Mike Raven - Later Life

Later Life

In 1971 he decided to leave radio and to return to acting, combining his former career with his passion for the occult to work in horror movies. The pre-publicity for these films centred on Raven's interests in the occult - he reputedly always dressed in black, often with a matching cloak. He first appeared as Count Karnstein in the Hammer horror film Lust for a Vampire (1971) but suffered the indignity of having his voice re-dubbed. He then moved to the Amicus production company for I, Monster (1971), and worked with producer Tom Parkinson on Crucible of Terror, in which he played a mad sculptor. The filming introduced him to Cornwall, where he moved with his family to live in a converted 17th-century pigsty at Penpol, Lesnewth. Raven and Parkinson collaborated again on Disciple of Death (1972), which Raven partly financed. However, its poor commercial performance effectively ended his acting career - one critic described the film as "so incoherent that it comes across as a Dada nightmare". He also appeared on the music show 2 G's and the Pop People (1972), performing a version of the "Monster Mash".

He reverted to using his real name in 1974, and began to produce carvings in wood and granite, combining religious and erotic imagery. In 1977 he moved with his family to South Penquite, near Blisland on Bodmin Moor, where, with no prior knowledge, he began sheep farming, eventually establishing a successful farm. Later, he had to give up farming because of a heart condition, turning instead to his art. He determined not to sell any work until he had enough for an exhibition, but was initially thwarted by the unexpected deaths of two of his sponsors, the critic Peter Fuller and then the artist Christina Hoare. His first show of sculptures was eventually arranged in Cornwall, but shortly before it was due to open the sponsors pulled out on the grounds that some of the works were in bad taste. They were eventually, and successfully, displayed in the crypt of St George's Church, Bloomsbury, in 1990, and later at the Penzance Gallery. One of his pieces, The Deposition from the Cross, was later exhibited in the Images of Christ exhibition of 20th century religious art staged at Northampton and St Paul's Cathedral, London. A series of commissions followed, from around Europe.

On the 25th anniversary of the start of Radio 1, in 1992, it was at first rumoured that he was dead, and someone making personal appearances as Mike Raven was exposed as a fraud. Eventually an appeal for information about him was heard by a butcher in Cornwall, who revealed Fairman's change of name and whereabouts.

He wrote of himself:

"Now, looking back from the comparative serenity of old age, I can see that my whole life has been conditioned by two main elements; my consistently unsuccessful struggle to come to terms with my own sexuality, and my, consequently, equally unsuccessful attempts to live up to my Christian beliefs..."