Why Glasgow became convinced that a vampire lived among them
The date was September 23rd, 1954, and the location was Gorbals, Glasgow, off the banks of the River Clyde.
On one day, just like any other, a resident of that neighbourhood would have been forgiven for looking out of their window and suspecting that the world was coming to an end, going mad, or both.
On the street below them, they would have seen hundreds of school kids, from the age of four to 14, marching towards their fair city’s Southern Necropolis, the enormous graveyard on Caledonia Road. What’s more, each of them seemed to be armed to the teeth – carrying blades, stakes, and, strangely enough, large metal crosses, their dogs on leashes, barking up a storm over the excited chatter of school kids off on a late summer’s day out, seemingly without a care in the world.
Now, groups of kids scare the life out of me at the best of times. Multiply the size of that group by ten, and give them all melee weapons, and the very last thing that I’m willing to do is try to talk to them. However, the great citizens of Glasgow are made of stronger stuff than me, so I’m sure someone tried to step in and see what on earth all the fuss was about. The response, however, would probably just confuse them even more on so many levels.
Those kids would have first told them that two of their fellow kids had gone missing; they didn’t have names. The fact that a story like this hadn’t been reported by the press or the police would probably reinforce their belief that it hadn’t happened, because no adult would believe how it supposedly occurred.
Those kids believed with all their hearts that these two imaginary boys had been abducted by a vampire who’d taken residence in the Southern Necropolis.
The stories that were being passed along in this group would make your hair curl. Said vampire hadn’t just abducted the kids, but killed them and feasted on their mangled bodies. He was seven feet tall. His teeth were made of solid metal. Absolutely nothing could stop their thirst for revenge, up to and including police intervention. In true Glasgow fashion, the group were dispersed by a group of policemen that had been called by a worried onlooker, only to reconvene after dark. Arguably, an even more dangerous proposition for the group.
The group then spent the evening tearing the Necropolis apart, looking for the Gorbals Vampire. Obviously, they couldn’t locate the beast. Instead, they almost certainly just scared themselves shitless and attacked a bunch of their comrades after mistaking their forms in the dark for those of the undead monster who took their friends.
Yet, one night wasn’t enough. A slightly smaller group went back the night after. Then the night after that, shrinking and shrinking until the third night, when police began patrolling the Necropolis to disrupt any further action.
The problem was, this didn’t stop the mass panic from sweeping the children of Glasgow. A vampire had killed two boys, and all the adults were protecting him. Something had to be done, and in true adult fashion, it didn’t involve actually talking with the kids and working out what was really wrong with them. Instead, they just took away something they loved.
Horror comics like Tales from the Crypt and Astounding Stories had just arrived from the United States and were gaining popularity with younger readers all over the UK. A 1953 issue of Dark Mysteries featured a story called ‘The Vampire with the Iron Teeth’. Thus, it was ruled that this was a mass panic caused by impressionable kids reading these stories and not being able to tell fantasy from reality.
After a debate in the Scottish Parliament about these comics, the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 was passed, which banned the sale of published material that depicted “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature” to young readers.
The one thing all these adults hadn’t done was talk to the ringleaders of this operation. People like Bob Hamilton, Ronnie Sanderson, Tam Smith and Kenny Hughes. Kids from Glasgow who were there on the day, taking part in the hunt. None of whom had any idea what a vampire really was and had even less idea what an American horror comic would be. Turns out all these comics hadn’t really made it up to Glasgow just yet and were definitely not in the hands of kids there just yet. Don’t worry, though, now they never will be.
So, what exactly caused the mass panic about the Gorbals Vampire? We’ll never truly know for sure, despite the fact that if people of the time had taken more time to actually ask the kids involved, maybe we would.