Gavin Bone

Biography

Born on 19 January 1964, he was brought up in Portsmouth, Hampshire. His mother regularly visited mediums and tarot readers, which he believes was a major influence in his occult interest. He attended several conferences and events in Portsmouth on the unexplained, which spurred his interest in everything from UFOs to the Surrey Puma, ghosts, and the Bermuda Triangle.

He originally intended to have a career in the British Army, but was unable to go into regular service, instead serving in 219 Wessex General Hospital RAMC (V), before leaving due to his political leanings. He became involved with groups such as Greenpeace from 1981. He became interested in Wicca during the same period, having previously explored Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. He also explored and trained as a spiritual healer, after attending The Joseph Carey Spiritualist Centre. He practised solitary from 1982 before finding his first magical group in 1985 working from the Fifth Dimension Occult store, Eastney, Portsmouth. This group was eclectic and included earth healing practises as well as High Magick. It was from this group that the first coven he joined emerged, which was based on Buckland's Seax Wicca. He was later initiated into a second, Gardnerian based, tradition.

Wicca and Neopaganism

He trained as a registered nurse and has studied complementary healing methods such as reflexology. He was initiated into Seax-Wica in 1986, and was involved in the revival of British/Anglo-Saxon traditional shamanism in the late 1980s through a web site called PaganLink. He is currently developing the theory that Wicca may have some roots in tribal shamanistic healing traditions, as opposed to medieval ritual magic.

Bone first met Janet Farrar and Stewart Farrar in 1989 at a Pagan camp at Groby, near Leicester, where they struck up a friendship. He accompanied them on a tour of the United States in 1992, and on their return he moved to Ireland and became their business partner. He joined the Farrars as part of a "polyfidelitous relationship", and has continued in both the personal and professional relationship since Stewart's death on 7 February 2000. He co-authored several books with the Farrars, and he is the production manager for their videos. He also set up their website in 1996, which has become the “Pagan Information Network”, a contact network for Pagans across the Republic and Northern Ireland, for which Bone and Janet Farrar are the primary coordinators.

Bone and Janet Farrar are active members in the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Ireland, and have links with several covens in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. They ran a progressive coven in Ireland called Coven Na Callaighe until early 2009 which was part of Teampall Na Callaighe, which once included an open worship group Clan Na Callaighe.

Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone handfasted in Ireland, May 2001. They legally married in March 2014.

Early Pagan Network involvement

Following attending Link-Up '89 (September 1989) in Groby, Leicester, Gavin became involved in Pagan Link as a contact and facilitator for Portsmouth, with his then wife Tania Andrade. They regularly held moots in Portsmouth, in the Milton area, and from this a small coven naturally developed of no specific tradition. He later became a contact for the Pagan Federation as it expanded its contact network. He and his wife also became part of Clan Bran, a clan of eclectic practitioners based in Abbots Bromley, Leicestershire, before it moved to the Republic of Ireland.