Recollections of the Late David Farrant

 

I became acquainted with David Farrant at a time when those he knew called him "Allan." He preferred this nomenclature, inspired by his love of the film star Alan Ladd (3 September 1913 – 29 January 1964), to his given name of "David." The only music I saw in his modest vinyl collection were cowboy (country) records. He was especially partial to Jim Reeves. He showed no interest or liking for the popular music of the time, much less modern jazz. He apparently saw me playing in a small jazz combo on a Friday night at The Woodman where his wife, Mary, worked as a barmaid. I was totally unaware of him, or who he was, but somebody in the audience made a point of identifying me as a paranormal investigator to the young Farrant who was steadily downing more and more pints of ale. I really wish they hadn't.

It would seem that he didn't like the music on offer; indeed any form of jazz was abhorrent to him. He didn't seem awfully fond of classical music either.

We didn't become properly acquainted until that decade was spent and he was the occupant of a coal cellar provided by the man who had cuckolded him in 1968. Everything about Farrant was curious, to say the least, but it all became less puzzling as time passed.

His intimates knew him by the curious nickname "Birdman." This was due to Farrant's habit of daily frequenting the pubs he clearly loved so much with a large macaw on his shoulder.

Goldie was a male golden eagle who lived at London Zoo in England during the 1960s. He caused a nationwide sensation when he escaped for twelve days in March 1965. Goldie was finally caught on March 11th after the zoo's deputy head keeper tempted him to earth with a dead rabbit. Goldie escaped once again on 15 December 1965, and was recaptured 19 December 1965. On 8 March 1985, Goldie was sent to the Falconry Centre in Newent, and died there on or about 23 March 1986. Farrant was inspired by the national headlines provoked by Goldie to do a similar story featuring Oliver, his pet macaw. The fake story was never to emerge, however, because around this time, end of the 1960s, he heard tales in the pubs he frequented of an eerie presence sighted in Swains Lane, Highgate, close to its North Gate. Though some of these stories had vampire references, he stuck with what he felt to be a more plausible ghost when he wrote to his local newspaper, the Hampstead & Highgate Express.

The motivation for the visits I made to the coal bunker (one of several within a much larger communal cellar where junk was stored) was to talk to him about the letter he had written to the editor of the Hampstead & Highgate Express, published by that newspaper early in February 1970. No matter how I tried to remain impartial, I found myself doubting his word from early on. That notwithstanding, we arranged to meet at Highgate Cemetery, just inside the North Gate, in early March. This, too, would be reported by the same newspaper in connection with foxes being found exsanguinated in the graveyard. 

This would be the first time that Farrant publicly mentioned his vampire hunting ambition; something I tried to dissuade him from almost immediately. I asked that he desist from his pending lone vampire hunt, as reported by the Hampstead & Highgate Express, 13 March 1970. On that same day a number of people were interviewed for Thames Television about the goings-on at Highgate Cemetery. I used the opportunity, as one of the featured interviewees, to mention what Farrant was proposing, and that it did not have my support. Some resentment might have begun from that point, but this would be the first and last time I would mention him in a broadcast interview of any sort. His plan was delayed because of me, but he nevertheless went ahead a handful of months later when in August of that year he was arrested at night by police looking for black magic devotees. Thus began what would develop into a parting of ways, but by now I was in absolutely no doubt that his prime and only motivation was self-publicity at any cost.

His mild manner and softly spoken voice belied Farrant's capacity for pettiness and cruelty. This was something I just couldn't understand, or ever come to terms with. For example, though I was unacquainted with James Bradish, I understood him to be someone who liked Farrant and always regarded him as a friend. That didn't stop Farrant putting stickers up in various pubs, particularly the Prince of Wales, containing childish cartoons and defamation aimed at Bradish.

I once asked Farrant why he would attack someone who was so friendly toward him. He explained that on at least two occasions Bradish had made a pass at Mary while alone with her in their Highgate flat. This brought to the fore another characteristic about Farrant. He never forgot and he never forgave. He bore grudges throughout his entire life and often dealt with them in a cruel and frequently puerile manner. He set Bradish (who was known in the pubs they both frequented as "Smoothy John") by organising the "black magic telephone calls" to the Bradish household in Manor Road, Barnet, which led to James Bradish ending up with a criminal record. Farrant had been staying there temporarily after his release from Brixton Prison in 1970. He was even resentful over being persuaded by Bradish to be sprung from jail because he was aware that all the newspaper coverage he had been enjoying would instantly dry up once he changed his original plea of "guilty" to "not guilty," but that is what Bradish wanted, and, in doing so, offered to have Farrant stay at Manor Road while also finding him a job as a porter for a couple of weeks at Barnet Hospital. These were conditions set for his release from prison.

Gillian Bradish was also someone I did not know, but was told by various people who patronised the Prince of Wales was of a fragile mental disposition. Farrant constantly mocked Bradish behind his back. and, with the stickers, almost to his face. I mentioned this to Tony Hill whose explanation was that Farrant simply blamed somebody else when his easily recognisable cartoons were brought to the attention of his friend. I suspect Bradish knew all along what Farrant was doing, but liked him enough (he did, after all, pay Farrant's bail in late 1970) to stick his head in the sand and ignore it. In other words, he was in denial. This was not what he wanted to believe. 

A decade or more after the Bradish incident there came into the world someone who, having tried a variety of nomenclatures, settled for "Della Farrant." After emerging on the internet at the same moment as Jamie Coster (later to become Jamie Farrant), "Della" began impersonating real people and adopting their established persona until it became apparent to most people what was going on. She still sets up fake accounts to spread her twisted versions of the "truth," always heavily laced with malice, and frequently referring to happenings which took place long befoer she was born. “Della Maria Vallicrus” aka “Della Escarti” aka “Della Farrant,” for someone claiming to be the young girlfriend (and, since Hallowe’en 2011, wife) of a man born in January 1946 who immersed himself in the outer trappings of the dark arts, has flitted from being “Roman Catholic” to someone obsessed with magical rituals, shamanism, witchcraft and the occult. She employed images of a young Shakira as her own until she was rumbled. Then she occasioned upon Christine Moloney with whom Farrant was very loosely acquainted. Christine and “Della” have a similar build, are the same age and claim to have been married on precisely the same day (obviously to different people). Christine and “Della” apparently design websites, dabble with interior design and have CVs that are practically identical. The only website she appears to have designed is the one provided to David Farrant which she now runs on her own. Likewise, she runs his British Psychic and Occult Society, which amounts to no more than a FB group.

Christine and “Della” claim to come from the exclusive Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Christine and “Della” claim to have Roman Catholic origins. One could be forgiven for thinking that they are one and the same person. However, they are not. One of them, Christine, is real enough. The other, "Della," adopts other people's personas, even their CVs and interests. "Della" does not live in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She lives in penurious circumstances in  a working class part of north London.

Gillian Bradish had a history of mental illness and was constantly medicated. She also had an alcohol problem. Within a few years of the events discussed comprehensively below, she had committed suicide. James Bradish was known to be a slippery customer by all who knew him. His predilection for sleaze and lechery on young women earned him a notoriety that circulated the Prince of Wales and other pubs.

"Della" is carefully omits the fact that the Daily Mirror on 26 November 1970 was obliged by the Press Council to publish a balancing statement following their inaccurate and biased coverage. In that legally required statement it was underlined that I emphatically denied the spurious allegations made by Gillian Bradish, and, moreover, sustained injuries as a consequence of the assault by Bradish.

I was the plaintiff who brought the case and John Bradish was the accused, ie defendant. Bradish, despite lies recited by his wife in court, was nevertheless found guilty of assault while, despite the false testimony given by Gillian Bradish whom I had never met, I received a considerable sum of money awarded to me by the Criminal Compensation Board.

Furthermore, Gillian Bradish could not have recognised my voice on the telephone because she had not been in my company, and had never heard my voice. The Bradish telephone number was ex-directory and could not have been known to me, but it was known to their recent lodger ... David Farrant!

David Farrant has a long history of sending fraudulent letters and there is absolutely no doubt that correspondence sent to the Bradish household in 1970, as is understood happened, was done so to provoke Bradish into doing precisely what he did do. Farrant, of course, attempted to make it appear as though it was sent from the person he was framing, namely me. Earlier that same year, Farrant had sent bogus correspondence to the Hampstead & Highgate Express to try and convince them of his phoney "ghost." The names and addresses on these letters were all acquaintances and friends of Farrant who allowed him to use their identities for what they believed to be a harmless prank.

Farrant was notorious in a number of Highgate pubs for affixing small stickers in their public lavatories attacking Bradish, a self-employed double-glazing salesman. He did this through 1969 and 1970, and there are a significant number of witnesses who will confirm this.

The stickers all bore "Bradish Defamation League" on them and a childish cartoon reviling Bradish. Farrant's cartoons were extremely poorly drawn, as if a four-year-old had done them, and, therefore, easily identifiable.

Bradish almost certainly knew who was behind this puerile behaviour, but didn't seem to mind, according to those who spoke to him about it.

What Bradish did mind was Farrant's involvement in the hoaxing of a ghost story in the press, and when he offered to stand surety to get his friend out of Brixton Prison it was on the strict understanding that Farrant would drop all his hoaxing in the media, especially newspapers.

Released on bail in September 1970, David Farrant, now living as a lodger in the Barnet home of Mr & Mrs Bradish, executed the revenge he had been planning against the two people he hated most.

These two people were Bradish and, of course, myself.

I had publicly warned against Farrant's infantile behaviour, and refused to give the publicity-seeking nuisance any support when asked to do so by him in prison correspondence sent to me c/o the address where he had previously been residing in a coal bunker.

In the first few months of 1969, James Bradish had allegedly made unwanted sexual advances on Mary Farrant and she complained about it to her husband. Bradish had apparently done the same thing in the past and had earned a reputation as a sexual predator on young females.

When Bradish visited the flat the Farrants then occupied, he propositioned Mary Farrant and allegedly tried to fondle and kiss her.

Bradish might have guessed that Farrant knew about his advances on Mary, which would explain why he turned a blind eye to the sticker campaign in public lavatories that Farrant had been waging, especially during Farrant's time residing in a coal bunker (from August 1969 to August 1970). There can be little doubt that Bradish probably felt guilty about going behind Farrant's back and approaching Mary, but, equally, perhaps he thought he should keep a closer eye on Farrant by having him under the same roof? They were friends, after all, but Farrant has an unfortunate history of behaving spitefully toward his friends.

Bradish obviously did not want any of this getting back to his wife, Gillian, and would need to regain some control of the situation.

So he placed Farrant in his debt, and in doing so thought he had the matter under control. Little did he know what would happen next!

No sooner had Farrant been released on bail and lodged with the Bradishes than he orchestrated his "killing two birds with one stone" strategy by framing me with fake correspondence to the Bradish address, and by making threatening black magic telephone calls to Gillian Bradish; making all this appear to come from his "enemy" by telling the couple that it was me doing it, someone, of course, they did not know.

James Bradish reacted by attacking me on the steps of the British Occult Society's offices. Bradish was convicted of assault, but, due to the lies given in evidence by Gillian Bradish, wittingly or not, about the telephone calls, the magistrate decided to bind me over for a few months to keep the peace in the sum of £200. Bradish still ended up with a criminal conviction, but the "black magic threat" smear was something that I immediately realised was Farrant's handiwork.

Thus Farrant scored a double victory for the first and last time in his life.

I asked on innumerable occasions in the past that Farrant take a lie detector test on this matter, as it was the root of the feud between us, and I agreed to do the same, ie also take a polygraph test.

Farrant always evaded, avoided and ultimately refused to take such a test where identical questions relating to the Bradish matter would be put to both parties with witnesses present and the outcome placed on record. Though a private person nowadays, I would nevertheless agree to a public institution supervising and conducting such a test. The Bradish set-up, for me, at least, is the root cause of enmity.

In the following year, David Farrant used the police to take me to court for allegedly removing without permission some incriminating spools of tape from an address where they were being looked after while Farrant resided in the coal bunker. This was the first and the last time I would be taken to court by anyone. I did not use a solicitor, and, defending myself, won the case outright. Farrant's allegation was thrown out of court and the case was summarily dismissed. The police, however, started to realise at this point that Farrant was using them in his personal vendetta against me. They did not forget and kept a close eye on the trouble-maker from that moment. Three years later, Farrant was arrested and charged with numerous offences. He appeared at the Old Bailey and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment approaching five years. In the interim, he had threatened innumerable people with black magic. These included a doctor's wife, an RSPCA inspector and even pop singers. He received a two years' prison sentence for sending black magic effigies impaled with pins to witnesses in John Pope's sex case. Pope was found guilty of sexual assault on a young boy.

Unlike me, Tony Hill saw "Smoothy John" and his wife from time to time in the Prince of Wales and,  on occasion, spoke with him: "She [Gillian Bradish] was definitely a head case and he was something of a spiv. Nobody liked him in the Village. Farrant was his only friend in the Highgate area which "Smoothy" liked to visit (he lived further north in Barnet) because he was such a terrible snob. On the evening of the court case, Farrant was boasting to a number of people in the Prince of Wales that he made the threatening 'phone calls to Gilly and framed Seán Manchester. I have never seen him so pleased with himself. 'Smoothy John' was not drinking in the pub that night. The photo showing 'Smoothy' brandishing a large Kukri knife with the threatening poster 'Death to Manchester' immediately behind him was taken after Farrant's release from prison in September 1970 but before the court case that followed. It demonstrates that 'Smoothy' (James Bradish) had been primed by Farrant and enlisted in his hate campaign against Seán Manchester who wouldn't have known who 'Smoothy' was because he never came into contact with him until the assault and ensuing court case."