'"King of the witches" dies', Bexhill Observer, 5 May 1988

Bexhill Observer, 5 May 1988. Report of the death of Alex Sanders, 'the so-called King of Witches', on the Saturday in St Helen's Hospital, Hastings, aged 62, of cancer. Prayers were said in a local church for his son Victor, 16, whom the paper says Sanders had named as his successor and whose mother, Maxine Sanders, was said to oppose the move. It reports Kevin Carlyon's statement that Sanders had admitted on his deathbed that the curse on the BLODS show had been a joke. A short biography follows: born in Lancashire; claimed initiation by his grandmother and, at ten, by Aleister Crowley; rose to fame in the 1960s; moved to Chantry Cottage in 1973; a familiar figure at the Bell Hotel; moved to St Leonards in 1986. Carlyon is quoted: 'Whether people liked or disliked Alex, he died a lonely man.' Sanders died on 30 April 1988. The paper drew on Carlyon's typed account, item 183. Bexhill Museum item 182. Bexhill Observer cutting held in the Bexhill Observer archive at Bexhill Museum. Shown in UNSEEN: The Alex Sanders Archive at Bexhill Museum, Part Three, The Vacant Throne (6 September 2026), presented by Julian Porter of Bexhill Museum and hosted by Sharon Day for Alexandrian Witchcraft. '"King of the witches" dies', Bexhill Observer, 5 May 1988. (1988). Bexhill Observer archive, Bexhill Museum. Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive. https://www.alexandrianwitchcraft.com/archive/bexhill-museum-182-king-of-the-witches-dies