.

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