Edmund West

Being a goth has its advantages, not least the opportunity to meet lots of witches. One is River Jordan, who wears Victorian corsets and tricorn hats and spends her nights taming foxes. ‘Death is just a part of life,’ she tells me. ‘I am grateful to be able to speak with the dead around Samhain/Halloween/Day of the Dead and have done since my childhood. I hope my body will one day be food nutrients.’ Samhain is the Celtic festival of the dead, pronounced ‘SAH-win’. Ariadne Rainbird, a psychologist from the Welsh valleys, tells me how she celebrates. She recommends a simple ritual: set up an altar with seasonal vegetation such as pinecones, ferns and apples, add a glass of water or fruit juice and an incense stick, then sit quietly and breathe deeply.

I am not your typical Goth. I don’t have piercings or tattoos (I refuse to pay for pain), I have no mental illnesses and, most shocking of all, I am heterosexual. On the other hand, my birthday is on 22 May, World Goth Day, so maybe it was my destiny. I find comfort in the gothic world. As a child, horror films never frightened me because I knew they were fictional. What really gave me nightmares were the ‘Kill your speed, not a child’ adverts. I memorised the Bride of Frankenstein film to stop me thinking about those terrifying adverts as I went to sleep. While I didn’t start wearing black clothes ornamented with skulls until I was 16, I was always drawn to the macabre.

‘I’m not going to your place, it looks like a crack den.’ It’s not exactly a vote of confidence when your mother describes your home that way. Admittedly, the bedsit I have lived in for ten years is tiny. There is no central heating. The white blinds have faded to yellow. It’s not much good for house parties: I could fit four people, five if I sat between the sink and the microwave. However, I would like to defend living in bedsits. Whenever I hear people complaining about housing in London, I wonder whether they have considered a bedsit. I’m autistic and work as a part-time carer, but even on my salary I was able to go on holiday abroad four times last year, thanks to my living arrangements. In London, rent is my biggest expense by a huge margin.