As, after eight and half years and 35 issues of the Society’s magazine, this is the very last we will ever see of Udolpho, l thought it only right that l pronounce a few words over the corpse of our departed friend. So here, for all assembled mourners, is a brief and erratic history of the Society and its magazine.
The Goth Soc was born on 22nd August 1990. Well, actually it was born on I8th August, but as the 22nd timed exactly with the 505th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth and Richard III is one of our patron saints, naturally I picked the more resonant of the two days. I am able to be so precise about all this through referring back to the very first magazine, then called The Goth, which obligingly is most factual about these things, though about very little else.
l recall with great pleasure the fact that the entire first issue was written by myself, but as it seemed a trifle egotistical and bombastic to announce this I drafted in two fictitious volunteers, Sally Morefield and Edward de la Bedoyere. The magazine was expensively produced on a laser printer, with the sheets being hand-sorted, hand-folded and hand-stapled, and let me tell you that once you have so handassembled twenty or more of the wretched things, you are strongly inclined to wonder why you ever bothered.
I also recall with affection that I had a stall at the Small Press Fair that year, in which this cobbled-up masquerade of a magazine sold by dozens, which was pretty gratifying. Those were the days, grandchildren, when desktop publishing was a pioneering thing and a thousand little magazines and presses sprung up like mushrooms, The multitude of different stalls and imprints at the Fair that year was dazzling. and very exciting and inspiring. One wandered about happily blowing all one’s profits at the stalls of one’s rivals.
Being of an ambitious state of mind at the time, in the magazine l announced various things I can now only read with a shudder. l see l planned a Black Banquet for November 2th 1990, and also a Masqued Supper, a Bram Stoker tour taking in Whitby and Transylvania, and a Picturesque Tour, taking in famous views and prospects. There was a competition to write our Official History and Charter, the winner to be rewarded with a magnum of “excellent” champagne (l had not yet learned that there are a lot of obliging suckers out there who will do these things for nothing), and there was The Fyodor Dostoyevsky Sweepstake. This last was free to all members who, it was affirmed, would be automatically entered for this game of chance, unless they show strong moral tendencies to object. On second thoughts, however, I realised this was an exceedingly bad idea, which could only lead to endless trouble with The Law who have no sense of humour in such matters, and so with regret cancelled the Sweepstake.
To my great surprise the Goth Soc took off almost immediately, However, we had many many weirdos in those early days. One lady wrote from America in the darkest terms, saying that she had heard all about us and that she and her husband often “participated in similar scenes” in California. She went on to suggest that we should meet up next time she and her husband were in England. Well, naturally I and my dear ghostly friend Edward de la B ran shrieking for the nearest exit on perusing this letter. Later recovering ourselves, we wrote back in innocent stupid tones, saying that we did not know what she was talking about, and we never heard from her again.
l see also, as I flick back through the first four issues, that the Black Banquet mentioned above was soon cancelled because not enough tickets were sold, a feature of the Goth Soc’s social life which was to occur again and again. The Masqued Supper, the Bram Stoker tour, and the Picturesque Tour went the same way, though they never got as far as sordid details like dates and tickets.
Already beginning to learn that the best way to proceed was to chuck the ball back in the members’ court, l wrote in the second magazine that l would like “to have your views on the subject before we start plotting and planning any other entertainments”.
As for contributors to the mag, in this issue there was another fictitious contributor, Martin Blackstar, but we actually did have two real live bona fide contributors, Laurent Lalonde and Kev Demant, the latter writing for the first time ever in these illustrious pages on our favourite cleric, His Holiness the Right Reverend Lord God Raving Bonkers Sean Manchester. At this stage, Manchester had not yet bared all his (metaphysically) yellow rotting fangs at Kev, and Kev was still rather taken by him. All that was to change.
By 25th February 1991, the date of issue of the third magazine, the Society was doing very well. We now had members in Kenya, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, Malta, and many other lands. l am delighted to say that there are a few ragged remnants of that original band still with us, and if that is not loyalty I do not know what is.
The Maltese contingent particularly deserve a mention, as they were the most charming bunch of total nutters. Dr Franco Vassallo wrote in his letter of application that “only a sick and deranged mind can possibly join a publishing Society before the advent of a Gulf war of biblical proportions”. This should put the whole thing into historical context for you.
And contributors to the magazine? Another wraith, Emilia Clairmont, while Edward de la B contributed his last little masterpiece.
As for the vexed question of socialising, having discovered what cripplingly hard work and how infinitely time-consuming it was running a society, I decided to appeal for social secretaries for the regions, who would organise events for their local groups and leave me out of it. Well, naturally no one turned out to be stupid enough to volunteer, though for a while we had one or two lunaticks approaching fascinated as moths to a flame …
Come April 1991 (yes, okay I will speed up in a moment, I don’t intend to rehash every single one of the 35 issues), I was recording the first outburst of Editorial bad temper, also to be a feature of the Society, One prospective member had rung up and started interrogating me as to exactly what pound of flesh he was going to get for his subscription, After we (in other words, I) had described it in all its glorious hues of putrefaction, he said he still did not understand, so we (l) decided he was too dim to become a member. As l recall, I eventually put the phone down on him, though l was not yet hardened enough to state this in the Editorial.
That summer saw the famous Summer Party in the Reptile House at London Zoo. There are people who have very fond recollections of this event; all I can say is that for me it was the most unmitigated nightmare, as though I had long suspected it, I now had it thoroughly confirmed that l was of a totally saturnine, surly, and unsociable disposition, and about as suitable to play the Lady Hostess as a rabid dog to take up flower arranging. The organising of the whole thing in itself had been a ghastly penance, but when it came to the point of me being at the Party, the centre point for all enquiries and introductions, and the supposed dispenser of smiles, smirks, and honey-sweet charm, l went off into a complete cataleptic trance from shock. Anyone who spoke to me in the first hour was likely to come away with the impression that l was a rather oddly dressed Trappist monk (nun?). To recover myself, I went away to the booze counter for some time, trying to look anonymous and hoping no one would talk to me, and l eventually recovered myself enough to be able to string a couple of sentences together, rather badly, if addressed loudly and firmly enough.
The aftermath of this Party was that I decided l would rather spend four days straight in a dentist’s chair than do that again. However, l thought a dinner might be easier to cope with, as the restaurant would do all the organising, and l would only have to talk to people in my immediate vicinity. With this in mind, I recklessly planned a supper at Newstead Abbey, Byron’s home.
This took place on 28th September 1991. It was a wild stormy evening, with constants gusts of rain and wind, which made the Abbey very atmospheric. We had a private tour before supper, which was good fun. The supper was not too bad either, though it began most decorously with people being extremely polite and well-behaved and showing off their beautiful manners to one another like eighteenth century beaux and belles flirting their fans. Drink, however, pretty soon put an end to all that rubbish. As the storm thundered over the Abbey Park, the wine disappeared at an alarming rate, and by the time a certain Jethro had ended up drinking out of the ice bucket, good manners had entirely gone out of the window.
There were several very heated arguments, one being about smoking in which I was accused, together with Alexander Dixon who helped me write up the postmortem afterwards, of being A MURDERER. Alexander was also told that emotions are not felt within the heart but the intestines, and discovered that there was a menacing sub-genre named “funeralism”, which had just been invented and nobody knew what it was yet.
Skip forward a few months. At around this period I decided to kill off Edward de la B. It was with regret as I had grown quite attached to him. I, however, did it gently and painlessly, so that he did not know, and even composed a touching epitaph for him:
In this grave without care
Lies Edward de la Bedoyere,
His name sleeps with him in the tomb,
The other’s but a nom-de-plume.
However, I forgot to put it in the relevant magazine, and therefore nobody ever realised that the poor soul had passed over. Even now, so many years after his demise, people occasionally enquire after him.
Not yet cured of the fixed idea that a Society must have social events, l proceeded to plan yet another excruciating (for me) event, the Decadent Dinner at Greenwich. Now I have a feeling this must have got cancelled too, because I can find no mention of it in the following magazine, though l confess I have not spent an inordinate amount of time looking for it.
However, I do have a recollection of some sort of dinner at Greenwich, which I enjoyed as usual between teeth so tightly gritted that the fillings began to weld together. I only prized them open occasionally to shovel down quantities of red wine in an attempt to woo the light-hearted, relaxed bonhomie which never came. (I refer to myself only, of course, as regards the bonhomie – everyone else appeared to be in the most scintillating spirits. As a paranoiac, l am sure you will understand exactly what l mean.) I was so ill that night and the following day that had I been any worse, I would have been a hospital case.
Still, however, I had not entirely taken on board the fact that social events could only bring out the worst in me. I dearly loved the members – on the other end of a postage stamp – but, with a touching devotion to duty, l thought that social events were expected of a Society.
In September of 1992, we had the first lengthy article on the Highgate Vampire, titled “The Last Highgate Vampire Interview” (obviously not, as there have been about 357 others since then), in which Kev Demant interviewed the mad Bishop Manchester, who was at yet still hiding his more interesting psychoses under his mitre. This was Volume 9 of the magazine, swiftly followed of course by 10, l1 and 12. These are amongst my favourites of the magazines, with lots of fascinating contributions from members and some very good artwork.
Things were no easier, though, on the organisational front. I would announce something would happen/be done/be published, and it would immediately prove to be impossible. Growing tired of announcing the latest cancellations, l decided to impose a complete news blackout. l informed members of this, whilst saying that those who required reassurance about what the Society was up to should cut out the following and stick it on their wall.
WHAT CAN I DO!
How the civilian may help in this crisis
Be cheerful
Write encouragingly to friends at the front
Don’t repeat foolish gossip
Don’t listen to idle rumour
Don’t think you know better than Jennie Gray
Well, that told ’em.
Then, with Volume I3, The Goth was unilaterally changed to Udolpho, This was hugely popular. Tim Baggaley wrote that the new name was to tarnish the magazine “with something which sounds like an Italian clown act”. Some subscribers were so indignant that they call it The Goth to this day.
At the same time, I believe, the magazine changed to bi-monthly. This lasted for all of five minutes but explains why this issue is number 35, instead of number 34 as you might expect.
On August 29th 1993 there came the first Contributors Party at Greenwich. I felt I had to do something in gratitude for all the people who had contributed articles and pictures, and this seemed a reasonable way to do it, It went off very well.
Also at this period, Julie came to work with us in the office. Julie’s wages, as I am sure those with long memories will recall, are paid by the other side of the business, the only side which has ever made any money, Anyway, the dear girl has been a godsend, as was Brenda before her (you will not remember a Brenda as being the kind of relentless gothic snob l am, I had insisted with horror that Brenda couldn’t possibly use her real name but should call herself Sabina whilst on Goth Soc business).
On July 30th 1994, there came the second Contributors Party at Greenwich. Despite it being extraordinarily hot, and a bomb scare causing the evacuation of the restaurant for most of the evening, it was quite a good laugh.
Two days later, my father died. As these things will, it had the most devastating effect upon my life, and it has to be admitted that the Goth Soc, or at least my contribution to it, has never recovered since. Because of the utterly extraordinarily things which were happening in our family (and in particular all the breathtaking lies which had been told for years suddenly dissolving like morning dew), my attention completely left the Goth Soc and wandered off on many other strange paths. And on those same strange paths I have been more or less wandering ever since.
Symptomatic of my spiritual wanderings, the magazine saw the absence of my otherwise ubiquitous presence, For a while I gave up entirely writing editorials and only began again in Spring 1996, when the first copy of Ye Bloodie News appeared. This ran for 10 issues, which is a surprise as l never realised there were quite that many. Then with the Autumn 1998 issue, Ye Bloodie News was remorselessly and ruthlessly chopped, without even the feeblest semblance of an excuse, and you were offered by way of bait and bribe a Cat-in-Cemetery card instead.
Well, that gets us up to the present. I see that the first two and a half years of the Society’s existence have taken up five-sixths of this article, producing a lopsided and frankly rather blobby sort of history. However, l have neither the time nor the inclination nor the space to rewrite the thing with more balance.
All can say is that it’s been great fun, and a thousand thousand thanks to everyone who has given so generously of their talents in the magazine, and to all the old lags who have been so loyal and to all the newcomers who have so flatteringly expressed their lamentations that they only arrived at the end.
l would also like to very much thank those trusting and gullible souls who have dished out money for 1999’s two promised publications, though they don’t know what they will be called, what they will look like, or what they will contain. Both Julie and I were astounded by the response. As I said to her, “The less we do, the more they pay for it. Next time we’ll ask them for 40 quid to do nothing.”
l will be in touch with everyone who has joined up for 1999 in the early part of next year.
And a Happy Christmas and A Very Happy New Year to everyone.
Adieu. JENNIE
“FUNERAL ORATION” by Jennie Gray, UDOLPHO No. 35, December 1998.
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