Letter to John Pope

Letter from †Seán Manchester to John Pope, 11July 2020.

Dear John,

I find it exceptionally naïve of you to listen to Anthony Hogg and now Bob Best.

What makes it particularly puzzling and disloyal of you is the closeness you felt toward David Farrant from 1973 until his death last year.

You both stood together in the dock at the Old Bailey in 1974, and there was much else besides. On the matter for which you were convicted I am observant as how you publicly claimed to have been "roughed up" by the police detectives who arrested you, but had selective amnesia when two Sunday People journalists did pretty much the same thing (taking you into their vehicle and threatening you unless you went along with what they wanted you to say) three years later. You changed your original story due to the pressure they applied, and, to his credit, your father, Fred Pope, made an official complaint to the Press Council.

I always found it curious how your loyalties and accounts fluctuated according to the way the wind happened to blow. Your father, whom I spoke to on the telephone, believed you were terrified of the Sunday newspaper reporters. He was probably right. You do seem easily persuaded by outside forces.

Now we have the spectre of Anthony Hogg in Australia and his collaborating lapdog in England, Bob Best, whom, incidentally, I believe to be unstable, convincing you to write about the case of the Highgate Vampire when, in fact, you know nothing more than anyone else who has read about it in a newspaper, book, or watched something about it on a television documentary, or listened to a radio interview about it. Notably you were unable to contribute anything yourself because you were not there, and only much later learned about the case from others. Why, then, would you be an ideal candidate to write about the case other than Hogg suggesting the notion to you and Best encouraging you?

There is something deliciously absurd about it all, but, due to your apparent incomprehension about the law of copyright, I must insist that you do not reproduce for this project any images, of myself, or any images that were taken by myself, no matter what the subject matter. I only tell you this for your own benefit.

The late David Farrant and I did not always see eye to eye, but you were as close as anyone could be to him for forty-six years, and you were largely in support of what he did. As we know, I was not. However, David Farrant, as the years passed, grew to loathe Hogg, and those of his friends, eg Redmond McWilliams, who allied themselves to this Antipodean troll Farrant considered treacherous and disloyal. Hence he severed links with some erstwhile closest to him, and that is how it remained until his death. Quite what he would have made of your alliance with Hogg I do not know; never mind the support you provide on Hogg's hate group to which you happily belong.

We are each one of us accountable for our actions, and will face the consequences of them in the fullness of time.

Ultimately, I wish you well, John, and, might I add, I also wish you a very happy sixty-seventh birthday.

Please wake up before it is too late.

Sincerely,

†Seán Manchester