steep hill that runs past Highgate Cemetery."

In fact, none of the pictures were taken in Swains Lane (apart from one taken by Gerry Wood with Tony Hill's camera when Wood happened to be passing the North Gate in Swains Lane himself).

There are also photographs of Farrant clambering over the cemetery's North Gate wearing his ghost make-up in readiness. There is no question or doubt about what he was doing in the graveyard when he was glaring through the wrought iron bars.

No group of people were in evidence on that or any other occasion. Hill, the only other person present, has confirmed that Farrant's theatrical appearance had nothing to do with "a Christmas fancy dress party." How could it? All the images reveal deep snow. Therefore, it was either late February or early March.

There was no settling snow in the general area of London and Highgate, a North London suburb, in January 1970, some slight snow from mid-February 1970 and well above average snow during March 1970. There was some occasional sleet with very light and infrequent flurries of snow that didn't settle during Christmas 1969 through to January and the first half of February. Late February to March, when there would have been significant snow to be seen on the ground, is hardly the season or time of year for revellers in fancy dress to attend a Christmas party!

Once again, Farrant has been hoist by his own petard.

Meteorological Office records for January, February, March 1970, confirm that snow that would settle on the ground only fell in the area from late February onward:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/0/e/Jan1970.pdf

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/e/Feb1970.pdf

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/1/Mar1970.pdf

Breaking into near hysteria, enhanced by an unnecessary burst of capital letters, Farrant posted the following on his blog on 24 January 2016:

"My over-arching point, and one which certain ‘bandwagoneers’ to coin a bonky phrase seem to miss is this: I NEVER CLAIMED IN MY LETTER TO THE HAM AND HIGH IN JANUARY 1970 THAT THE ENTITY I HAD ENCOUNTERED WORE A TOP HAT. The verifiable top hat sightings, save for a letter from a Mr Docherty ... published in the spring of 1970."

Here are some salient reminders for our seventy-year-old ghost hoaxer whose memory is not as lucid as it once might have been:

Farrant first wrote a letter about his sightings in February 1970, not January. 

He did not mention anything about a top hat in that letter, but for years afterward referred to a ghostly figure in a top hat.

Someone named "R Docherty" wrote in a published letter in the Hampstead & Highgate Express (soon after Farrant's was printed) about "a tall man in a hat who walks across Swains Lane and just disappears through a wall into the cemetery."

This became a familiar theme that Farrant was not slow to adopt.

In his recent response of January 24th, Farrant also alleges:

"This bonky person [a reference to Seán Manchester] is now attributing [Tony Hill] to have been the sole photographer of this set of photographs; but wait just a minute, to ‘back this up’, he publishes one of these photographs of [Hill] bowing (taking his turn) with the top hat. Whoops! [Hill's] hands are in full view and he is clearly not holding a camera."

Apart from where Tony Hill is in a photograph holding the topper in his hand taken by amateur photographer and ghost-seeker Gerry Wood (but with Hill's own camera), Tony Hill was the sole photographer. He did not wear the top hat in any shots, and Gerry Wood seemingly had a regular presence at the time in Swains Lane, as confirmed by the Hampstead & Highgate Express.

The top hat, in fact, belonged to Tony Hill who allowed Farrant to wear it for the purpose of the photographs he took of Farrant trying to appear like a ghost to enable a hoax. Hence Hill is holding it in the image below while Farrant can be seen gawping through the cemetery gate's iron bars. Within less than a handful of years, of course, he would be peering through iron bars of a different kind.