Detractors

"[Enoch] Powell did not aspire to be a racist demagogue, but that is what he became. ... The National Front was founded on 7 February 1967. ... [It] was racist, anti-communist and isolationist, but not openly fascist. ... At first dismissed as a lunatic fringe group, the NF gained credibility because of Powell's speech. The NF cast itself as the party willing to act upon Powell's warnings. ... On 5 August 1976, in Birmingham, the guitarist Eric Clapton interrupted his concert to shout 'I think Enoch's right - we should send them all back! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!' ... 'Enoch was the only bloke telling the truth, for the good of the country,' he reflected in 1978. 'I think Enoch is a prophet. His ideas are right.' ... Meanwhile, David Bowie told German journalists that 'Britain could benefit from a fascist leader.' On his return to Britain, he apparently thought it funny to greet his fans with a Nazi Salute. 'I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler,' he told Rolling Stone [magazine]. 'I'd be an excellent dictator.' ... The sudden prominence of reactionary rock deeply annoyed those who assumed that rock's rhythms were virtuously leftist."

The above passages are quoted from Chapter 6 of Gerard DeGroot's The Seventies Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic Look At A Violent Decade (Macmillan, 2010), and I include them to show how very different England was in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Imagine much admired celebrities expressing those type of sentiments today! Under subsequent legislation introduced by UK governments they would almost certainly face a prison sentence. If there were not the severe restrictions placed on the freedom of speech as there are in present-day Britain, I wonder how many more well-known people would say what is really on their mind? When Brian Ferry of Roxy Music a little while back confessed to admiring the Third Reich, its spectacle and symbolism, and collected pictures and memorabilia of same, he had to do an awful lot of back-peddling to stay afloat. Personally, I find the current atmosphere of folk being afraid to speak their mind unhealthy. If there are problems they need to be debated openly, honestly and without fear. Instead, we live in a repressed society where dishonesty reigns and problems magnify. I make these points as background material to the era when I am falsely accused of being a member of the National Front by David Farrant. He provides no evidence, of course, and would be unable to do so because, unlike Farrant and Kevin Chesham who now mimics Farrant's allegation despite the pair of them holding NF sympathies, I spoke out against the NF in the late 1960s (see below), and was physically attacked by them while on a peace vigil over Christmas in the early 1980s. Needless to say, I have never been a member of the NF. Indeed, I have belonged to no political party whatsoever, but actively support CND and Pax Christi.

David Farrant has also claimed I am a Satanist, which is no less preposterous than claiming I once held membership in the National Front, given my lifetime odyssey as a Christian culminating in my eventually taking holy orders where today I hold an episcopal office as a Church leader. But my detractors are not interested in viewing the broader canvas where people and the times in which they lived obtains. They seek only to repeat whatever they can find which is negative and amounts to little more than abuse to hurl out of context in order to serve an agenda which I examine further on the final blog that follows this one. These detractors are few and far between. I quote some of their recent barbs with my own ripostes below:

"Bishop Manchester has opened a new blog rebutting the allegations made by someone who it seems has betrayed him badly ..." (Posted by Timelord) "...and blaming it all on David Farrant as usual." (Posted by "Della Maria Vallicrus" aka "Della Escarti" aka "Della Farrant," London, England).

As I have already made clear, the appropriation of blame lies exclusively with Kevin Chesham and Beverley Mason. They alone chose to enter into collusion with David Farrant from whom I would expect no different. He is, after all, an enemy. They were alleged friends whom Farrant sent malicious pamphlets containing libel about me and mine. They did not have to drink the poison on offer. Many others, including my own wife and her family, have received the same unsolicited malice in the form of self-published pamphlets from Farrant. Only Kevin and Beverley responded positively to my adversary's overtures, probably because the seed of betrayal already existed within them and had done so for some considerable time. They even passed Farrant's hate-filled pamphlets to others. Kevin claimed he wanted to thump Farrant some time later, but when to everyone's incredulity Beverley Mason called on Farrant in person at his Muswell Hill Road, London, abode with her husband quickly following suit, the alarm bells immediately sounded.

"I'm surprised Manchester advocates personal self-defence, but is against 'just war', the implication being that the Brits should've let the Nazis goose-step all over them and Europe during WW2." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia).

I fail to follow that logic. Jesus Christ opposed the just war theory and so did the entire Christian Church for the first three centuries until it was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Previous to Constantine defeating Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312, Christians would neither be allowed, nor want to be, in the Army. After 416, however, by an edict of Theodosius, only Christians were allowed to enlist in the Roman Army as the Church became part of the state at the price of profound falsification of the Gospel message. Jesus nevertheless enquired of His disciples when they were tavelling "How many swords have we among us?" and when they answered "two" they were told it would be enough. It was normal to have someone carrying a sword at the front and also at the rear of a group travelling in dangerous territory. This would be for self-protection from bandits etc. Likewise, I disagree with the concept of a just war, but would defend my wife if we were to be attacked by an intruder. Had Great Britain not declared war on Germany in the wake of a conveniently manufactured agreement with Poland that was designed to be violated, perhaps the sixty million people killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population, might for the most part have survived? Hitler certainly did not want a war with Great Britain on whose Empire he modelled his Third Reich. My country's action resulted in the worst and deadliest military conflict in human history. It should have been avoided by every means available. War solves nothing. It never has and it never will.

"Hitler modelled his Reich on the Roman Empire, not the British Empire (which by then was seriously starting to wobble)." (Posted by Redmond McWilliams, Morden, Surrey, England).
.

"The Ministry of People’s Education and Propaganda issued a circular letter with provisions for the official name of the 'new Germany.' It was to be called 'Empire,' quite possibly modelled after the British Empire." (The “Third Reich” in the German Legal, Philosophical and Political Thinking by Gábor Hamza) "Hitler admired the British Empire as a shining example of Nordic genius. Racist theories were developed by British intellectuals in the 19th century to control the Indian people and other 'savages.' These methods were often copied by the Nazis." (Nazi Ideology) "Hitler, you know, had the greatest respect for the British people, the British Empire and British culture and the civilisation that Britain had brought into the world." (Rudolf Hess speaking from his Spandau cell, Talking to Rudolf Hess, The History Press, 2009, by Desmond Zwar).
.

"In terms of Kev's 'shivering' during the Christmas dinner, that could very well have been his exposure to the fabled Nazi room, consistent with his own version of the story." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austraila).

Kevin feigned shock and surprise when writing about entering the place where British and German militaria was stored in 2007; even though he was shivering long before he entered. No "shivering," however, after his exposure on countless previous occasions, eg no shivering when Kevin Chesham posed alongside a massive picture of Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 2004, and no shivering when he posed with Luftwaffe ceremonial swords and daggers, German eagles, swastikas and Wehrmacht belt buckles in 2003. And, of course, no shivering when he wrote admiringly about the British Union of Fascists and Nazi marching songs in 1998. Kevin's shivering in 2007 was entirely due to him being apprehensive over the clanestine task his wife was undertaking, ie snooping around our home with a spy camera on the pretext of using the upstairs lavatory.

"You're forgetting that their friendship lasted for over thirty years. Do you honestly think Kev woke up one morning and said ' #### Manchester! I'm going over to Team Dave!' If there's any 'collusion', what of it?" (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austraila).

We had known each other for thirty years when Kevin turned, but most of that period was spent without any communication or meetings. Kevin did not invite me once to visit him in all the time I had known him. I did not invite Kevin until the late 1980s and only then saw him very seldom. There was no real indication of his ideological shift until the visits made after his return from New Zealand when it was decided to monitor rather than abandon him. What sort of person is it who ends a friendship because the other person has fallen under sinister influences? At least I tried to be there for him, and it was him who ended it without having the courage to face me, write to me or contact me. I suddenly discovered on Epiphany 2010 that he had blocked me on Facebook. He offered no reason and did not respond to enquiries via other means. His actions were that of a coward, just like the behaviour exhibited by them both on their final vist in 2007.

"If BSM really finds ultra-nationalism and fascism so repulsive then why did he accept  [such gifts from Chesham]  let alone give them shelf space?" (Posted by Redmond McWilliams, Morden, Surrey, England).
.

As previously stated and apparent in previous blog entries, it was decided to monitor Kevin Chesham rather than abandon him. The best way to do this was to accept his gifts and not alert him to anything being awry. Unfortunately, him reading my novel Carmel (Gothic Press, 2000) caused him to distrust me. The novel does not show the Nazis in a favourable light. It was soon afterwards that he and Beverley Mason decided to attempt to fabricate "evidence" against me, which was rather silly in view of the fact that everything was witnessed by other people who will obviousy attest to the truth and are more than aware of Kevin's history. I naturally posed for photographs alongside him when Beverley took them with her camera. Why not? I had absolutely nothing to hide whereas Kevin was (and had been for some time) in league with a neo-Nazi Satanist based in New Zealand by the name of Kerry Bolton.

"Interestingly, Manchester refers to 'Br Kevin Chesham' in his 1995 book documenting the founding of his church; despite Chesham's Buddhist beliefs." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austalia).
.

Had my blog been read properly it would have been discovered why. In Allegations, for example: "I have called most of my friends 'brother' or 'sister' for as long as I can remember, as is common among Christians whether the person being addressed is Christian or not, and Kevin did the same from 1973. His correspondence to people generally used this title and he invariably always signed off as 'Brother Kevin' for reasons best known to himself." The use of the word "Brother," employed all the time by Kevin in his correspondence to people, however, was also common among Blackshirt members of the British Union of Fascists. Regarding Kevin Chesham's professed "Buddhist beliefs," I say in Allegations: "Calling yourself a Buddhist and being a Buddhist, however, are two different things. In my experience, Kevin knows next to nothing about Buddhism, does not practice its philosophy, which advocates spiritual contemplation for the attainment of perfect peace, and has never been known to meditate. The Buddha discouraged his followers from indulging in disputation for its own sake, which is fruitless. What is Kevin engaing in now but a fruitless disputation? How does his transformation into someone who turned on his friends to attempt to place them in danger equate with karmic law?" And in Questions I ask: "What was the self-proclaimed 'pacifist Buddhist' and believer in 'non-violence' doing owning several deadly weapons which he kept in security safes at his home prior to emigrating? Representing the modern pentathlon reserve team for the Army enabled Kevin to acquire a firearms certificate, but he owned rather more than the pistol used in his discipline. He told my wife and I that he had acquired automatic weapons which he kept at his home that were not covered by a normal firearms certificate. He indicated that these were illegal weapons, and obviously fall outside the remit for the target shooting of a modern pentathlete. Why did he need these automatic assault weapons? What was the purpose in him acquiring them? He projects his love of Fascism onto me while offering himself to the public as some sort of peace loving Buddhist. Where is there any record of him participating in anything peaceful? Where is there any record of his spiritual endeavours? Where is the empirical evidence that Kevin Chesham is non-violent, peaceful and a Buddhist? There is none."
.

"What makes these tendencies especially unusual, is Manchester's support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and criticism of the National Front." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austalia).
.

Assuming the "tendencies" being superimposed are at all accurate, which they are not. I still support the CND and, not mentioned by my detractor, I am a representative in my episcopal capacity for Pax Christi.
.

"He's got distinctly 'conservative' views (including referring to Barack Obama as a 'negro' and 'mulatto')." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austalia).
.

Barack Hussein Obama II (born 4 August 1961) has a mother of mostly English ancestry, along with Scottish, Irish, German, and Swiss. His father, Barack Hussein Obama, Senior, was a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya, ergo President Barack Obama is the offspring of a white Northern European mother and a black African father. "Mulatto" denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry.  The word "Negro" is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance. The word negro means "black" in Spanish and Portuguese, from the Latin niger, "black." In such circumstances, I cannot conceive of a more accurate description to describe Barack Obama than mulatto.
. 

"Yes, it is 'Peter Lord's' address... as established both by David Farrant and Kev Demant!" (Posted by Redmond McWilliams, Morden, Surrey, England).

The London address, as stated many times in the past, was my parental one which I eventually inherited. At the time it was being used as an accommodation address for the Society I presided over until August 1988 when that organisation for research into occult and supernatural phenomena was dissolved. It was seldom used by executive members and myself once the official offices for the Society opened in Holloway Road at the beginning of the 1970s. Due to embossed Society notepaper bearing that address still being in use after the new premises opened, the old accommodation address appeared for a little while afterwards. The final address for that particular organisation was in Pond Square, Highgate, London.
.
"Maybe BSM would care to discuss the actual content of the Mirror's so called retraction on his blog and explain to us how it supports his assertions of innocence? Or is he referring to yet another one perhaps because I can't see it sorry! And what is with his obsession with our geographical locations?" (Posted by Redmond McWilliams, Morden, Surrey, England). "That's a good question. Something he and the FoBSM have in common. I mean, I personally, don't find the compulsive need to refer to Manchester's location, so why are ours such a big deal? Also, he WAS fined." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austalia).

The word "retraction" is not used by me. What I actually say is that the Press Council obliged that newspaper to publish balancing commentary, having found in my favour that the Daily Mirror's report was unbalanced following a court case that I won against an acquaintance of David Farrant who was charged with assault. What I am innocent of is the scurrilous allegation offered by the defence to mitigate the outcome. This was the first time I heard of black magic threats allegedly made to the defence. Ironically, David Farrant would make a career of making black magic threats to people. He received a two years' prison sentence when convicted at the Old Bailey of threatening police witnesses in John Pope's sex case (Pope was later convicted of sexual assault on a minor). Farrant and Pope have been friends since 1973.

The names of my detractors are fairly common. I have, therefore, provided their general whereabouts to avoid any confusion with those of a similar or the same name. I only provide the town or city, not address details. Anthony Hogg, on the other hand, has published full address details of where can be found some of those he obsessively, ie almost every day of every year, comments about in an increasingly misleading and negative way. I am confident the FoBSM has not published address details of any of my detractors.
.

"BSM makes the claim that he was subsequently cleared of the charge and received damages but no evidence is supplied as support. And does he honestly believe that he David would use the Bradishes in this way... the very people who were putting up his bail?!?" (Posted by Redmond McWilliams, Morden, Surrey, England).
.

I could not be "subsequently cleared of the charge" because I was not charged with anything. It was the police who charged John Bradish whom the Crown found guilty on my behalf. The defence case put forward by the Bradishes included the black magic telephone threats  that David  Farrant had convinced the couple was me. Either that or they went along with the ploy to mitigate the outcome which it did to some extent. Yet the first I knew about these calls was when I heard them mentioned by a defence witness, Gillian Bradish. Using the Bradishes in this way was par for the course for Farrant who had a grudge against John Bradish due to alleged advances Bradish had made toward his wife, Mary, in the previous year or so. Farrant ran a hate campaign against Bradish without the latter being aware of who was behind it. Patrons of Farrant's pub of choice, the Prince of Wales, were very aware of who was behind the vendetta because Farrant shared his abusive stickers and leaflets with them, just as he boasted to them about the black magic telephone calls.
.

"What's amazing is, even though the court acknowledged he'd been assaulted, HE was made to pay a fine." (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austalia).
.

I was not fined. This is a false allegation from someone who, apart from his name, remains anonymous and hidden from view behind a demonic mask; someone, moreover, who is fulfilling an agenda rather than disseminating fact. To keep repeating a falsehood, as he is prone to do, does not turn error into truth. The Australian — not born when the case I brought against Bradish was heard — who keeps repeating this claim is required to offer proof before publishing such a falsehood. If it can be shown by him that I have been fined I will personally offer him to an expenses paid trip to England and give him a tour of the object of his obsession (besides myself), ie Highgate Cemetery. I am on exceedingly good terms with FoHC.

"Yet you take the word of someone who was fined for making harassing phone calls to Gillian Bradish?" (Posted by Anthony Hogg, Melbourne, Victoria, Austraila).

Let me be absolutely clear. I have never been fined in my entire life, and nor do I have any criminal convictions. To claim otherwise is defamatory. The Daily Mirror, 5 November 1970, published an inaccurate and unbalanced report of the outcome of a court case for assault brought by me against John Bradish, a friend of David Farrant but not an acquaintance of mine. A complaint was immediately lodged with the Press Council against the Daily Mirror by me. The Press Council upheld my complaint and the Daily Mirror was obliged to publish a statement offering balancing commentary which they did at the foot of page two of their newspaper on 26 November 1970. Criminal compensation was awarded to me in the following year by the Criminal Compensation Board. The assault case having been proven resulted in compensation for injuries sustained. It is regrettable that the deception upon John Bradish and his wife Gillian Bradish by Farrant was not apparent to all until after the court case. Gillian Bradish was put on the spot by the prosecution when asked how she knew who made the telephone calls. She went along with what she had been previously told by Farrant. However, in the following year she accepted she had been wrong and realised it was Farrant who made the threatening black magic telephone calls.  Until the trial, I had not spoken with or met Gillian Bradish. How could she possibly have recognised my voice when she made no contact with me until the day of the court case? I was later informed by Tony Hill (in whose cellar Farrant resided from August 1969 until August 1970) that John and Gillian Bradish’s telephone number was ex-directory. Hill was acquainted with this couple and had spoken to them on various occasions in pubs. I had not. As the plaintiff, I won the case despite all these shenanigans by Farrant to influence the defence case.

Gillian Bradish had a long history of mental illness and at a much later date sadly committed suicide. When I saw her husband years later we never spoke about these matters, but I sensed he was very much aware of what really happened in the autumn of 1970. From my perspective, the attempt to frame me for telephone calls made to the Bradish household by David Farrant is at the heart of the ill-feeling I feel toward the man who spent the next forty-two years waging a mindless vendetta against me, my family and friends; a vendetta, indeed, which still absurdly continues to this day. Farrant's enmity stems from earlier in 1970 when I would not allow myself to become involved in his asinine lone publicity-seeking schemes at Highgate Cemetery, and furthermore, warned against his proposed antics on Thames Television's Today programme and in the Hampstead & Highgate Express on 13 March 1970. He was arrested by police in August 1970 while carrying out the very thing I had advised against. Yet even now, if David Farrant was to come clean and admit to making the balck magic telephone calls to Gillian Bradish, something he boasted about immediately after the court case to drinking acquaintances in a pub where he was a familiar face, I would forgive him, but there can be no reconciliation unless this infected root of the problem, still exacting pain all these many years later, is addressed and indeed extirpated. Due to this matter being for me at the heart of what some people have called a "feud,"I have always stated that I would submit to a polygraph test.

My first meeting with David Farrant in early 1970. He is seen pointing to the spot where he claimed to have witnessed an apparition on three occasions at Highgate Cemetery. I was far from convinced. His claim proved to be bogus and my refusal to support him led to Farrant conducting a malicious vendetta.