1. My spooky house.

As a non-believer in the paranormal, I've always tried to rationalise ghost stories and sightings and try to explain them away as the product of an overactive imagination.

As far as the so-called "Celebrity Mediums" are concerned, I have doubts about the veracity of their claims to be able to channel the spirits of the dead and am firmly of the opinion that most of them are just out for a quick buck and have no real psychic powers. I used to work for several TV companies and have worked on a programme where the 'psychic' gave messages to the audience. The fact that the microphones over the audience were switched on well in advance of the recording of the show and that you could clearly hear people discussing loved ones who had passed over and their hopes of contacting him/her and the researcher sitting in a corner making notes made me think that it wasn't as real as they like to make out.

That's not to say that I don't believe that there are some people out there who really do have psychic gifts and the stories I am about to relate have made me reconsider my scepticism, but I thought I should make my feelings on the whole subject known before I go on.

So, you're probably wondering when I'm going to get to the point.

It's now.

We moved into our previous house in 2002. We got the keys from the council and were overjoyed when we saw the house for the first time. It was a semi, set back from the road with a huge back garden. The best thing though was the location.
We were about five miles from the centre of Wrexham, at the far end of Cefn Road. In the middle of the countryside with only two neighbours.
So, having decided to decorate the place before we moved in, my wife and I spent most days there.

One evening, having returned alone to get on with painting the hall, I was busy. It was December and by eight o'clock it was pitch dark outside (being at the far end of the road, there were no streetlights). I was upstairs painting the walls and about to pack in and go home when I heard a woman's voice calling my name. Thinking it was my wife, I shouted that I would be down in a minute. The voice came again and I got up and went to the top of the stairs to see who was shouting me. There was no one there. I went downstairs and looked around. The house was empty. Thinking it a bit weird, I phoned my wife who was still at our old house! She hadn't been out that night. The following day, we were both at our new house painting the kitchen, when I mentioned what had happened the night before. She went pale and said with relief that she was glad I said that. I asked why and she told me how the day before my experience, while she was upstairs painting the bedroom, she had heard a woman's voice calling her name and she had thought it was her mum come to visit and that I had let her in. When she had gone to check she found no one there. This was the beginning of a very odd fourteen years!