A Phantom weekend with the goths of Whitby And I think it was this contrast - this gulf between extreme fantasy and reality - that made me want to start taking photos of the festival. It's hard to say when this began proper. I got my first camera from my Uncle Stan when I was about 11. It didn't work, but I enjoyed using it to frame images and, as I had no film, I could snap away quite freely and found that for the most part the scary people were happy to pose for me. Harland Miller getting ready for a night out in Whitby (Photo: Harland Miller) My dad at this time worked at Rowntree's chocolate factory in the otherwise ancient city of York, so getting to Whitby at the weekends meant driving over on Friday nights after work, and by the time we reached the great North York Moors it was usually pitch dark. I grew up with a fear of these visits that had nothing to do with Dracula feasting on my young neck but everything to do with my mother's anxiety about the journey itself. Formed by glaciers, the Yorkshire moors go up and down and down some more then up and around. Out of the many black spots engendered by this Jurassic terrain there was one particularly hazardous turn on a blind descending bend with a sheer drop on the other side, known - and indeed marked on the map - as "Devil's Elbow." I can picture my mother now in the back seat and leaning forward to my dad, saying "Roger, Roger!" (my dad was called Roger). "Slow down, slow down, we're approaching 'Devil's Elbow!"" And this when it was still ten miles away. In her defence, the old Humber didn't handle so well on those roads. Not many cars did, and there were often wrecks along the way. So, it was deeply ingrained in my mind as a journey not so much to be enjoyed, but endured, and as big a test of a car's mettle as you could ever ask. That's why when Rolls-Royce asked me if I'd like to test-drive the Phantom - to get away anywhere I liked for the weekend - I immediately thought of the drive to Whitby. That and the fact it was the Dracula festival and the car was black and called "the Phantom." Like all those people you meet in LA who are "working on a script," so am I - together with director Steve Baron. The script is set in Whitby - well, Whitby and Illinois, but mainly Whitby - and for the last few years we've been attending the festival for research. The night before we set off, Steve called me to suggest that Daniela Agneli - an extremely stylish Italian lady we'd met a few nights earlier at a dinner, and the Telegraph Magazine's Fashion Director - might like to come along too, for the golf. For the goth? I asked, questioning what I mistook for poor syntax. "No - golf!" said Steve, "Daniela's a keen golfer." "Oh, OK," I said, "that's great." It was only after putting the phone down and turning out the light that I recalled there was only crazy golf in Whitby. But, I thought, we'd cross that miniature bridge when we came to it. The next morning, I took a delivery of the Phantom on Mornington Crescent. As it rolled out of the back of a juggernaut, gleaming black, it seemed to displace the very greyness of the day. The drizzle that subsumed us into hunched submission seemed to lighten up around it. And I noticed it was producing a similar effect on passers-by, who were looking up, round and back at the car, bumping into people coming the other way who were doing the same thing. Unless, I thought, rather than looking at the car they were looking at me getting into it and wondering, perhaps expecting someone - I don't know - someone different, I guess. When Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni was asked why he made cult film Blow Up one of the reasons he gave was that he'd heard in London there were young men in jeans driving around in Rolls-Royces. One expectation that wasn't confounded - but surpassed, was the handling of the car itself. Once I was behind the wheel - and every time I got behind the wheel thereafter, I was in a constant state of marvel. As travel Writer Norman Lewis wrote in his book Naples 44: "one soon runs out of superlatives." An unforeseen consequence of this, however, was that the scary but exciting journey of my childhood was rendered smooth and therefore, in some ways, slightly disappointing. The feared "Devil's Elbow" seemed of less account now; it was as though the Devil himself had relaxed his arm to usher us down into Whitby, or so you would say if you were a romantic kind of guy. Whitby Abbey at sunset (Photo: Harland Miller) Once in the town, another unforeseen consequence of arriving in the Phantom was that my previous "fly on the wall" modus operandi, established over the years, was completely reversed. Pulling up to the ruined Whitby Abbey on the cliff top overlooking the harbour, we were quickly approached by members of a secret society - too secret to divulge its name - who looked very much at home there among the ruins. They, and the female member that approached us, looking pretty amazing. In a kind of negative of the normal goth uniform of black hair and white face, she had white hair and a painted black face, as well as extremely long nails. From the sound they made as she lightly drummed them over the Phantom's window, I concluded they were made of some kind of metal. Steve lowered the window. Hey! Love the car," she said. I'm a right petrol-head me! Can I take a picture? "Sure," said Steve, with a slight note of relief, "Can we take yours?" One of Whitby's Goth Festival-goers (Photo: Harland Miller) Although there had been that momentary misunderstanding when I'd though Steve had said Daniela wanted to "come for the Goth" she had in fact packed a fabulous disguise that she'd worn at the Hallowe'en party where we'd met. So good was the disguise that I only recognised her as the person from the party once she'd put it back on. I was wishing I'd packed my own Hallowe'en costume, as it turned out that this year in order to gain entrance to certain Dracula festival events, we had to observe a strict dress code. Needing an outfit, fast, I was tipped off that one of the larger hotels in town was holding a goth bring-any-buy sale in a second-floor conference suite. By the time Steve and I arrived they were packing up. From one remaining rail, I quickly picked out some standard issue black trousers, T-shirt, and cloak, with a bit of a Muppet Show-style red lining. It swished about diabolically in the storm that had whipped up out of nowhere. Steve came back with what I'm not sure were entirely men's clothes - but nor were they women," either. Unable to get a room in town, we were booked into Gisborough Hall, a very fine establishment but a good half hour away from Whitby. We decided it was too far, in the storm that was now raging, to go back and change, so we engaged a room on the first floor on the renowned Resolution pub/hotel in town and thought ourselves lucky to have secured it - until we realised that it was just above a stage where bands played until 5am. Not great for sleeping, but it worked for a quick change. However with a town full of vampires, going to sleep probably wasn't a good idea anyway. "What do you think?" asked Steve, emerging from the bathroom in black PVC and white lace. "Oh Steven!" said Daniela, "I did not know you were into PVC! Looks great! Perhaps because she's Italian, Daniela had a "When in Rome..." approach to dressing for the festival; in a long black, completely backless dress (just the thing for the bitter wind that blows in off the North Sea) she went about making up our faces with a lot of pan stick and fake blood, ensuring that we fit right in. As Daniela attended to Steve's visage, I lay back on the bed and found - instead the ubiquitous Gideon bible on the bedside table - a Dracula Omnibus. Having read a few pages, I found that by the time we were ready, I was infected by Stoker's prose so that, in my mind at least, our Phantom awaited like a caliche of old to whisk us from one party to another - from the old music hall to the pier, from there to the 199 steps that lead up to the graveyard at the top of the cliff - now crumbling so rapidly that coffins are falling out from the side. Steve Baron and Daniela Agnelli and their Phantom (Photo: Harland Miller) The long night became day, and a tee-off time of 11am awaited us. But not at the local crazy golf course. It turned out that the area does in fact have a proper course; the nearby Ganton, which is one of the very best courses in England. I'd managed to get us a round there, which I was pleased about. Ganton is a stunning course, and the only crazy thing about it was that - not having brought the right nail varnish and make-up remover with us - we were not quite club-rules attired. I had to remind myself as we went into the club house that the great gothic rocker Alice Cooper was also a keen golfer, so perhaps they would let us off. In the event, my concerns were totally unfounded as everyone connected with the club were supremely helpful and friendly, especially as we had by this time managed to smash the Phantom's back window with a golf club. This was not an act of violence or anyone's fault (especially not mine, I'd like to add) but was the result of leaving a golf club on the back shelf - a driver in fact - a back shelf driver you could call it. As the sun had been shining on the way to Ganton, we had decided to have the top down. Under normal circumstances this would have been a smooth operation, unless - and this probably goes for any soft top - you leave a golf club in the way of the mechanism, at which point a crunching, crumpling sound ensues. The problem of no back window was dealt with pretty amazingly by the Rolls-Royce back-up team and by about the 14th hole (though with my golf this would be like the equivalent of a good player's 24th hole, if there were such a thing) we were sorted. So that was our journey. I've tried - like Jonathan Harker, the unlucky estate agent and straight feed to Dracula's outré character - to give a sense of journeying and of place and of occasion, with just a few "jottings down." A sense of doing something that might appear strange to others, but which seemed very normal to me. At the end of "Dracula," Stoker's victorious hero Van Helsing sums up events by saying, "We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us." But I do! My Phantom, though other-worldly, was very real. Being without it takes some adjusting to. After we returned to London and handed the Rolls-Royce back to its owners, Steve had to stop his own car on the Euston Road to check that he didn't have four flat tires. He didn't, of course, but the sensation was genuine. Life after a Phantom feels a bit deflated. For more information on the Rolls-Royce Phantom visit rolls-roycemotorcars.com