Haunted: Scariest stories from the UK's no. 1 psychic

HAUNTED

DEREK ACORAH

Scariest Stories from the UK’s no. 1 Psychic

Dedicated to the memory of all those whom we have loved who are no longer with us. We will meet again.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Channelling

2. My Beloved Mother

3. One Night in Blackpool

4. A Faithful Friend

5. Down Memory Lane

6. A Fright in St Albans

7. Liverpool, Capital of Culture

8. A Poltergeist in Hastings

9. An Unwanted Visitor

10. The Old Hall Hotel

11. A Very Big Mistake

12. Kensal Green Cemetery

13. Spanish Surprise

14. Locke’s Distillery

15. An Old Theatre

16. A Loving Family

17. Victoria Baths

18. The Man Who Couldn’t Say No

19. Land of the Pharaohs

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

My name is Derek Acorah. I am a spirit medium. I am clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient and I use my gifts to connect the physical world in which we live to the world beyond to which we are destined to go. When we pass over to the heavenly state, we will be reunited with the loved ones who have passed away before us, be they friends or family, neighbours or members of the animal kingdom who have been special to us during our earthly lives.

Although I was in my thirties before I commenced working for spirit professionally, I realized I had psychic gifts when I was a small boy. I was a mere six years of age when I had my first experience of spirit when I saw my grandfather on the stairway of my grandmother’s home. He had passed over to the world of spirit some years prior to my birth.

Over the years I worked first as a medium conducting sittings for people on a one-to-one basis and then progressed to taking part in radio programmes in the days when media mediumship was in its infancy. I went on to appear on television programmes, principally The Psychic Zone, Livetime, Psychic Livetime and Derek Acorah’s Predictions with Granada Breeze, the satellite arm of Granada Television based in Manchester.

Just before Granada Breeze ceased to broadcast, I agreed to take part in a pilot programme provisionally named ‘Haunting Truths’. That programme went on to become known worldwide as Most Haunted and is owned and aired by LivingTV. After appearing in almost 100 programmes and numerous Most Haunted Live broadcasts, at the end of series 5 I decided to move on. I agreed to take part in one last series and three more Most Haunted Live programmes and completed my commitment to the programme in October 2005.

By that time I had already commenced filming a new programme for LivingTV. It was known as Derek Acorah’s Ghost Towns. Working with Danniella Westbrook and Angus Purden on the first two series and with Myleene Klass and Rhodri Owen on the third series, I had a wonderful time travelling up and down the country visiting reputedly haunted locations. Unlike the format of Most Haunted, these locations were not well-known historic buildings but homes, shops and other more insignificant places. Nonetheless they were often exceedingly haunted in their own right.

The summer of 2007 brought the realization of an ambition I had had for many years when LivingTV commissioned, through Ruggie Media, a new programme. It was to be named Paranormal Egypt. Making eight programmes covering Egypt’s incredible history and visiting locations not normally open to the public was a real privilege. The memories will remain with me for the rest of my life.

I am still working hard and have many projects in line for the future. I am continuing with my theatre tours, which encompass the whole of the UK and Ireland, and have plans to work further afield this year. I have made many new friends and I have also been fortunate in rekindling some old friendships. I am looking forward, as I write this in January 2008, to many more years of working for spirit.

CHAPTER ONE

Channelling

First of all, I would like to say a few words regarding my work as a spirit medium.

For those who do not understand what a medium is, I would like to explain that a person with mediumistic gifts is someone who is able to communicate with people who have passed away – passed over to the spirit world or, as I like to call it, to the higher side of life.

Mediumistic communication with spirit people is achieved through clairvoyance, clairaudience or clairsentience. The word ‘clairvoyance’ literally means ‘clear seeing’, i.e. a person who is clairvoyant can see, either subjectively (in their mind’s eye) or objectively (with their physical eyes), a spirit person or a symbol passed on to them by people in the spiritual realms. Clairaudience is the gift of ‘clear hearing’. This happens when an individual receives verbal communication from people in the spirit world. Clairsentience, or ‘clear feeling’, is when a person feels energies. These are not necessarily energies from the spirit world; they may be energies from the living too.

All mediums are deeply psychic and clairsentient. Many are both clairsentient and either clairaudient or clairvoyant. Others, such as myself, are gifted in all three areas.

A medium can also often see the auras of people or animals. The aura is the individual energy field that surrounds every living being. It consists of bands of coloured energies denoting the physical health and emotional state of that being, and so a medium who is aware of it can gain information as to how a particular person or animal is feeling, whether there has been illness or emotional upset or, indeed, whether there is the imminent prospect of some ailment.

I feel it is important to point out that although a medium may be very gifted, when they are not working and open to spiritual vibrations, they are only as psychic as everybody else. So they are just as likely as the next person to lose an item, to have an unexpected flat tyre, to forget something or to experience any one of life’s ups and downs. It is pointless making that hackneyed quip ‘You didn’t see that one coming, did you?’ when a mishap occurs in a medium’s daily life. If any of you have made this observation, no doubt you have received a wry smile from the medium in question. The point is that it is only when a medium has prepared themselves for psychic work and has opened themselves up to the vibrations and influences of the world of spirit that they are in a position to demonstrate their mediumistic gifts.

By ‘opened themselves up’, I mean that they expand their consciousness – that part of the brain that houses our psychic side. (We all have it – we are all psychic to some degree.) They then become more keenly aware of the atmosphere around them, whether visiting a haunted location or giving a reading to an individual who has requested an insight into their life or an answer to a personal question.

The preparation for such work involves offering up a prayer for self-protection. This request for protection is of paramount importance. When I pray to my guides and doorkeepers, I do so for both myself and any other person or persons present with me. I must stress, however, that it is important for each individual to ask for their own protection from negative spirits. If you knowingly enter an alleged haunted location, you cannot leave the responsibility for your protection to the medium alone. You have a duty to yourself.

As well as asking for protection, I would also stress that it is absolutely necessary for mediums to practise the discipline of closing themselves down to spiritual influences when they are not working. To leave oneself open is foolhardy indeed. Not only will the medium become exhausted by the constant draining of their energies, but they won’t be living a true and proper life on the physical plane and will therefore lose that important grip on reality that day-to-day life gives.

When I am working on a paranormal investigation, all my psychic and mediumistic senses come into play. I will watch for the slightest movement denoting spiritual activity. I will listen to make sure that I pick up any words spoken by a spirit being. My psychic senses are honed to the energies in a location so that I can glean any recordings contained in the fabric of a building, in the brickwork and wood or even in the ground upon which it stands. I am fully alert and concentrating on the job in hand.

If it happens that a spirit entity appears, I evaluate the emotional state and temperament of that being. I will communicate vocally with it and hope that I will be allowed to hear any responses clairaudiently. If a spirit being does not wish to communicate I then rely upon the help of my spirit guide, Sam, who will act as a go-between conveying messages from the spirit person to me.

At times I come across spirit beings who are behaving in an anti-social manner or causing concern to the current inhabitants of the building in some way. It is on these occasions that I sometimes choose to channel the spirit in an attempt to discover just why they are acting in this way. In order to do this I have to invite the spirit being to enter my aura, i.e. come very close to me and almost overshadow me. This means that the space in which I am standing is now almost occupied by the spirit person as well and I have absorbed that being into my own aura. It is then and only then that the personality of the being I am channelling will be demonstrated through my own physical body. If the spirit was a violent being in their physical life, then I will demonstrate violence. If they were erratic in behaviour, then I will become erratic for the brief time that I am channelling them. In other words, I will become the person that the spirit being was when they were living here on Earth.

What I have found over the past two or three years is that my channelling has been described as me being ‘possessed’. This description was used, for example, by certain members of a production company, through their ignorance of the subject, during the making of Most Haunted. It didn’t matter how many times I requested that these people did not use that description of that aspect of my work, they still did. I suppose that was because it sounded more exciting and ‘paranormal’ to talk of possession. But I must stress that I have never been possessed.

I have also heard that sometimes people have commented that I might be schizophrenic or psychotic. I am neither. I am a medium. I find it distasteful in the extreme that certain individuals demonstrate their ignorance of mental health conditions or, even worse, refuse to appreciate just how much heartache and trauma the families of people suffering from such conditions have to undergo. If I behaved in such a manner I would be thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Channelling is something that I choose to do. It is an educated choice and I make it because I know that I am experienced enough to deal with the situation. I also have an exceedingly strong spirit guide, doorkeepers and spirit helpers who will assist me, and I make sure that I have at least one person with me – in most cases my good friend Ray Rodaway – who is experienced in dealing with the situation when I do choose to channel a spirit entity.

I have found that by channelling a spirit entity I am more able to understand the personality of the person as they were both in their physical life and after their passing. It gives me a greater depth than merely communicating using the gifts of clairvoyance or clairaudience.

CHAPTER TWO

My Beloved Mother

Over the Christmas period of 2006 my mother and her sister, my Aunt Eileen, came to stay with Gwen and me at our home in England. On 27 December we all travelled to Spain and stayed there for a week. During that week my mother was not herself at all, but I did not realize quite how ill she was.

Prior to the Christmas period I had felt unsettled. My mother had kept coming into my mind and I had gained the distinct impression that all was not well, but I had pushed the thought away, as it wasn’t something I wished to contemplate. Something told me, though, that this would probably be the last Christmas I would spend in her physical presence, even though she appeared to be well and in good spirits at the time.

Most people are under the impression that, as a medium, I am well aware of any events about to take place in my life, but this is just not the case. We mediums receive nothing for ourselves. We are deeply intuitive and get ‘feelings’ when unhappy or joyous events are about to take place, but we receive no definitive information from our guides and helpers. To acquire such detail would necessitate a visit to another medium.

Despite my unease, my mother, my aunt, Gwen and I enjoyed the two-day Christmas holiday and all appeared to be well on our trip over to Spain. Within a couple of days, however, my mother was really not herself. Unlike her normal practice, she would stay in bed until quite late in the day and wasn’t at all keen on going out and about. Usually she would be enthusiastic about eating out in restaurants and taking trips to the shops, but not this time.

Gwen had arranged our flights home for quite late in the day so that Mum could have what was now her usual lie-in. Lunch-time came and when my aunt went to rouse her, she found she couldn’t. She called me through to the bedroom. Then, gradually, Mum woke up properly. I was worried about what was going on, but did not want to take her to a Spanish hospital, as I was sure this would distress her. I urgently needed to get her home, where I knew she would be happier.

When we finally arrived back at my mother’s house, I called the doctor. He came out to visit her and advised that she should go to hospital immediately. An ambulance was called and Mum was admitted to the hospital. She was suffering from a breathing complaint. She had been a heavy smoker all her life and now, at 80 years of age, she was suffering the consequences. Her poor body was not receiving enough oxygen. In effect she was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The weeks dragged by and we were at the beginning of March with Mum still in hospital. After many ups and downs – indeed, many moments when we thought she was lost – she seemed to rally. The doctors told us that there would be no recovery, but that she could return to her home to spend her last few days or weeks there. Mum had in fact been most adamant that she wanted to return home to be with her family for some time. She was unaware that she had little time left.

Arrangements for oxygen supplies were made and Mum arrived home. My sisters who had flown over from their homes in America stayed with her to care for her. My brother Colin and his wife flew over from his home in Spain. My brother Wayne, my sister Barbara and I were resident in England anyway. So Mum was happy. She had almost her whole family around her – her sons, her daughters and her beloved sister. The only person missing was Fred, my dad, who had passed over to spirit some seven years earlier.

After only three short weeks, Mum suddenly relapsed and then within a day or two she was gone. She had gone to join Fred and the rest of her family in the world of spirit.

To say I was devastated would be an understatement. Again, although I am a medium, this does not mean that I cannot love people with all my heart and then watch them pass over to the spirit world without missing their physical presence. I, too, miss not being able to pick up the telephone and have a conversation. I miss not being able to call in at my parents’ home and share a cup of tea with them whilst chatting about what has been going on in my life. I miss an arm around my shoulders and a soft kiss on the cheek. I miss my loved ones as surely and as sorely as anybody who does not possess mediumistic gifts.

My grief seemed insurmountable. I prayed that Mum would return quite soon and assure me that all was well and that she had met up with my dad once more.

The day of Mum’s funeral came and went. It was a warm, sunny day. Mum’s wish was fulfilled in that her final journey was made in a coach drawn by black horses. My sisters had arranged for two doves to be released after the service. As the birds flew up towards the sun, I bid a last goodbye to the earthly parental ties. Mum and Dad were free now and together.

A few weeks later I woke early one morning. I got out of bed and went downstairs to be greeted by our dogs, Jack and Penny. Their tails wagging frantically, they approved of the opportunity of an early-morning run around the garden.

After letting them out, I put the kettle on for coffee and, whilst it boiled, watched as the two dogs cavorted and gambolled around the garden. When I had made my coffee, I let them back into the kitchen, where they settled down once more to catch up on their sleep.

As I sat at the kitchen table, I heard Mindy, one of our cats, miaowing from another room. I opened the door and walked through to what Gwen refers to as my ‘play room’. This is a room where I keep all my Liverpool memorabilia and can watch football on television without fear of interruption from Gwen, who does not appreciate football at all.

As I walked into the room I noticed that Mindy was sitting on top of my pool table, still miaowing away. As I walked towards her, I heard a noise behind me. It was a loud cracking sound. I knew that I had closed the door, so I turned around quickly.

‘Oh my goodness! Mum!’

There, by the door, was the spirit of my lovely mum. She was very faint and faded quite quickly, but nonetheless, I knew that she had made her first spirit return to me.

I couldn’t wait to tell Gwen, I was so excited. I had known without a shadow of a doubt that at some time my beloved mother would pay a visit to me, but I had not expected it to be so soon after her passing.

It was the end of my autumn theatre tour and many weeks after my first sighting of my mother’s spirit that I had another wonderful experience. After the last show, rather than stay overnight in a hotel, Ray, my tour manager, and I had decided to drive home. We arrived at approximately 4 a.m. As I let myself into the house I was, as usual, greeted excitedly by Jack and Penny. They had not seen me for some days and demonstrated their pleasure by jumping up and down before careering around the kitchen. Gradually they calmed down enough to allow me to make myself a cup of tea prior to retiring to bed.

It was almost 4.45 a.m. before I had finished my tea, had a chat with my dogs and enjoyed a last cigarette. I turned out the lights in the kitchen and wearily climbed the stairs.

I had not bothered to put the stair or landing lights on, as the stairs were illuminated sufficiently by a street light on the pavement outside the house. As I reached the top of them, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye that made me turn to look along the landing towards the door of the bedroom where my mother had slept when she had stayed with us. Standing there was my mother.

I could see her very clearly. She was not, however, the tired and lined 81-year-old lady who had made her journey over to the world of spirit six months earlier, but youthful and strong, as I recalled her when I was a boy. Her hair was the dark auburn I remembered so well. She was looking at me so lovingly and then she held out her hand towards me. I realized that although she had learned how to return to visit her loved ones, she had not yet mastered voice communication.

I sent out thoughts to Sam: ‘Please help her, Sam! Please, my good friend, help her!’

I so dearly wanted to hear my beloved mother’s voice once more and I knew that she had always been a very determined lady and that if she could, with Sam’s help, she would most certainly speak to me.

Gently, however, Sam told me that he could not do this for me. My mother had to learn at her own pace. One day soon she would achieve voice communication, but for the moment I must be happy with seeing that she was well.

Sam told me that she was very happy now, that the spirit world was a wonderful place for her and that she had met my father again. He told me that she had also been reunited with her mother, my grandmother, and that they were both so proud of my spiritual efforts.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I could feel nothing but joy at my mother’s excitement at being in the spirit world.

Gradually the spirit form of my mother faded and there was nothing left to indicate that she had been there other than an enormous feeling of peace. Feeling happy and contented, I went to my bed.

The following morning I woke late. Gwen had been up and about for a few hours already. I went downstairs and happily regaled her with my experience during the early hours of the morning. We went on to discuss our plans for a forthcoming holiday break. We had decided that we would go over to our house in Spain.

Much later that evening, after we had eaten our dinner, I decided that I would go upstairs for a soak in the bath prior to retiring to bed. As I lay there relaxing in the warm foamy water, my mind drifted back to my mother and I smiled happily to myself as I remembered seeing her looking so young, fresh and healthy. After my bath, I climbed into bed and went to sleep almost immediately.

I had been asleep for some time when I suddenly woke up. I knew that a noise in the room had woken me and initially I thought that it was Gwen. Then I turned and saw that the light was not on in the bathroom adjoining our bedroom, so I knew that Gwen had not come up to bed yet and I was alone.

Suddenly there was another noise – a couple of knocking noises followed by a ‘whooshing’ sound. I sat up, wondering what on Earth was causing it. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, I became aware once more of the presence of my mum. Her spirit form was standing at the end of my bed.

I sent my thoughts out to her, willing her to communicate with me. She smiled the most beautiful smile and then I saw her lips moving. I heard her voice as though from a great distance. It was almost whispery in quality and I had to strain to catch what she was saying, but her eyes twinkled and danced as she knew that I was hearing her at last.

‘Hiya, son. Do I look good or what?’ she said.

I whispered back to her, ‘You look wonderful, Mum.’

Her smile widened. She drifted up the side of my bed and I felt myself enveloped in her love. My forehead felt as though a cool hand had been pressed against it. I closed my eyes to absorb the love of my mother.

After a few moments, I felt her fading away. I opened my eyes once more, to see no more than a mere wisp of her ethereal body before she disappeared completely.

A great disappointment filled my being. Then I heard Sam’s voice telling me that I could not be selfish. My mother was now in the heavenly state. She had many things to do. ‘She will visit you when she can, as does your father Fred, your grandmother and all the other people who have passed from your family,’ he told me.

I had already learned that this is exactly what happens. When people pass over to the higher side of life, once they have recovered from their passing they are allowed to experience many things. I could not delay my mother’s progress by drawing her to me constantly with my prayers. She had my brothers and sisters and other family members to visit and there were people on the higher side of life that she would want to spend time with. Knowing my mother, there would also be a wealth of places she would wish to visit and experiences she would want to undergo before she incarnated into her next physical life.