The Gothic Society, 'Britain's Purplest Literary Society' are back! We recommend you visit their very lovely archive. There is even talk of New Stuff. gothrevisit.uk #GothSoc #Udolpho #JennieGray

Thank you staff at #ideastore, #watney_market, E1. Love the note. (please hurry up & open a bluesky account!)

Arrived to day from @simongosden.bsky.social. L. H. Maynard & M. P. N. Sims 'Enigmatic Tales #5' summer 1999, inc. stories &/or illos by Paul Finch, Hugh Lamb, 'Dick Donovan,' Gerald Gaubert, Alan Hunter, Sarah Singleton, Colin Pink, Joan Board &c.

Autumn-Winter 1972 issue of #Mudflaps fanzine is a #supernatural special, no less. 24 pages of news reports & articles interspersed with pre-WWI non-spine chilling phantom cyclist fiction. #scrapbooksfromfanzineland #ghosts #terrifyingworldofhauntedbenchproject

#vampyre_lovers by Chrissie Demant, from an issue of 'The Velvet Vampyre.'

@mccartneyjoe.bsky.social Found a copy of 'Sparky Book for Boys & Girls 1972' at this morning's market. Includes Keyhole Kate, Pansy Potter, Sid's Snake, Invisible Dick, I Spy vs Mr X (I like him; proper Victorian stage villain with Dr Evil tendencies), Spoofer, Mr Bubbles, etc.

Just completed 'The Ghoulish Horror of Croglin Grange', a one-off(?) themed scrapbook-zine of obscure origin. #CroglinVampire #scrapbooksfromfanzineland

Made up to have copped a copy of John Canning [ed]'s '50 Strange Stories of the Supernatural' (Century/Souvenir, 1974) with this striking cover illo, artist unattributed as was (is?) too often the case. Ghosts, witchcraft, curses, voodoo & juju, clairvoyance, mumbo jumbo, etc.

Vampire Love, illustration by Chrissie Demant. Ist appeared in either Velvet Vampyre, Intervamp or Vat. #vampzines #fangsonfriday

1/3 Books/mags/zines I most enjoyed in 2025. These selections may SURPRISE you. They may even SHOCK you. Lit bores need not trouble themselves.

Kicking off the New Year (OK, it was published 25 Dec if we're gonna be accurate), a 'Worlds of Strangeness' Winter special from Nigel Taylor and friends. Original Horror, Fantasy, SF fiction plus articles, micronicles and what have you. Find it on Am*z*n. Get a copy and be with it! 🖤🖤

Maybe the single most attractive publication I clapped sunken eyes upon in 2025. Adam Newell's 'The Croglin Vampire' scrapbooklet from Sangrail Press/ Withnail Books, 2024. Only drag, its a limited edition (250 copies) & seriously sold out .

New Years Event #St_Mary's #Harrow_on_the_HIll Happy 932nd Birthday on Jan 11Th

‘Ah youth, lost and wind borne. Ah the friends, the family, the dear ones, the departed. Ah those voices from the dead past. Come again, lost ones, forever lost, forever living. Come and haunt me now and through eternity.’ — Ralph Finn, 'No Tears in Aldgate,' 1963

I've spoken alot about my grandad, but I've rarely discussed his battle with Dementia. He is my motivation for signing up for the 50 miles in January challenge. I will be sharing folklore along the way. Please share or donate if you are able. Thank you! fundraise.dementiauk.org/s/27334/2788...

a haunted christmas & a ghastly new year to all our reader. #ghostsoncamera #wapping #terrifyingworldofhauntedbenchproject

#Benchwatch "A ghost of more recent vintage reputedly haunts the public bench on Weald Lane. Sighted early evenings during late autumn through winter, what appears to be outline of a young-trenchcoated man w/ stringy hair staring ahead as though awaiting someone he knows will never arrive."

Too posh to be a fanzine, Jennie Gray's magnificently proper gothic and frequently acerbic 'Udolpho,' quarterly publication of the Gothic Society from 1990-1998 (early issues simply 'The Goth'). 🖤

#nonemoreGothic Monk Lewis's 'The Castle Spectre' as reproduced in 'The Hour of One: Six Gothic Melodramas' introduced by Stephen Wischhusen (Gordon Fraser, 1975) #terrifyingworldofhauntedbenchproject

#vampyrelove #ghoulfriday - another of the bride's, first appeared in an issue of the Gothic Society's #Udolpho during its #TheGoth incarnation.

#fanzinefriday. vols 1 & 4 of obscure #HauntedHarrow fanzine; #ghosts & macabre history/ legends inc. the Phantom Nun of St Mary's, Springheeled Jack, Scarum Castle, Mad Monk of Marsh Lane, man mistaken for headless horseman, haunted Bench (RIP), witchcraft in Stanmore, &c #ghoulfriday

#HauntedBench update. It's still missing, presumed carted away by the bloody council (see also the ancient stone bench in Byron Park) #philistines. I so hope they didn't know to strew the ground with salt. #hauntedbench #wealdlane #fallencomrade

Instant classic loaned this from WatneyMarket #ideastore. Includes (very piss-takey) chapters devoted to 'Chat Show Vampires' (ie, the #does_a_wankyre_walk_in_highgate hoax blokes) and the Whitechapel Anarchists vs the Jack the Ripper museum & Cereal Killers. Also Crowley, Machen, loads more.

Return visit to #HarrowontheHill yesterday [confession, I cheated & took the 258 bus up to the school *shame*] to take more rotten photo's, this time of the 'cottage' where #MaryShelley is suspected of lodging from April 1833-March 1836 (see Margaret L Davies,Mary Shelley in Harrow, 2025)

More from the Graveyard, Wapping Lane on Halloween (can't help it; it was such a lovely night). 🖤

More loveliness from Alan W. Ball's 'Paintings, Prints & Drawings of #Harrow_on_the_Hill: 1562-1899.' Percy Robertson illustration for the Art Journal of 1889. #StMarysChurchyard. #benchland #ghostnunwalk#terrifyingworldofhauntedbenchproject

#PhantomsFriday Bit of a curio. 'Pop Stars in Peril,' a compilation of news items & snippets concerning the true-life spooky experiences of (predom '70s) popular music faves, compiled in a fanzine. Includes Kate Bush, him with the earrings out of Mud, Slade, Alvin, the Cass, etc. #nonemoreglam

None more vampy. One of my favourite Chrissie illo's from vamp fanzine days.

#ProspectofWhitby (beware of the ghost of Bloody Jeffries, the murder vicar of Ratcliffe wharf (if he's stretching his legs) and the man-squid of Pelican Stairs. #Wapping - none more haunted (possible exception: #HarrowWeald)

#TowerHamletsCemetery I don't remember it being an especially overcast day, so grateful this came out so dark.

#paperbackcoversyoulove John Gordon, The Giant Under the Snow (Puffin, 1971: originally Hutchinson, 1968) Cover painting by Antony Maitland. JG also wrote one of my all time favourite ghost stories, 'Never Grow Up.'

This used to be my playground. More Bride of Dem shots of #HighgateCemeteryW #alifeofmorbidity #terrifyingworldofHauntedBenchProject

Katie Jane Garside, photographed by Mick Mercer on Wapping Lane and St. George in the East Churchyard, Shadwell.

I'm detemined to persuade @richardlatto.bsky.social to play the 'Hope All Your Dreams Come True' video on #StereoUnderground. In fact, it's now my life's mission. Here's some photo's of #DaisyChainsaw in #Wapping, circa Eleventeen. Photo's by the very wonderful Mick Mercer

#HighgateCemeteryW Finding these has kind of reminded me why I loved the place. Photo's Chrissie Demant &/or Marion Bondage. Think these were taken on one of the last open days when you could wander around as you pleased.

#HighgateCemeteryWest Circle of Lebanon, photo Chrissie Demant

For variation’s sake, one from #TowerHamletsCemetery.

#HighgateCemeteryW Welcome to the Columbarium ... Photo Chrissie Demant

#HighgateCemeteryW again. Photo by Chrissie. #melancholy #gloom #morbidity and all that other great stuff.

#HighgateCemeteryW The Circle of Lebanon Photo Chrissie Demant

Joy! My beloved bride of death exhumed her copy of Felix Barker & John Gay's very lovely 'Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla' from 1986. Also a stash of non-toxic (i.e. 'v*mp*re'free) H.Cem-related items inc. loads of gloomy photos from various visits to Western grounds. Tops! 🖤

Whizzed through another of Lee Brickley's Cannock=the Hellmouth masterpieces recently. Includes Ghouls on the Golf Course, #poltergeist activity at Slitting Mill & the further adventures of #Pig-Man.

Been so looking forward to this. Out now & available via am*z*n.uk, Harrow-based historian Margaret L. Davies' ' #Mary_Shelley in #Harrow. #HarrowGothic www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G33BZPS...

More blind man with a camera chuckles. St George in the E churchyard this AM, featuring derelict nature study building (formerly #Shadwell mortuary). Incidentally, the SAAB store that stood on site of the Marr's long obliterated tailors (ie Ratcliffe Highway Murders) has now itself been demolished.

This one is lovely, too. Aidan Chambers' Book of Ghosts & Hauntings (Puffin, 1973, 1979) anthologises stories and snippets from works by WH Barrett, Augustus Hare, Andrew MacKenzie, Sir Ernest Bennett & co. Cover illo by Antony Maitland. Nice, isn't it?

Currently engrossed in 'It Happened to Me Vol 3.' Includes #SkinheadInvasionpanics #ChelseaSmilers #dooms_green_blanket #phantom_nurses_bum_of_Staffs #invisible_childhood_friends, invasion of 8ft tin foil man, a Clerkenwell #SpringheeledJack tribute act, peanut salesman from Uranus, etc.

Richard Felix, The People's Ghost Stories (Felix-Lilley, 2020). Posting it here because none of my other books will talk to it. I still 🖤 the cover photo.

A new bench to haunt. The Case is Altered, Old Redding, on Wed 4th. Closed in 2022, beginning to show signs of wear and tear, and personal favourite ... haunt. It's a soul thing. #ghostlyvibes #terrifyingworldofhauntedbenchproject

Terrible to admit, but I miss the News of The World, if only for their regular 'undercover investigations' into Satanists, Black Magicians, "evil" witches & co, though I'm guessing they were no fun for the non rabid self publicists among their victims. Anyway, here's a poster from 1994.

Some photos from the Wapping Walk last night, all taken by the bride of dem. Conditions, rainy - in other words; perfect.