Please note that the Radio4All website will be moving over to new server hardware on July 26th starting at noon Pacific/3PM Eastern. The work should last two to three hours. During that time, the server will be offline.
Welcome to the new Radio4all website! If you cannot log in, you may need to reset your password. Email here if you need additional support.
Your support is essential if the service is to continue, there are bandwidth bills to pay every month and failing disk drives to replace. Volunteers do the work, but disk drives and bandwidth are not free. We encourage you to contribute financially, even a dollar helps. Click here to donate.Welcome to the new Radio4all website! If you cannot log in, you may need to reset your password. Email here if you need additional support.
Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers (1880-1948) was a fascinating character without whom vampire research would be very much the poorer. Throughout his life he was described by acquaintances as kind, courteous, generous and outrageously witty; but those who knew him well sensed an underlying discomfort and mystery. In appearance he was plump, round cheeked and generally smiling. His dress resembled that of an eighteenth century cleric, with a few added flourishes such as a silver-topped cane depicting Leda being ravished by Zeus in the form of a swan. He wore sweeping black capes crowned by a curious hairstyle of his own devising which led many to assume he wore a wig. His voice was high pitched, comical and often in complete contrast to the macabre tales he was in the habit of recounting. Throughout his life he astonished people with his knowledge of esoteric and unsettling occult lore. Many people later described him as the most extraordinary person they had ever known. His successor in the annals of professional vampirology, and founder of the Vampire Research Society, was barely an infant when Summers died. Curiously, Seán Manchester (whose initials are the same as Montague Summersâ initials reversed) began in the Church of England and converted to Roman Catholicism before entering holy orders in the Old Catholic Church ~ as, of course, did Summers. Both were ordained within the context of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and, as Old Catholic Bishops, led autocephalous jurisdictions that held authority in Great Britain. Summers entered the Old Catholic priesthood in 1913 and, towards the end of his life, was elevated to the episcopate by Hugh George de Willmott Newman, Archbishop of Glastonbury ~ an office and See currently held by Seán Manchester. Summers was episcopally consecrated for the Order of Corporate Reunion.