Derek Acorah - Ghost Hunting with Derek Acorah

To my mother, Elizabeth, with love and thanks

Cover Page

Title Page Ghost Hunting with Derek Acorah Star of TV’s Most Haunted Derek Acorah

Dedication To my mother, Elizabeth, with love and thanks

Introduction

Chapter 1 Preparation

Chapter 2 Ghostly Varieties

Chapter 3 Not So Haunted

Chapter 4 The Matter of a Ouija Board

Chapter 5 Poltergeists

Chapter 6 Ghostly Communication

Chapter 7 Haunted Hotels

Chapter 8 Ghosts in the Workplace

Chapter 9 Ghosts who Share our Homes

Chapter 10 Incident at a Night Club

Chapter 11 A Call to the Local Radio Station

Chapter 12 Animal Ghosts

Chapter 13 Theatre Ghosts

Chapter 14 Ghosts of Long Ago

Chapter 15 Ghosts Abroad

Chapter 16 The Most Haunted

Chapter 17 Your Stories

Chapter 18 Where to Go

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

My name is Derek Acorah. I am a medium with clairaudient, clairvoyant and clairsentient gifts. Over the years I have conducted many paranormal investigations and in this book I would like to share some of my experiences with you in the hope that it will assist the intrepid ghost hunters amongst you.

I first became aware of my ability to communicate with the world of spirit as a small boy. I was living with my family at my grandmother’s house when one day I saw what I thought was a man standing on the first-floor landing. He spoke to me and as he reached out towards me, it felt as though he was ruffling my hair. I was very afraid and raced down the stairs to tell my gran that there was a strange man in the house. My gran and my mother hurried up the stairs, but there was nobody to be found.

‘Tell me what the man looked like, Derek,’ my gran said gently. I described the person I had seen. As I did so my mother and my gran exchanged glances. My gran took a large tin down from a shelf in the kitchen and took out a photograph. I was startled to see that this was a picture of the very man who had stopped me on the staircase.

‘That’s him!’ I shouted. ‘That’s the man on the stairs!’

‘He’s the next,’ said my gran quietly to my mother.

She explained to me that the man I had seen on the stairs was in fact my grandfather, who had passed to the spirit world before I was born. She told me that I would see many, many people who had passed from this life to the world beyond and that I wasn’t to be afraid. At the time I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that my grandmother was a medium herself. I did know that many people would come to the house to sit and chat with her and would leave looking very much happier than when they arrived, but I didn’t notice that it was in fact my grandmother who would do all the talking!

Being a young lad, I soon forgot the incident and got on with the single most important thing in my life—football! I told everybody that I wanted to be a footballer when I grew up. As I went from junior to senior school, it became apparent, much to my father’s delight, that I did indeed have some talent as a footballer. My dad would talk longingly about watching me play for the team he and all my uncles revered—Everton Football Club. His disappointment was huge when at the age of 15 I signed as an apprentice pro with Everton’s arch rivals Liverpool.

I was a professional footballer for a number of years. After leaving Liverpool FC I joined various other clubs, including Wrexham, Glentoran and Stockport, before eventually ending up in Adelaide, South Australia, playing for USC Lion. By this time I had met and married my first wife, Joan, and we had become the proud parents of our son Carl, who was born shortly before we left for Australia.

My footballing career came to an end in the early 1980s and I returned to the UK with my family. Although football had been my passion, I had not forgotten my early brushes with the spirit world, which I have written about in my first book, The Psychic World of Derek Acorah , and I now saw where my ultimate destiny lay—working for spirit. I had been allowed to achieve my childhood ambition, but now I had to take on the real work of helping others through the use of my mediumistic gifts, just as my grandmother had done before me.

Joan and I went our separate ways and, living on my own, I began conducting private readings for people. Before I knew it, I was in demand. I was working for spirit each and every day—and finding a fulfilment I had not experienced whilst playing football. I knew without a doubt that my grandmother had been correct. I was indeed ‘the next one’!

I have recorded at length in my second book, The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah , how I came to meet my spirit guide, Sam, and to work in radio and television. After meeting the husband-and-wife team Yvette Fielding and Karl Beattie, who created LIVINGtv’s unrivalled paranormal programme Most Haunted , I found myself ghost hunting all over the country. Although I had already conducted many paranormal investigations, it was during the Most Haunted investigations that I honed my skills as a ‘ghostbuster’. I would now like to tell you about some of my experiences and explain what ghost hunting is all about!

Preparation is essential for a successful ghost hunt, both to gain satisfactory evidence of any spirit activity and to rule out any other explanations. What will you need?

As a spirit medium, I both see and hear spirit naturally. I am able to pick up events that have taken place in a building from the atmosphere there. I like to think of such events as ‘photographs in time’, but they are more commonly known as residual energies, emotions from times gone by that linger in the fabric of a place.

Although many paranormal groups turn to mediums for assistance in their investigations, investigators will also need to include items of a more worldly nature in their kitbags to give tangible proof of spirit activity.

One obvious item is a torch. Take a supply of replacement batteries too—mischievous spirit presences like nothing better than to drain battery power and a

hapless investigator who has forgotten to pack extra batteries could well end up fumbling around in the dark.

Notebooks and pens will enable you to record details of events as they occur. The worst thing to do is to rely on memory, as after a long night’s investigation recall can be blurred, especially if there have been many exciting incidents.

It is also a good idea to make a rough sketch of the location before commencing an investigation, numbering rooms for ease of reference.

Plain sheets of white paper and pencils are also a necessity so that an item or ‘trigger object’ can be placed on the paper and its outline traced. Any subsequent movement of the object can then easily be detected. Wooden crosses of a suitable size seem to be popular as trigger objects, though any item which has an easily traceable outline may be used.

It may be necessary to seal off certain rooms whilst tests are conducted. As security is not the issue here, simple black cotton and adhesive tape may be used.

A sealed room is the ideal location for a trigger object or for strategically placed cameras that will record any activity taking place.