I made an arrangement to travel to Anne and Harry’s shop the following Tuesday. On that day, accompanied by Ray Rodaway, my tour manager, I travelled to Atherton and found the shop we were looking for.
As soon as I entered the premises I became aware that the shop had not always served the purpose of retailing hardware but had once dealt in metals of a finer and far more precious variety. I could see jewellery and pocket watches displayed in velvet-lined mahogany and glass cases. The name ‘John’ rang out and the spirit outline of a small, bustling but well-dressed man formed before me. He was pottering about, polishing a piece here and winding a watch there. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that the years had moved on and changed the shop and that instead of the precious goods in which he dealt there were now wooden shelves lined with more mundane items such as screws, nails and pots of paint.
Anne took me behind the counter and through a doorway from which an open flight of wooden steps led down to the cellar. As soon as the door was opened I could sense a presence. It was the spirit form of a man lurking in the dark recesses of the cellar. Unlike the busy spirit gentleman in the shop area, this man wore an ugly expression on his face – a mixture of anger, fear and disillusionment.
I reached the bottom of the cellar steps, Ray following close behind me. Anne hovered halfway down, obviously afraid to descend any further. There were a number of large cardboard cartons stacked against one wall and on the floor lay a couple of stepladders. Against another wall were stacked plastic crates full of small boxes of the type that contain nails and drill bits or other such hardware paraphernalia. It was next to these crates that the spirit man stood.
‘Who are you?’ I shouted.
I received no reply. I edged a little closer. Suddenly a crate seemed to fly to the floor, scattering its contents everywhere.
‘William! I’m William!’ I clairaudiently heard the man growl. ‘Leave me alone!’ he commanded.
As I looked at the floor, now covered in small boxes, the impression of a man’s body lying in a bloody puddle came to me. I sensed that this man had not met his end as a result of an accident. This was murder!
I looked back at William and stepped a little closer to him.
‘I’m not afraid of you, William,’ I stated. ‘You know you must leave here.’
‘I will not! Take these people and go!’ he demanded. ‘I will stay here with him – Walter.’ He pointed towards the area where I had been impressed clairvoyantly with the sight of the bleeding corpse.
‘No, you will not, William!’ I told him. ‘You must go. You must leave these good people in peace.’
The spirit man lunged towards me and I staggered back with the force of his energy.
‘Careful, Derek!’ I heard Ray’s gruff voice behind me and I felt him steady my balance by placing his hand on my arm.
‘Just go!’ was William’s sneering response.
I began to feel quite ill. I had a feeling of nervous sickness in my stomach which almost made me retch. I knew I was picking up the emotions of William immediately prior to his passing from this physical life. I also picked up a sense of loss and hopelessness – a feeling of desolation at being let down. I realized that William had met an untimely end himself.
‘Man’s justice was meted out to him,’ I heard Sam tell me, ‘but in William’s case it was an injustice. He was innocent of the crime he was accused of. He is afraid to progress to the world of spirit for fear of what will happen to him. Man’s justice let him down. He is afraid that spiritual justice will do the same.’
It would be a difficult task, but I knew then that I had to convince William that he had to leave this place to which he had so recently come. It was not right that he should spend eternity with the ghostly body of a man he was accused of killing but in fact had not.
I drew closer to William once more, but again the force of his energy repelled me and I stumbled backwards. Each time I was repelled, however, I recovered myself and moved forward again. I knew that if I could get close to this spirit being I had more chance of convincing him to move away from this dark cellar and progress to the light.
‘Talk about Polly,’ Sam advised me. ‘Tell William she is waiting for him. He has nothing to fear.’
‘Polly!’ I shouted out. ‘Polly’s waiting for you.’
When he heard that, the expression on the spirit man’s face softened and an all-pervading sadness seemed to surround us. I knew then that this was no evil spirit come to wreak devastation on anyone, but a sad and suffering soul who was afraid to move on to meet his loved ones on the higher side of life.
William had been executed for a murder he did not commit and was frightened of that travesty of justice being repeated in the spirit world. He was afraid that he would have to spend all his time with souls who had not yet atoned for the horrendous deeds they had committed in their physical lives.
Eventually I was standing so close to William he was almost overshadowed by my aura. With a tremendous effort and the greatest depth of feeling and sincerity that I could convey, I pleaded with him to move towards the light.
‘Polly is waiting for you. She will meet you and show you the way. You do trust Polly, don’t you?’
He nodded. I felt a hesitation and then an enormous rush of spiritual energy, so great that I staggered back and, tripping over one of the ladders, fell heavily to the floor.
Ray rushed forward to help me up. There was a shriek from Anne, who was still standing on the cellar steps. ‘I saw a huge flash of white light, Derek!’ she cried.
‘Did you feel that?’ I asked them both.
‘I can’t feel anything,’ they replied.
‘Exactly! There’s nothing here anymore. Everything is back as it should be,’ I told them.
I spent the next 15 minutes or so clearing the atmosphere. No spirit would enter the premises again in order to cause upset and unrest. And I knew that William had entered the world of spirit and was now at peace with his beloved Polly.
Black Magic in Underground Edinburgh
From the mid-nineties right up to 2001 I took part in psychic programmes for Granada Breeze, the satellite arm of Granada Television. This company ceased to broadcast live programming in July 2001 and ceased airing altogether at the end of December 2001.
During my time working at Granada Breeze I took part in programmes such as The Psychic Zone, Livetime and Psychic Livetime, but it was Predictions with Derek Acorah that really threw me into the televised psychic investigation arena.
Predictions with Derek Acorah comprised three sections, one of which involved investigating allegedly haunted locations throughout the UK. I would be collected from my home by a producer and her assistant and would then be taken to the chosen location, where we would be met by a camera and sound team. The investigation would then take place with me having no prior knowledge whatsoever of either the location or its history (sound familiar?)!
One such place that I was taken was the city of Edinburgh. Beneath the streets of modern Edinburgh lies another equally large city, a hidden city, known as the Edinburgh Vaults. In years gone by these vaults were inhabited by people who lived their lives underground. There were homes down there, and shops, industry and drinking establishments thrived. Some people even kept animals. It was not unknown for cattle and poultry to spend their lives living under the city streets.
There