Getting rid of demons and evil spirits is all part of the job I love.
As my nan tucked me into bed, I felt myself tremble. The huge steel bed in the vast bedroom at my grandparents’ old farmhouse felt creepy and scary for a five-year-old boy.
‘Night, darling, see you in the morning,’ Nan said. As she left the room, I pulled the covers further up, and kept one eye open.
I was no stranger to paranormal experiences, although I wasn’t old enough to know that yet.
From the age of two, I’d touch the wall and say to my mum, ‘man gone’, as if I could see someone walking through our living room wall.
That night, I managed to fall asleep but woke with a start to see an old lady with her hair tied back, sitting at the end of my bed. ‘It’s OK, darling. Go back to sleep,’ she said.
The next morning, I went down to breakfast and asked Nan whether she’d come into my room last night.
‘No, darling,’ she answered. ‘You’d tied your hair back,’ I said.
‘I can’t tie my hair back, it’s too short. That must have been your Aunt Nannie,’ she replied. It turned out a distant aunt had visited me that night. A few years later, when I was 15, some friends and I were back at Nan’s farm and decided to camp outside. We’d been out late and were walking back along the lane in the dark.
I used to tell my friends I could hear voices, but they’d just laugh at me.
‘OK, tell us what car will come down the lane next,’ they said.
‘A police car,’ I replied. Just minutes later, we saw flashing lights and a patrol car drew up, wanting to know where we were heading. Not long after, my world was rocked when my best friend Paul died suddenly. His parents told us it was from natural causes, but I was convinced there was something more to it.
That night, I went to bed and there he was, so real and solid I felt I could reach out and touch him.
‘I’ve come to let you know I’m happy now and everything is going to be OK,’ he said. Paul’s life had been hard, and he’d been bullied because he had a disease that caused cysts to grow on his face.
I’d suspected he might have taken his own life, and this compounded my thoughts.
My late teens were plagued by dreams of water, trees and screaming.
I’d wake up in a sweat not knowing what this meant. Then, when I was 19, our family was shattered when my older sister was killed in a scooter accident at the age of just 24.
Aside from the shock and grief, there was also a strange paranormal element to the tragedy.
After losing my sister, I was scared and felt the need to communicate with God.
I turned to the Christian Spiritualist Church where I was ordained as a minister a
