The Vampire at Greyfriars

From the Peter Haining papers, this typed manuscript outline of a Billy Bunter vampire story by the great researcher and expert on British comics and periodicals W.O.G. Lofts (1923-1997). He wrote a book on the Bunter author Frank Richards and another on Charteris's The Saint. This story project appears not to have been taken up by The Magnet.…Count von Alucard sounds familiar…

To: The Editor (C. M. Down Esq)
The Magnet
Fleetway House
Farringdon Street

The Vampire at Greyfriars. - Rough Sypnosis.

A new boy arrives in the Remove from a titled family in Eastern Europe. He is strange looking with jet black hair in a windows peak, orange eyes, with large incisor teeth that gives him a wolfish look. Dressed in a long black cloak over his school uniform Count Von Alucard is indeed a very lone wolf. When Bunter tries to tap the new boy for a loan he gives him such an evil look that the Fat Owl of the Remove makes a hasty retreat. With his white drained face Alucard is a very strange fellow indeed to be sharing a study with Herbert Vernon-Smith and Redwing.

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Vampires in Literature 2

The second and last part of this extract from The Vampire in Literature: a Critical Bibliography (edited by Margaret L. Carter, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.: Umi Research Press 1989.) The types of vampire literature are broken down into categories. An amazing and comprehensive work that will probably be much longer if they bring it up to date.

In - Inanimate object, e.g., a house or a car, acts as a a vampire.
Examples: Benson, Edward Frederic. 'The Room in the Tower'. 1912.
Bloch, Robert. 'The Hungry House'. 1951.

J - Juvenile fiction.
Examples: Schoder, J. 'The Bloody Suckers'. 1981.
Scott, R. C. 'Blood Sport'. 1984.

L - Character functions a s vampire while still living, without passing through any form of death.
Examples: Giles, Raymond. 'Night of the Vampire'. 1969.

MN - Movie novelization. I note this fact wherever I am aware of it.
Examples: Johnson, Ken. 'Hounds of Dracula'. 1977.
Burke, John. 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors'. 1965.

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Vampires in Literature 1

Found in the extensive Peter Haining book and ephemera collection - a xerox of The Vampire in Literature: a Critical Bibliography (edited by Margaret L. Carter, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.: Umi Research Press 1989.) Principally a bibliography of vampire fiction in English, but also covering drama, anthologies, nonfiction studies of vampires in literature, and including a checklist of non-English vampire stories readily available in translation. It follows Bleiler in using an alphabetical key to the different types of literature. The most disappointing is category H - '...Vampirism...explained away as a hoax, delusion, or misunderstanding.' Books with  'rationalised' plots are generally avoided by collectors of the supernatural. M.L. Carter does not seemed to have missed a trick, except possibly a genre that occurred more recently - the retelling of a classic story with vampires added…

Al - Vampire as member of a separate species, whether originating on Earth or not. Frequently the text leaves the point of origin unrevealed.
Examples: Baker, Scott. 'Nightchild'. 1983.
Dicks, Terrance. 'Doctor Who and the State of Decay'. 1981.

AlH - Alien, humanoid.
Examples: Asprin, Robert Lynn. 'Myth-ing Persons'. 1984.
Baker, Clive. 'Human Remains'. 1984.

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The Ghosts of Glamis

Found -  The Ghosts of Glamis - a typescript, apparently unpublished, from around the 1960s. Glamis is the seat of the Queen Mother's family, the Bowes-Lyons, and is said to be the most haunted castle in Britain. There is the Grey Lady who haunts the chapel, a tongueless woman haunting the grounds, a young black servant boy haunts the seat by the door to the Queen's bedroom, also the ghost of the gambler and hell raiser Earl Beardie has free range of the house (he lost his soul to the devil in a card game). There are more. The castle is also mentioned in Shakespeare's MacBeth, and the murder of King Malcolm the II is supposed to have taken place in one of the rooms.This seems unlikely as the castle dates from the 14th century and the murder from the 11th century. The typescript is of unknown provenance but seems to have been written for publication...

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Kenny Everett on the Ouija Board

From a paperback called I've Seen a Ghost - True Stories from Show Business by Richard Davis (Granada, London 1979). A series of mostly tall, real ghost stories from British stars of the time -Jon Pertwee, Roy Hudd, Pat Phoenix, Vincent Price, Bob Monkhouse, Rula Lenska etc.. There are the usual actor's superstitions and tales of ghosts seen in old theatres...the one from Kenny Everett could be filed under 'more things in heaven and earth' or Kenny was simply blagging - which seems unlikely as there is no joke or punchline. Also it is worth noting that this was before the time of proper mobile phones...

It happened when we were staying at Pete Asher's house in Surrey, near Rosper. It looks rather like a Chinese house – all made of paper walls and bits of stick. And it was by a lake, an 8 acre lake with two islands on it. All very deserted, it was.

We had a cameraman and his assistant staying with us, and we decided to have a go with the Ouija board.  Well, the cameraman got a message through from his girlfriend; he said "that's odd - she's not dead". And she said by means of the Ouija board that she'd died that day. She'd taken a load of pills and she was in Bicester Mortuary. He couldn't believe this. He thought we were messing around, though I don't think any of us would have been quite as cruel as that. So he rang her dad, and her dad picked up the phone and he was in tears, because she had just taken a load of pills and he had taken her to the mortuary. The cameraman had been with us for two days; the phone hadn't rung and there was no way he could have known.