Introduction.

“Ghosts are an English phenomenon”

I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve heard a foreign friend of mine say that, be they Dutch, French or even German. It seems we English are beset at every corner by the ghosts of the long dead, with a ghost in every house and a spook or two in every castle. And yet why? Ghosts do haunt locations all over the world, people see and report them every day. Probably every minute of every day someone somewhere is seeing something they don’t understand and either rightly or wrongly they are placing their experience into the paranormal file.

The purpose of this article isn’t to decide whether ghosts exist or not, it’s up to you to believe or not to believe. What I hope to do is simply inform you about an experiment I’ve been conducting for a number of years now.

Background.

I’ve been interested in history for the vast majority of my life. I am blessed – some would say cursed – with a very good memory. As a baby I never settled easy and cried a lot, my parents would take me out into the summer evenings and push me around the edges of a boating lake at Newton Aycliffe in a push-chair close to where I lived for the first few months of my life, in the vain hope it would send me to sleep. I remember looking up at the stars from my push-chair, my earliest memory. Others include staying at my grandmother’s (my mother’s mother, Veronica Teder) house and watching the lights of the traffic outside as they shone around the room. I remember owning a small matchbox train-set which had a short circular track. I remember playing with children who lived next door and watching my father as he searched the sky in vain for some pigeons he had bought who had flew away the first time he let them out.

I also remember my first dream, or rather nightmare. It involved being chased by a tiger from my house to my grandmother’s, only to find my grandmother’s house had disappeared and instead there was a cul-de-sac of garages which the tiger was laid across the roofs of at the far end. My grandmother’s house isn’t there anymore, it’s now a Doctors Surgery and where my grandmother’s garden would have been is now, yes you guessed it, a set of garages (though the Surgery has plans to extend over this area).

I remember my dad playing cricket badly and living at a different house at a place called Eldon, with my other grandparent’s (Thurza and Frederick Linton) visiting. I also remember staying at these grandparents whilst my parents went out for a Sunday drink, and it was my grandfather Fred who got me interested in history. I remember all of these things and to me I find it astonishing that others don’t recall things as clearly as I do. The events I have mentioned happened in my first four years of life and are as vivid and clear as if they had happened yesterday.

One Sunday, as my dinner was being cooked (I still remember the smell) I was playing with some toy soldiers, a set of British and Japanese plastic toy soldiers to be precise. I remember my grandfather got down on his knees and set them up, he explained to me ‘how to take out a Japanese pill-box’ and it intrigued me, so much so that I decided to one day join the army there and then. I was only four. As the years went by I managed to get my hands on more books concerning World War Two. My grandmother Veronica got some books for me as she worked at a nursing home and was able to buy books whose previous owners had passed away. As well as this I won a spelling competition at school, and so a school teacher got me a book on military aircraft as the prize and I assimilated this information so well that whenever my parents had friends over I would get this book, ask them to open a page at random, cover the name of the aircraft and then I would name it. There must have been close to a thousand aircraft in the book and I knew every single one before I was ten! Unfortunately I don’t own this book any longer and would love to find another copy, the search goes on.

The more I learned of World War Two the more I learned of other wars. I remember winning a bet with a friend of my fathers. He was convinced the T.V show M.A.S.H was set during the Vietnam war. I knew it was Korea and I won – I think I was around eight when I won this and I probably spent the money on Airfix model kits.

As I said a good memory is thought by some to be a curse and I have plenty of bad memories to recall, my grandfather waking early in the morning and coughing and spluttering until a thick black mucus drooled from his chin. I think I knew he was dying and can still remember as a six year old when he did die. I had just got a train set for Christmas and it was still set up on the dining room table. My father sat looking out of the window with the saddest look on his face I have ever seen. As you can imagine I don’t smoke, not after seeing and remembering the suffering of my grandfather.

It wasn’t until I was around 12 years old that I became interested in the paranormal. I’d seen Ghostbusters (both of which are still two of my favourite films) as well as other T.V programmes such as Scary but True? However it wasn’t until I experienced a couple of things which I believe may have been paranormal that I really started to look into ghosts in a new light.

As I said I was about twelve, maybe thirteen. It was early in the morning and my mother had just woke me up to go to school and like anyone my age I was drifting into and out of sleep. I remember rolling over in bed and opening my eyes, and seeing what I can only describe as a girl standing directly in front of me, only inches from my eyes so that all I could see of her was the midsection of her body. I say a she for all I saw was an old fashioned night-dress which was off-white with pink piping down either side and had pink and yellow flowers on it. I closed my eyes, not through fear but simply because I thought it was one of my two sisters who sometimes came in to wake me when my mother was shouting up stairs. Then it suddenly dawned on me that they wore different pyjamas (my-little-pony ones to be precise). I opened my eyes and no one was there, my sisters were still in bed and my mother was downstairs. My father was working away from home at the time.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I read about Hypnogogic and Hypnopompic states of mind where people who are just entering or just coming out of sleep can witness phenomena, and in truth this may have been what happened to me, I still do not know.

Likewise the passage of years has led me to wonder at the next spooky event I was witness to which was only a month or so after I saw this girl. My mother had gone next door to gossip with a friend of hers and my sisters had tagged along. I had stayed in the house as I wanted to watch monster-trucks on T.V (I’m not a big fan and still don’t know why I stayed alone in the house). I went to the bathroom at around half six in the evening and came back to watch the show. I remember hearing a clicking noise like a light switch. It had come from the bottom of the stairs, so I opened the door and found the lights, both at the top and bottom of the stairs as well as the bathroom directly at the top to be on. I was a little un-nerved because I always felt strange on these stairs, when coming down I often felt like someone was chasing me. I turned off the lights and sat back down. Not long after I heard the click noise once more and so opened the door and yet again the lights were on. This panicked me so much that I slammed the door shut. As I did heard a second banging noise from the kitchen and went in to find a number of cupboard doors (not all of them) wide open.

My mother came back in around half an hour later and found me huddled into a corner crying my eyes out. As I told my mother of these goings on, my younger sister Victoria went to look up stairs. She quickly closed the door and put her back to it as if expecting someone to burst through. She said she had seen someone on the stairs. I don’t think any of us got any sleep that night, though I still probably had to go to school the following day.

These events got me interested and so I got some books from my local library on the subject, and learned of things such as the Fox Sisters, Willington Mill and of course Borley Rectory. For some reason as time went on I lost this enthusiasm for ghosts and hauntings, but never for history. At school I was poor at all subjects, even history, though when you know more than your history teacher (who was actually an English teacher just filling in) it’s hard to stay focussed. After school I did Bricklaying courses and quickly gained an NVQ. My father had been a bricklayer and so it seemed like the thing to do, which I did on and off for around fifteen years. Now and again times got hard and so I took on other jobs to pay the bills, and gained more qualifications. It wasn’t until around 2002 that I decided to get a degree in History, which I did via the Open University. I also have a diploma in local history from Oxford University (done via the internet). Not only did this expand my knowledge base but it gave me a new enthusiasm for history in all of its aspects, including paranormal history.

Just prior to this in 1999 I had another paranormal event occur to me, however the circumstances make it hard to distinguish as paranormal or simply psychological, plus it is a rather personal experience and one I rarely share.

To cut a long story short I found myself working in a public house in East London, and towards the end of my time there I was under immense psychological pressure and things came to a head when I believed I was going to be killed – as drastic as this may sound it could certainly have happened. Shortly after being beaten by my landlady’s boyfriend I was in the cellar, I’d escaped there to hide and yet I knew I could not get out. As I sat in the corner in a near hysterical state of mind, I witnessed something which scared me so much that I have never truly been afraid since.

Again cutting the story short I witnessed a man hanging himself. It was as if it were a real person, and the look on the man’s face is something I will never forget. Seeing this caused me to throw caution to the wind and I escaped my surroundings and fled for the safety of a nearby friend’s house, who kindly took me in for a few days until I got a train home.

Did I really see a ghost? I’m not sure. I had already been told of the various paranormal goings on in the place – not only of a conscientious objector hanging himself in the cellar during WWI but also a jack Russell dog seen on a set of stairs and a Victorian lady who’d glide across the dance-floor. I’ve not really looked into it but perhaps my mind made up the sighting to simply get me out of the situation I had found myself, literally saving my life by scaring any common sense out of me. Like all my experiences, I look at it as an open book until someone can tell me, without any doubt, what I saw or why I saw it then this along with other things will stay in the ‘maybe’ file.

In the early 2000’s I became a fan of a certain TV show, as no doubt most people reading this will have done too. I had been quite surprised that they had not investigated any haunted battlefields and so had in mind to contact them and ask them if they needed any help in doing so. Needless to say I didn’t get a reply, but whilst looking for a way to contact them I came across a website which was to change my life.

In 2004 I found a few websites of companies, who offered anyone the chance to investigate paranormal locations, I quickly became a return customer of one such company. The ticket prices were a little high but you certainly got value for money, mainly because of the fantastic staff members they employed. I quickly joined their forum and made some good friends. As well as this I joined them as a customer on a few investigations and became hooked. In 2005/06/07, I was part of a lot of their investigations including a weekend stay at the Isle of Wight and an investigation at what became my favourite location, Coalhouse Fort in Essex.

In early 2006 I joined a Company who ran paranormal investigations which catered for celebrities. One of the people in charge was a talent agent from London, so knew a lot of people within the entertainment business who were interested in going on these kinds of events. Over the next six months I took part in every investigation, however I was not happy as the prices paid by these people was quite a lot – three times as much as I’d been paying.

The majority of the money went to our boss and the majority of our clients were not multi-millionaire superstars but instead were camera-men, riggers, make-up artists and so on. I felt it wasn’t right to continue working with this company and so along with others I left after just a few months. The Company stopped soon after.

Whilst working for this company I also became more involved with the company I’d been a customer to, by going to some prospective locations to recce them to see if they were suitable for overnight investigations. After a while the owners of this company asked me to join their crew. At first I was over the moon to join them, however things didn’t work out and I soon left. I have always wished this company and their owners well, and hope that one day they are back in business.

I have had dealings with many other similar companies and found some to be quite rude and some to be complete con-artists with regards phenomena they blatantly produced. There are a handful of good ones, and I would suggest not going with just one group but trying many and seeing which you enjoy the best.

What is it people are seeing? Or rather, just what on earth have I seen?

The ghost girl I saw as a child could have been a natural stage in the brain waking up. When you go to sleep and wake up for a short period of time our brains go through what are called the Hypnogogic and Hypnopompic stages. During this short period people have sensed presences, hallucinated, felt disabled and felt pressure on their body ‘as though someone was on the bed’. Therefore this may explain my first ‘Paranormal’ experience. As for the lights it could have been faulty wiring. The cupboard doors may have been left open previously -although such things were rare in the house it doesn’t rule out the possibility that is what occurred, just as it doesn’t rule out some kind of spirit making its presence felt by doing this. As for the cellar in London, I really think my mind created that experience in a bid to get me out of the location, perhaps saving my own life by giving me the kick up the backside I needed, though I will always remember that smile.

I should point out that there is one ghost sighting I actually have trouble dismissing, though for a long time I believed it was something else. Let me explain.

During my time as a customer, I was at an event in Bolling Hall in Bradford. I was the only person there who had been on several investigations so didn’t need the ‘kit-demo’ part of the event, essentially the group leader tells everyone how to do the investigation with the tools provided, EMF meters, Dictaphones etc. So myself and the medium for the night did an extra vigil down in the cellar (of all places). Both of us, ever the professionals, forgot to take a torch so it was pitch black. Neither of us could see so in the end the medium had to use his mobile phone as a light source. Four plastic seats were arranged for the evening in a short crescent shape. I sat on the seat closest to the door way. Next to me was an empty seat, then sat the medium followed by another empty seat.

Whilst in there my companion was giving me info on what he thought was down there. He said he felt penned in and trapped, as though the roof was caving in on him. I too started to feel anxious, whether in response to what I was being told or not I do not know. I glanced to the doorway and blinked in surprise when I saw the silhouette of a person. The head and shoulders were perfectly there. I told the medium, and he tried to get his phone back on to use the light so we could see. He fumbled with the phone and it took a while for him to illuminate the room as best he could. In the meantime the shape hadn’t moved so I moved closer to it. I was about a foot away when the light shone out and I could see that the silhouette was nothing more than a vase on a recessed shelf just beyond the doorway. I let out a sigh of relief and turned to explain to the medium.

Except that he wasn’t alone anymore. Sitting to his left was someone else. The medium wore a black and white striped shirt (black with white pin-stripes), this other person wore a loose fitting white shirt. Both had black trousers on, but I could not make out any shoes or even feet belonging to the stranger. Facially both looked similar, the hair was much longer on the strange man however. The medium sat with both feet placed on the floor, leaning forwards with elbows on knees pointing the phone towards me, illuminating both myself and the doorway. The other man sat differently, he was leaning back in his chair at an angle with one leg crossed over the other knee, holding onto his shin with both hands. He looked not at me but at the medium with a quizzical expression on his face.

Again being the professional ghost hunter I was, I pointed and shouted “what the f****** h*** is that!”. The medium (whether he saw the man or not I still do not know) jumped from his seat and landed next to me in one fluid motion about six feet from the chairs. The man however had disappeared, which we did soon after. On returning to the team room the group leader said to me – yes you guessed it, “you look as though you’ve seen a ghost”.

Just a few hours later during the actual investigation when down in the cellar, I took an EMF reading of the exact spot I was standing in when I saw the man. It was unbelievably high and got higher when pressed against the wall next to the doorway. This for me for a long time was an explanation, I’d hallucinated due to a high level of EMF (plus I was almost asleep on some of the later vigils which is even more strange as I was by then used to investigations and late nights).

It wasn’t until a couple of years later and I was commenting on the scene on facebook, I can’t remember which specific part of facebook however, that a well known figure in Parapsychology informed me that a high EMF wouldn’t cause me to see what I had seen, so the answer I thought I had was gone. It had disappeared as quickly as that strange fellow at Bolling Hall had appeared.

Over the years I’ve been investigating ghosts, I’ve often been puzzled how people can claim to see specific people. For instance, Mary Queen of Scots’ ghost has been seen in and around Bolton Castle in Yorkshire. Its true she stayed there as part of her “stay” in England. She enjoyed walks nearby and had a large entourage with her. There is reason for her to haunt the building. However why her, and more importantly, why not another female resident of the castle’s long history? The only proof comes from the eye-witnesses, the everyday, average Joe who see’s something strange and puts a name to it – but what if they are wrong?

For the last few years I’ve been conducting a small test to see exactly how much people know about history. The test is simple.

I have three figures (actually Airfix models), all representing soldiers in the English Civil War. One is a Pike-man of the Royalist Newcastle Regiment (see Marston Moor). One is a generic Musketeer dressed with a red coat, and the last is a Royalist Cavalryman. I have asked over 500 people to take part in this test and the results are very interesting.

The Questions asked were as follows with answer percentage in brackets for questions which were multiple choice:

Figure A, Man on Horseback

1. Do you think he is a… A. Royalist (10%)

B. Parliamentarian (9%)

C. Neither (48%)

D. Any (33%)

The figure is distinguished as being a Royalist because he wears a Red Sash, Parliamentarians wore Orange.  Although other devices for distinction came into being in various actions, these colours remained the same throughout. He also wears a Montero hat, but has buckled to his waist a lobster pot helmet. He has a pair of pistols and the figure represents him loading one.

The Lobster Pot Helmet was worn by both sides, Other hats were worn when not in battle (including the Montero), by both sides and all faiths.

Too many people today perhaps believe only Royalists wore the big floppy hats whilst the Parliamentarians wore the Helmets, obviously they are wrong.

2. If you saw a ghost looking like this who do you think it could be?

Only one person chose “A Royalist Cavalryman” as their answer. Most Kings of England came up, including King Arthur. 5 people wrote Oliver Cromwell and one person wrote King Charles I.

Figure B, Musketeer in Red Coat.

He stands re-loading his musket with ball and powder, he wears a Montero hat much like the Royalist Cavalryman figure wears.

1. Do you think he is a… A. Royalist (10%)

B. Parliamentarian (7%)

C. Neither (40%)

D. Any (43%)

Obviously the correct answer was “Any”, however almost as many people didn’t think it belonged to either side (despite me explaining that all three figures were of the Civil War Period).

Most people who know about history would probably associate a red-coated soldier with the Parliamentarian faction, as it was the choice of colour worn by the “New Model Army” (See Naseby).

As an interesting point both Blue and Red are the cheapest dyes (it was cheaper again not to dye clothing at all and just stick with the dull grey wool), thus it could just as easily have been Blue which was chosen. As it was British soldiers famously wore red coats in their wars for the next 300 years. Both sides in the civil war wore all manner of coloured garments, paid for by their Colonel whose name was also given to the Regiment.

2. What Nationality do you think he is?

As I’ve just written British soldiers were famous for their red jackets, however only 23% chose either British or English as the answer, 20% wrote Spanish, a lot simply didn’t know.

One person believed he was Japanese.

Figure C, Pike-man in White.

He wears full armour of the period, a Morion style helmet with a cuirass (metal breastplate) with Tassets attached (protection for the upper thighs). He is depicted holding the pike in one hand with the butt resting on the ground, unfortunately someone broke off the pikes point (you know who you are).

1. Do you think he is a…

A. Royalist (20%)

B. Parliamentarian (24%)

C. Neither (43%)

D. Any (13%)

Judging by the lack of people who chose “Any” it is clear that most people had a view on which side this person fought for, though the answers were mostly wrong.

2. Which faith do you think he belongs to?

Most people answered Christian, with %15 actually writing “Catholic” as their answer. One person wrote Jedi (thanks to my cousin).

The figure is representative of a Catholic soldier fighting in a fairly famous Royalist Regiment. The Newcastle Whitecoats’ Catholic contingents wove red crosses onto their uniforms; the figure has such a pattern on one sleeve, denoting his faith.

Judging from this small test conducted over a period of the last three years and involving 515 people it is clear that had the ghost of a Royalist Cavalryman shown himself at any haunted location then it would be very hard for anyone to even know what they were looking it. That’s not to say everyone I’ve encountered are blindly ignorant of history, a few people (probably dragged to the investigation by their better half) were very interested to find out what each figure was. I think it would be a good idea to others in the field to perhaps test their own knowledge and the knowledge of people they investigate with. You don’t need Airfix figures to do this, a simple collection of pictures from the internet can suffice. Obviously most people would know what a picture of Henry VIII would look like, fair enough. However also ask the question “What year did Henry Reign?” and see if they know.

Too many times on hundreds of internet videos I’ve seen people trying to be professional, trying to do the best and trying to get some kind of valid affirmation of the supernatural.  Perhaps 1% ask the right questions to ascertain that what they are communicating with IS what the medium says it is.

Good Questions to ask a ghost.

Okay so you’ve made contact with a spirit, this can be any number of ways, ouija board, glass divination, planchette, or even a medium. How about asking some questions?

“What year is it?”

If the ghost answers any other year than the current one then look at the info it gives you. This is a simple question, but one which can validate the question of what you are dealing with.

There are three possible answers the ghost can give you.

1. “Fifteen-Hundred (1500)”

… this answer would be wrong; it makes it obvious that this information is not coming from someone who believes the year to be 1500 (see next two reasons why).

2. “The year of our Lord 1500”

… This is the way a person from this year may say the name of the year, the year of our Lord being 1500 years since the birth of Christ.

3. “The Fifteenth year of the reign of King Henry”

… Other than the year of our Lord people also gave this form of date, King Henry VII came to the throne in 1485 (after Bosworth) and died in 1509, so in 1500 it was his fifteenth year of reign (possibly sixteenth depending on time of year perhaps). It is only very recently (the last 300 years or less) that we have begun naming the years simply as numbers.

I have only seen instances of people getting some kind of communication on this level twice, once was in a Spanish investigation in Madrid, the other at Battle Abbey in Sussex.

Okay then so you’ve got some info, the ghost communicates “it is the year of our lord 1500”, excellent, good start. How about another question?

“What is the name of the King in this year?”

If the ghost has already answered this in his affirmation of the date then go on to question three. Everyone would have known the name of the ruling monarch, sometimes during our history the crown has been in dispute and fought over, the spirit should know this and may even give an answer based on their own allegiances and beliefs. A list of Kings and Queens of England is essential kit for a paranormal investigation, even better if it includes a brief description of events during their reign such as rebellions or even if they were originally the rebel. I use a book called ‘The History of the Kings and Queens of England & Scotland’ (ISBN 1-84322-058-X), it only cost ten pounds and has proved invaluable on a few occasions.

Okay so the ghost has come up with “The year of our Lord 1500” and “King Henry” (It could say 7th, it could not, Henry VII was not universally known as Hal or Harry though other Kings named Henry were so-called. His son Henry VIII was for example called Harry by many people, especially in early life), so either Hal or Harry would be acceptable too, anything else and I’d be wondering where the info is really coming from). Third question…

You can use your own imagination for this. On the few occasions I have reached this far with valid answers I have asked

“Who was the archbishop?”

Again like the ruling monarch various religious figures were well known to all people during the ages, a lot more so than today. On one occasion a group I was with were investigating the Golden Fleece in York, we had answers to the first two questions as “The Queen Mary” and “the year of our lord 1558”. This would mean we were in communication to someone who lived during the reign of Queen Mary I, who actually died in 1558. Knowing a little about her reign I then asked “Who did the Queen Mary burn in Oxford?” The answer still makes me smile and sends a shiver down my spine whenever I recall it (both at the same time). The answer came back as “The two Bishops”. This makes complete sense as Mary did indeed burn two Protestant Bishops in Oxford in 1555 named Latimer and Ridley. Their death was famously horrendous as one died very quickly but the other took much longer to slowly roast to death.

It is true that the medium who was in communication with the spirit may have known all this, and so faked the whole thing, but if you take away the human element in investigations then it makes it virtually impossible to get anywhere and so I do believe we were in communication with someone (who later named themselves as Peter Talbot) from the time of the reign of Queen Mary.

I have investigated many other locations with the same medium and the information she has given has been sketchy at best, if she was a fraud she had plenty of opportunities to do so before and after the Golden Fleece.

Another good question to ask is “can you tell me todays date”, although this is no sure indicator as to a real spirit or otherwise. You see for centuries people associated certain days and dates in a calendar with Saints Days, and so would answer “The day after Saint Clare’s day” (12th August) or “The day of Saint Athanaisuis” (2nd May). This brings into play another interesting concept, that the spirit knows and can calculate the change in our calendar brought about by the changes between the Gregorian and Julian Calenders.

What the above means is that a famous historical event, for example the battle of Hastings, although it was fought on the 14th of October 1066  its true Anniversary is actually the 2nd of October. Which means not only  that all those people  re-enacting the battle on the 14th are wrong, but the ghostly tales of  peoples spirits being seen every 14th cannot be real either, unless of course the spirits alive and well in 1066 are also able to know about the changes to our calendar. This doesnt just apply to ghosts on battlefields, but also to the spirits of people executed on certain days (Countess Salisbury 27th May Tower of London for example) and also everyday ghost stories said to occur on certain days as grisly re-enactment.

It has to be said that sometimes when I start asking all these questions people get annoyed with me, especially the mediums. I’ve often found this strange. We are all looking to communicate with something we know nothing about when on these investigations and to not ask questions seems strange to me. What do people want to ask the supposed spirit? Next week’s lotto numbers perhaps?

Fraud in the paranormal is something we all have to watch out for. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes and it almost ruined a whole weekend on the Isle of Wight for me as I was in a group with three women who had self-titled themselves “the Three Witches of Eastwick” – and that is exactly what they were. Dodgy actors. That said, fraud in history is just as big. Some people either live in or look after amazing locations which have a vast and amazing history, yet they choose to embellish stories of these places to get a few more people through the door and a few more pennies into their pockets. Sometimes to raise the cost of the location for when they sell it on. This isn’t a recent practice, it has been going on for years.

I’ve always tried to steer clear of this in my writings, but it’s fair to say that I have probably heard a strange story and passed it on without knowing it’s false. That I could pass as an honest mistake and would hope anyone else would too. What I’ve never done is simply make something up. It’s not in my nature and at the end of the day (I would hope) there are people like me who dig deep when it comes to paranormal reports, especially when someone can profit from it. I have, on two occasions, been asked by owners of locations to create stories for them and have turned them down. One was a public house and another a museum where I interviewed someone about their ghost stories. Needless to say, after they asked me to embellish their own stories I didn’t bother writing the article.

Hopefully this article can be used by all people interested in the paranormal, from the hardcore researcher to the fresh faced newbie. At the end of it all no one has cast iron definitive answers to what ghosts are or if they exist or not. I sure as heck don’t have a clue. But I have a great time trying to figure it out, visiting historic locations, chatting with people and, yes, boring them now and again with history. They, and me, always go back for more because although you may go into an investigation with one or two questions you want answering,  I can assure you you’ll come away with ten more you need answering.

You’ll also, by and large, meet some of the nicest people in the world doing investigations. I generally go on my own and come away having made new friends or meeting people I have been in contact with for months on facebook or a website forum.

It’s up to you how to deal with the over-harsh skeptics and the unreserved believers, both of which can be almost militant in their approach to the subject. As I have said throughout I don’t know if ghosts exist or not. I I have read hundreds of books, investigated hundreds of locations and heard hundreds of explanations and theories. It is up to you which of these you believe. I just hope you have fun finding your own answers and remember no one can tell you what a ghost actually is. Any explanation they give you is a theory of their own or one they agree with. Its not the end of the world if you come up with your own theories and beliefs and don’t allow yourself to be bullied by people who think it’s all codswallop or those who claim to be in contact with the dead because neither know for sure. So have fun, and thank you for your time.

CJ Linton.