London: Vampyres are prowling for new recruits in London as Halloween approaches to partake in wild parties, trips to Transylvania and bat spotting nights - but coffin-dwelling, blood drinkers need not apply.
With a penchant for custom-made fangs, striking make-up and gothic clothes, members of the London Vampyre Group (LVG) say it's their fascination with the romantic notion of vampires, rather than any darker intent, that draws them together.
"People who think they're un-dead, hundreds of years old, or that you have to drink blood if you're interested in the dark side of things, we can put them right on that," LVG's Mick Smith, 57, said in an interview in a London pub.
"The drinking of blood is a taboo. It's a point of view that we don't tend to represent, but we think it is something that should be articulated," said Smith, wearing a somber black suit.
They may be conservatively attired lawyers or computer programmers by day, but Vampyres are transformed by flamboyant clothes after dark for the Dance of the Damned Vampire Ball and Requiem of the Resurrected parties with gothic belly dancing.
The Halloween Goth Ball in the northern English town of Whitby, where Bram Stoker was inspired to write Dracula, is a major calendar fixture.
Trips are planned to the Czech Republic's gothic castles and ossuaries, and to New Orleans, setting for Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.
"I'd always been fascinated by vampires, they are often portrayed as powerful and beautiful. It's the romanticism of it all," said Rebecca Summers, 35, social secretary of LVG which was formed about 12 years ago, a splinter group from parent organisation The Dracula Society.
"It gets you out of that mundane world. And if you can live forever and remain beautiful then most people would want to do that," said Summers, who works as a business consultant.
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With flowing black hair, red lips and a range of corsets, bustles and PVC outfits in her wardrobe, she says her work colleagues are unperturbed by her fixations with vampires and vampire myths which go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world.
But persuading her husband to ditch his "Coldplay" CD collection and have fangs fitted is a bigger challenge, said Summers, who carries her own set of sharp teeth in her handbag.
Few LVG members believe that the blood-sucking maniacs portrayed in Hollywood horror movies are roaming London's streets, wearing black capes and sucking blood from humans and animals to maintain immortality.
But some do believe in vampire-like personalities.
"There are people who believe in psychic vampires, that there are people who act as vampires, are very predatory, they take energy from other people," said Summers.
"You do get the odd strange people who believe they need to drink blood to survive. I've only had e-mail dealings with them."
LVG is keen to project vampire fans in a positive light after coming under scrutiny several years ago when a German woman, convicted with her partner of a satanic murder, said she became a vampire at so-called "bite parties" in London.
"In one sense, we have a positive social function - rectifying bad ideas," said Smith, who edits LVG's Chronicles magazine, with articles on vampires in literature, coffin-shaped sleeping bags and the "Vindicator" agony aunt advice.
"For me the most horrific things that happen in the world are on the news every day, not what you see in a horror film."
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