Ghost Hunting with Derek Acorah

Hallowe’en (31 October) inevitably has a long tradition of anniversary ghosts, which range from First World War soldiers drinking at Bournemouth town hall to the ghostly monks who walk near the ruins of a chapel near Hitchin in Hertfordshire.

In fact there are literally hundreds of ghosts which are alleged to reappear each year on the same date. As yet I have not visited the location of an anniversary ghost on the anniversary. I have, however, been to such sites at other times and have immediately been made aware of the residual energy of some of the spirit people reputed to ‘walk’ the premises. One has to remember, though, that many stories of anniversary ghosts are just that—stories. They have no real truth behind them and their roots have been lost in the mists of time.

Crisis Ghosts

The theory behind crisis ghosts is that at the emotionally charged moment of death the spirit projects itself into the consciousness of those nearest to it in life. There have been numerous accounts of people having ‘visions’ of loved ones who have either been dying or been going through moments of intense fear or danger.

A well-known crisis ghost was that of Norman Leslie, a member of the famous Leslie family. During the First World War he appeared on the banks of the lake at his home, Castle Leslie in County Monaghan, Ireland. Staff at the castle thought that he had arrived home on leave and rushed to prepare his room for him, but then he was nowhere to be found. A week later his mother received a telegram informing her that he had been killed in action in France.

Ghosts who Walk through Walls

This type of ghost is usually experienced in older properties, often dating back centuries, which have been altered structurally over the years. Floors may have been raised, resulting in an apparition which appears only from the knees upwards, or maybe a doorway will have been blocked up and relocated, which means that the ghost, continuing to use the original doorway, appears to walk through the wall.

I can recall investigating an old manor house in Cheshire that had been drastically altered. I was amazed to view clairvoyantly horse-drawn wagons parading backwards and forwards through the living quarters of the old house. Even more bizarre was the fact that I could only see the horses from the belly upwards, the legs being invisible.

When I related my findings to the historian present, he was able to tell me that the house had been radically altered and extended. What I was viewing was the route that carters used to take along a road which ran under the footings of the present building, hence only the upper portion of the horses and carts being visible.

Spirit People

As well as all these types of ghosts, of course there is the group of ‘people’ I feel particularly at home with—the spirits of people who have lived in or had a strong connection with a building and who make return visits. These are the people I can communicate with either directly or through my spirit guide Sam, who acts as an intermediary, passing on information from the people in spirit to me and enabling me in turn to pass it on to people still living in this world.

These spirit people are as alive as you and I. My truth is that there is no death—we live on in the world of spirit once we have shed the physical garb of this earthly incarnation.

Spirit people can be anywhere they wish to be. They can visit a home they used to inhabit or they can visit the homes of family members and friends. They can call in to a previous workplace to visit former colleagues or just to see how ‘the old place’ is being run in the present day. They turn up at theatres where mediums are demonstrating in order to communicate with loved ones in the audience. There are no restrictions on the people in the spirit world—they can go wherever they please.

CHAPTER 3 Not So Haunted

In my experience, the places that are least likely to yield a ghostly presence or the glimpse of a spirit person are the very places designed to scare the living daylights out of people by dramatizing some of the more horrific incidents of the past. I have visited a number of such places, but I am afraid to say that I have been disappointed to find that instead of experiencing a steady stream of willing spectres, I have moved between the various displays without meeting even one spirit entity.

With the growth in popularity of LIVINGtv’s Most Haunted and paranormal programming in general, however, my mailbag has increased in size considerably and the majority of the letters I receive are genuine requests for explanations of inexplicable events taking place in people’s homes. There are some communications, though, that recount events that are nothing to do with the spirit world and more to do with very fertile imaginations.

I recall with some amusement a letter I received some years ago. It was from the matron of a nursing home in Liverpool and catalogued the complaints she had been receiving from one of her elderly ladies, whom I shall name Beryl. Beryl had been complaining that she was being disturbed at night by something that she could not see. When she switched on the light there was nobody there. I decided that this was one occasion when I would go along to attempt to sort out the problem myself.

I arrived at the home and was met by the matron, who told me that she was most concerned, as Beryl was complaining loud and long to the staff within earshot of other residents, which was making everybody rather unsettled and apprehensive, especially at night.

I asked to be taken to meet Beryl and was led to the pleasant bed-sitting room that was Beryl’s home.

Beryl greeted me brightly. ‘Hello, Derek! I’ve been watching you on the telly. My grandson videos Most Haunted for me and I watch it in my room. I’d watch it in the main lounge, but the others won’t have it on because they say it gives them the willies!’

As Beryl spoke I looked around the room. It was bright, comfortable and clean. I could feel nothing in the atmosphere to suggest that anything untoward from a paranormal point of view was taking place.

Beryl continued, ‘I came to live here after my Bert passed away. I would have liked to have gone to the same place as my sister Jessie, but at the time there was no room for me there. She’s been in touch just recently, though, and she tells me that there’s a nice little room empty just opposite hers.’

I looked hard at Beryl. She grinned back at me and winked.

‘So, tell me about what’s been going on in your room,’ I said.

Beryl proceeded to tell me a lurid tale about ghosts who roamed her room at night and entities who jumped onto her bed and pulled the bedclothes from her.

‘I’m really frightened!’ she said, winking at me again. ‘You never know, the next thing is they might start interfering with me!’

I knew immediately that this was a ruse dreamed up by Beryl in an attempt to get herself moved to the same residential home as her sister. But as she had been speaking I had seen the spirit form of a man materialize next to her armchair. He was a small round man who wore his shirtsleeves rolled up. He had an open friendly face and had been smiling as Beryl had unfolded her tale of ghosts and ghouls and things that went bump in the night.

‘She’s a wily old bird, my Beryl,’ he said as she finished speaking. ‘She’ll stop at nothing to get in the same place as that sister of hers. They’re very close.’

I thanked Beryl for allowing me into her room and asked the matron whether I could speak with her in the office.

‘What d’you think, Derek?’ she asked as we sat sharing a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits.

‘I don’t think that there’s anything going on in Beryl’s room at all,’ I told her. ‘In my opinion Beryl desperately wants to join her sister and she’s come up with this story in an attempt to secure a move for herself.’

The matron looked surprised. ‘Really!’ she said. ‘Well, if she’s prepared to come up with a story such as this she must really be determined. I’ll see what I can do. I believe her sister’s resident at another of our houses. There may be a chance that I can arrange a transfer. It’s not something we usually do, but I’ll make a special concession on this occasion.’

Some weeks later I received a letter from Beryl asking me whether I would call to see her in her new home. I arranged to visit a few days later.

‘You’re very naughty!’ I chided her.

Beryl giggled like a young girl. ‘It was you who gave me the idea,’ she said. ‘All the ghosts and things going on in those spooky houses you visit on the telly—I thought it’d be worth a try! It gave all those other old fogies something to think about, anyway.’ She grinned impishly. ‘Seriously, though, Derek, I can’t say that I’m sorry I pulled a fast one because I’m here with Jessie now, but I do truly believe that we go somewhere when we pass away. I know my Bert’s waiting for me and that we’ll be together again soon.’

I patted her hand. ‘Of course he is, Beryl,’ I told her. ‘I saw him in your room at the other place. It looks as though he has the same sense of humour as you, so goodness knows what’ll happen when you get together again!

CHAPTER 4 The Matter of a Ouija Board

Not all such claims are bogus, of course. I have visited many people who have been bothered by spirit visitation and have been able to help them understand what has been going on in their homes.

One such plea for help came from Eva, an elderly lady who lived alone in a flat on the outskirts of Wigan. ‘I need your help,’ she wrote. ‘I don’t know what to do. You’re my only hope of finding peace.’

A week later I was standing outside the building which housed Eva’s ground-floor flat. As she opened the front door I was hit by the cold and unwelcoming atmosphere.

‘It’s horrible isn’t it, Derek?’ Eva commented. ‘It wasn’t always like this, though. My home always used to have a lovely feel about it. Now I’d love to move, but I just can’t afford to. You don’t get much on a pension these days.’ She smiled ruefully.

As Eva made a cup of tea for us, I looked around. The home seemed perfectly normal. There was a comfortable suite in front of the gas fire, a china cabinet against one wall and a small dining table and chairs against another wall. Everything was neat and tidy. In fact it was the typical home of an elderly lady. There was nothing that I could see that would generate anything untoward and Eva herself was a lovely old soul. I imagined that normally she would have been bright and cheerful, but at the moment she was looking much less than happy.

Eva returned to the room carrying a tray of tea. She sat opposite me and proceeded to tell me what had been happening in her home.

‘It all began about eight months ago,’ she said. Since then she had been experiencing a number of things in her home which were disturbing and frightening. She was unable to sleep at night because of the loud bangs and crashing noises that she could hear coming from her sitting room as she was lying in bed. If she got up to investigate, there was nothing there. She would wake up in the morning to find her furniture moved around. The worst thing happened just as she was arriving home from a shopping trip one day. She heard a noise in her sitting room as she was hanging up her coat in the hallway and when she went to investigate she found that water was streaming down the wall of the room. She was now at the stage where she felt as though she just wanted to run away.

‘I’ve had the council in,’ she told me, ‘and even the local priest came along. He was very kind, but no matter what he did, it didn’t make any difference.’

I had a very strong feeling that Eva’s problems were all linked to the flat above her. I asked her who lived upstairs. She told me that the flat was empty and had been so for more or less the same amount of time that she had been experiencing her problems.

‘The young couple who lived in that flat were a bit odd-looking,’ she said. ‘I was glad to see them go really, because I didn’t feel comfortable around them and they used to have some very strange-looking visitors.’

I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. As I sat quietly I could feel Sam drawing closer to me. I heard his voice. ‘Fools!’ he said. ‘They were fools—dabbling with ouija boards and the like!’

Ouija (which is a combination of the word ‘yes’ in French and German) boards have been popular since Victorian times, when invoking the spirits was considered something of a parlour game. The letters of the alphabet, the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and the numbers one to ten are arranged in a circle and a glass tumbler is used to point to them. Today it is possible to purchase a pre-printed board game which uses a plastic planchette as a pointer.

People sit around the table, each with a finger resting lightly on the base of the upturned tumbler. The spokesperson for the group will then request that any spirit who wishes to make contact with the group do so. This is where the immortal words ‘Is there anbody there?’ stem from. The theory is that should a spirit presence be summoned, that spirit person will use the energy of the people in attendance to move the tumbler around the tabletop, indicating letters of the alphabet which will spell out a name or a response to any question asked of it. It will answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by gliding over to those words and will give dates by visiting the relevant numbers.

I have come across incidences of people using a ouija board on numerous occasions. It may be a serious attempt to invoke a spirit, it may be idle curiosity or it may merely be a party game. Whatever the reason, it is a grave error of judgement to use one of these boards unless you are fully aware of the possible consequences. I do not like them and would not encourage anybody to use one myself.

The trouble generated by ouija begins with the fact that the people using the board are rarely conversant with the workings of spirit. They know nothing of the lower realms of the world beyond, the realms inhabited by spirits who can cause a variety of problems: all sorts of attacks, disruption in the home, items being moved, obnoxious smells, inexplicable noises—in fact just the type of annoyances that poor Eva was experiencing.

The only way to bring Eva some relief from the problem was to close the vortex or portal that had been opened by the irresponsible people who had up to recently lived in the flat above her. A vortex or portal is a ‘doorway’ in our ether used by spirits to enter or leave our earthly atmosphere.

I explained to Eva that the events she had been experiencing were nothing whatsoever to do with her—she had simply been the victim of other people’s foolhardiness. I asked whether she would agree to me conducting a candle rite in her home. This would close the portal left in the atmosphere and would protect her and her home from further intrusion. ‘Anything, Derek! I’ll do anything to put an end to all this!’ she replied.

I had suspected before I had left home that there might be the need for protection of this dear old soul, so I had come prepared with my candles and a plain white sheet. Eva supplied me with bowls of salt and water. I said my prayer of invocation and proceeded with the candle rite.

After this I am happy to say that Eva kept in touch with me from time to time and was able to report that she was living happily and peacefully in her home once more.

CHAPTER 5 Poltergeists

Poltergeist is German for ‘noisy ghost’ and poltergeistal activity is commonly linked to children, especially girls, approaching puberty who have displayed signs of psychic ability. It is generally agreed, and is also my opinion, that a poltergeist is not the manifestation of a spirit person, rather an abundance of energy generated by and drawn to adolescents or people suffering severe emotional stress.

Usually poltergeistal activity is limited to noises—rustlings, tappings, knocks and dragging sounds—but occasionally disarray can be caused within a home with items being thrown, furniture moved and obnoxious smells created. There have also been some reports of poltergeistal energy causing the person affected to levitate from their bed.

In most cases the problems subside if the affected individual is removed from the premises and reappear when that person returns. Obviously the person who is attracting the poltergeistal activity is unaware that the entity is drawing on their emotional energy.

It is unusual for poltergeistal activity to be of any duration. In some cases it lasts only for a few days; in others, a number of months.

There are always exceptions to the rule, however. This was amply demonstrated by an early 1950s case when the poltergeistal activity focused on not one person, but two, and in both cases males. The events took place at 1 Byron Street in Runcorn, Cheshire. Sam Jones and his grandson, John Glynn, then 16 years of age, shared a bedroom in the family home. One night, having just retired to bed, they heard a scratching noise coming from the dressing-table drawer. An investigation showed nothing and, thinking it might have been a mouse scared away by them opening the drawer, they both returned to their beds and thought nothing more about it. The following night, however, not only were there scratching noises but the drawers began to rattle and the dressing table moved, despite being extremely heavy.

After that numerous acts of poltergeistal vandalism took place—a clock was smashed, chairs were thrown against the wall and books flew through the air as though thrown by some invisible hand. There were many independent witnesses, including reporters from the Runcorn Guardian newspaper, two policemen, two Methodist ministers and various psychic researchers. No logical explanation could be given and it was declared to be a definite case of poltergeistal activity.

Over the years I have come into contact with poltergeistal activity on numerous occasions. Sometimes it has been of extremely short duration—a sudden burst of disruption that is over as soon as it has started. There have been other occasions, however, when people have become so frightened that they have moved out of their home, only to find that the disruption follows them to their new house.

One incident that I remember well involved a lady named Jean. She called me at my office sounding very agitated. She had been living together with her son Stephen, aged 12, and her daughter Lindsay, aged 15, since the breakdown of her marriage a year or so earlier. It had been an acrimonious divorce which Jean and her children had found extremely upsetting. As time had passed, however, they had come to terms with their new life and everything had seemed to be more settled. That was, until a few weeks before Jean’s call to me.

Jean told me that strange things had started to happen—not very much at first, just little things like odd noises and belongings being moved. In fact initially it was more irritating than frightening. As the days turned into weeks, however, the noises had become more sinister. They seemed to be concentrated around Stephen’s bedroom, which was situated above the family lounge. When Jean and her children were watching television in the lounge, it sounded as though something heavy was being dragged along the floor of the room above. On investigating, they would find that bedclothes had been disturbed and books had been thrown around the floor. Stephen became afraid to go to his bedroom to sleep. He reported that when he did so, he felt as though his bed was vibrating. On one occasion Jean told me that he had been literally thrown out of the bed. After that he had insisted on sleeping on the sofa downstairs.

Upon arrival at Jean’s home, I stood outside looking at the house. It was unremarkable, but I knew psychically that all was not well within the four walls. I knocked on the door, which was opened a few moments later by Jean, looking pale and nervous. She told me that the previous night had been very bad, with a constant array of noises, squeaks and bangs that had prevented her and her children from getting any sleep at all.

‘I’m at the end of my tether, Derek,’ she said. ‘I thought that we would be able to pick up our lives after my divorce and live happily here.’

She led me through to the lounge. I asked her to tell me exactly what had been going on and how her son and her daughter had coped after the divorce.

Jean told me that although Lindsay had been very upset, she had been able to continue with her life in a more or less regular way, maintaining her interests with her friends, and with the help and support of her teachers, her schooling had not been affected too badly. Stephen, however, had been a different matter. He had been extremely upset and had told his mother that he felt to blame for his father leaving the family to set up home with another woman. The fact that she had a son and daughter approximately the same ages as Stephen and his sister had exacerbated the problem. Stephen felt that his father had looked for another boy to be his son because he was not worthy of the position. Unfortunately, Jean was preventing her husband from visiting Stephen and Lindsay because of the deep hurt she had suffered. All in all, Stephen was a very miserable and confused boy. Jean had tried time and time again to explain to him that he had nothing to do with the family break-up, but he remained unconvinced.

Then the strange events began to take place. The first occasion was when Jean was sitting in the lounge. From the bedroom above came loud knocking noises. Thinking that Stephen was in his room, Jean went into the hallway and shouted up the stairs for him to be quiet. As she did so, Stephen answered from the kitchen, wondering what his mother was talking about. They both knew that Lindsay was out of the house visiting a friend. They rather nervously climbed the stairs and went into Stephen’s bedroom. There was nothing there, though a pile of schoolbooks which had been lying on the desk was strewn over the floor. Jean assumed that the books had fallen to the floor, picked them up and put them away in the desk cupboard. They both went downstairs and thought no more about the matter.

A couple of nights later a similar incident took place—the knocking noise, the investigation of the bedroom and the books all over the floor. This time, though, Jean knew that there was something amiss. She herself had put Stephen’s schoolbooks away not half an hour earlier. She also knew that both Stephen and Lindsay had been downstairs with her watching a favourite television programme when the noises had begun.

Every day something would happen. There would be banging and knocking noises and items would fall to the floor inexplicably, no matter how securely they were placed. Jean also started to notice an awful smell on the landing outside Stephen’s room. Because his bedroom was next to the bathroom she thought there might be a problem with the drains, though the odour was not actually present in the bathroom itself. A visit from a plumber brought no relief, however, as he told her the plumbing system was in perfect working order.

Jean and her children became more and more frightened. It got to the point where they all shared one bedroom, as they were too afraid to sleep in separate bedrooms. A priest was called in to perform an exorcism, but if anything things appeared to intensify. When the family went to their bedroom at night they now felt that there was a sinister presence in there with them. At her wits’ end, Jean contacted me.

It was clear to me that this was not the work of any spirit presence. It was poltergeistal activity—energy attracted by Stephen’s deeply emotional state. It had built up over a period of time, feeding on the emotions Stephen was releasing into the atmosphere, recharging and growing each day until it had built up enough to create noises and move objects around the home.