Hello, Welcome. This is Kerry Anne and you're listening to Seventh Sanctum and
this evening I am being joined by my normal co host Natalie. Hello,
and we have a really special guest. This evening, we are being joined
by Neil's Story. Welcome Neil. Hello, lovely to meet you. Carrie
and Natalie, thank you, Thank you for having me on the show.
Thank you for joining us. I'm really excited to speak to you. Actually,
there's lots, lots and lots. As I said previously, I've been
cyber following you for a long time and I really enjoy the adventures you go
on and the places you go, and lots of You're an author, you're
a TV personality. There's so much historian. But I've been really lucky.
You know that for most of my life I've been able to scrape a living
doing what I love to do. The books of all things that have interested
me, and many of them continue to interest me to this day. So
I'm a very, very lucky man. And I've met some incredible people along
the way. That's the one thing I love about. Obviously, I can
only speak in the context of the paranormal. The one thing I love about
the community, is the variety of people that we come across, the variety
of interests, the conversations that we have that are really really quite out there,
quite literally sometimes licks to the sky. So that's one thing I really
enjoy is meeting the people. So can you tell us a little bit about
all those listening, a little bit about you and how you've got to where
you are right now? Yes, Well, my name is Neil's story.
I've written I think it's over fifty books now from a paranormal point of view.
I'm a historian by trade. That's my pre and post grad University of
East Anglia, and I always loved social history. The story of people.
That always fascinated me because history it can be kings and queens and battles,
but you know, really it's the people that were living those lives and fighting
those battles. They are the ones that have always interested me. I grew
up in the County of Norfolk. It's a beautiful place to grow up.
I had a loving, loving family around me, but my mum had to
work away a lot and my dad wasn't around, which was pretty tough for
a kid in the seven But I had wonderful grandparents, and it meant that
I knew most of their brothers and sisters and their friends. It was a
very different generation. So I guess I kind of grew up unconsciously being a
historian because I was listening to their stories and really enjoying them. But as
I got a little bit older into my teens, I began to think,
when they go, When these folks go, those stories can be gone forever.
Very few of them wrote their memoiles down. These are people who worked
with horses. They knew the country ways, they knew the way my hometown,
the way it used to look, different shops, different businesses, the
way we were, And I thought, do you know? So I started
writing local history books. Then I was asked, well, what can you
write about Norfolk? So I wrote books about my county Regiment, the Royal
Norfolk Regiment that my family served in in two World Wars. And then I
started writing books about knowledge and Norfolk at work and the coast that I love.
We're not far from the coast. I grew up in North Walsham and
where it's not far from the North Norfolk coast. I got cycle very easily.
When I was a kid with friends and stuff, so I've always known
it. I've got distant family that are kind of sharing them and chrome away.
It is beautiful. It's this dream of poppy land that they used to
have, and occasionally you will see the fields filled with poppies. It's a
beautiful place. But it's also a place that is filled with myth and legend.
So mixed with this social history can be fun it because there's some great
stories and some great stories of humanity, of ordinary people working together in adversity
of flood, being bombed in two World wars, serving together not just with
the military abroad but on the home front, helping the neighbors. So it's
really powerful stories. But amongst all of that, people would like to share
stories of ghosts or the haunted house, and stories like the they say,
And this curious young man always wanted to know, well, if they say
that, why, why is it haunted? Is there any truth in it?
So for as long as I can remember, I've been interested in ghosts,
and I conducted my first ghost hunt in nineteen eighty eight. And I
expect both of you ladies were not even born then, giving it away,
Natalie, Come on, no, I was I was like, I don't
know, said twelve then twelve in eight Yeah, you weren't much younger than
I was. Yeah, I like that. I can't do maths on the
floor, give it away. Look literally need some mystique nets. Some say
I was around that age, mis legends have it. Absolutely absolutely, and
that was would you like to tell you about my first ever ghost hunt?
I was at college still, so I'm no great expert, but there were
a few of us interested in the paranormal. There were no shows in those
days, like most haunted or helped my house if nothing, very occasionally there
might be a special on TV. Nothing, So we just had really books
on ghosts, some of them quite old ones by people that went with day.
They were very good, Dennis Barden's Peter Underwood. We read Peter Underwood.
But the book that really really worked was the Osborne Book of Ghosts.
Come on, I couldn't know it. You know it, it's on h
and it was. It was pictorially beautifully. They've recently reprinted it because I
dare say there's quite a lot of us of this generation that want to hand
that onto our kids. If you haven't seen it, Carrie, check it
out. It will change your life. And it's got there's methods of the
day. You know this would be in the eighties, you know it's but
there's all sorts of There's photographs in there that frightened the life out of me.
There's one that was taken in Ipswich. I'll never forget this one.
It's a it's a car and they were using the film up. They'd gone
to take a photograph of the woman's mother. Sadly she had passed away,
and they went to put flowers on her grave. They'd got photographs of there
and they needed to use the film app So there's the husband in the car
sort of looking out the window and missus click finishes that developed the film and
guess who's sat on the back seat, Yeah, late mother, and you
can see through her. Tell you tell you. There's the picture of Newby
Church as well, which has got something like a seven foot monk like figure
with a warped face that looks like the scream. He's all in a cowl.
That was you got it, And they frightened the devil out of me
when I was a kid. When I was my mom had to take the
book off men hide it. I was I'm afraid of kid, you know
I was anyway, So with all of that in mind, we used to
at college, which we tried to do sense or ghost hunting. In those
days. If you had a video camera, well, this was the sort
of thing you get on the prices, right, okay with Leslie Crowner in
those days that or you know, this is Sail of the Century territory with
Nicholas Parsons. Yeah, you can get a video cassette recorder, right and
a camera. That's great. The camera looks like something that newsmen used to
use, you know, right, the side press a clunky button, tunk,
the side pops open and you put in a cassette the size of a
brick. Nice. Yeah, it's so compact, it's like it's easy.
So we've got this bloomin great big thing that we borrowed from college. A
few other bits and pieces, any electronic thermometer. I don't know what.
I we just tried to look professional, I don't know. And we these
two girls, they're nice girls. They were doing in the in the beauty
and hair part of the college at great yarm of College of Further Education on
South n Railroad and one of the girls trying in the library one day,
she said, you wannatants, aren't you. I'm not doing a justice because
she had fun. You're one of those girls. I said, yeah,
yeah, and she said, we are places haunted, and I thought,
whoa, whoa, whoa lady. No, no, no, I don't
don't, don't tell them make it. No, no, genuinely, and
if she was frightened, she was frightened by what was going on in her
house. So we did. We went along with the big clunky video came
and set it up. They're in a terraced house in great Yarmoor, one
of those typical you know, two up, two down, and you walk
through the two front rooms, through the kitchen to the bathroom at the back,
you know the sort. And we were in the front room, but
all night there was nothing. The girls had talked about some sort of figure
when they sat in that room. They're not the owners, they only rented
it. And the owners had knocked through the old dining room with the front
room, so it's a big room. They'd been the front bit watching Telly
and something would walk behind them, you know, because the back part of
the room would be in darkness. What's that. And one night one of
the girls, she was with her boyfriend and she was in she was downstairs
with him. I think they were getting close. If I want to say
that, you know, this is a family show. You know we post
watershed. No it's not. I can't say the adults will know. Right,
they were just going to be playing connect for something like that, right,
are saying that? And they were they were getting or getting jiggy with
it. You know, who knows? Who knows? You know, I
don't don't defame people, but it was it was close. And can you
imagine this? You got a low light on pop that out, you know,
getting a bit close and and you know it's dark, it's atmospheric,
and you're getting close with each other, and then suddenly you feel that you're
being watched. How would you feel you actually think there's someone in the room
watching you. And she was so freaked out she kind of pushed a boyfriend
of the side and in front of the window. Now the window there's street
lights, so there's a certain glow that comes through the curtains. There was
a cowled figure that looked a bit like a monk there and it was only
there did throw my boyfriend across the room and ran, I think that's pretty
much what happened. I think there was a you know, it wasn't a
magic moment, should I say, And it freaked these girls out, you
know, and what you're terrifying and that she said that the thing was like,
you know, somebody take us a photograph with a flash, you get
like a something in your eye. You see it, but you can't see
it, and then it's gone. And that's what this figure was like,
absolutely frightening. So we were in that front room all night and we didn't
get anything apart from a round about early hours of the morning, after midnight.
Now admittedly that time of the day temperatures can drop, we all know
that. But the temperature really dropped and all the electrics in the front half
of the room cut. Now we could hear and see that the fridge freezer
in the kitchen was still buzzing away and see the green light on it,
So what's going on there? And then there was no atmosphere, just very
very cold, and everything slowly came back on again, and I've never seen
that since or before. The electric and the digital displays like the electric slowly
came back on the digital thermometer that the manual one that really clanged down or
anyway, nothing more than that. So we go out the building in the
morning. We've got the big clunky tripart and the video record and all that
stuff, and we just stood the boxes outside and you had to slam the
door in a Yale lock, so you give it a bit of a bang,
and inside there was a there was a bang from inside. Now the
girls had a dressmaking dummy in the dining room area, and we thought,
oh bum yeah, that's that's fallen over. Sounded like a clunk. So
I go in, My mate goes upstairs, and I go in the lounge.
Now sadly, carry and Natalie. You know what it's like to be
in a room where maybe you've had a disagreement with somebody and you walk back
in and there's a bit of an atmosphere, you know that don't like everybody
does if we're really honest, And that's what that room elt. One.
It felt like there was a row going on and I've got to go in
and apologize and woaoa, what's going on here? And I look and there's
nothing that the dressmakers dounmy still standing there it's daylight, so it's fairly early
morning, about nine o'clock or something like that. Nothing going on, and
I just left the room think, thinking that this feels odd. And for
some reason, the door that i'd come through, the lounge door, was
flat against the wall. And you know these ones, they're the kind of
fiber doors. They've got like that faux wood either side and it's got like
cardboarding between them, you know, the saw typical for student accommodation in those
days. And I thought, mah, and I just looked behind the door,
and behind that door, stuck into it was a pair of dressmaking scissors
whoa well like as in they've been stabbed into the door, and at that
moment they weren't there. I mean, we've been in that room all together
all that night, and when I actually looked from the other side, you
could see that the end of the scissors had actually come through the other panel
on the door. It's been a hell of a throw or to punch out
through. And at that moment, that was the moment when I realized that
the paranorl does exist and front of life. It was very because there was
nothing haunting around it. It just happened. Yeah, that's some initiation.
And a few years later I was helping with an exhibition at great Yarmouth Museums
at the Elizabethan House, and it was all about the monasteries of great Yarmouth,
and they had several there because it was quite an important port town in
the Middle Ages. And we were doing overlays of the current streets over the
sights of the old monasteries that are now long gone. Some of there's ruins,
others that they're built on. We did overlay and I just, do
you know, there's something that rang in the back of my mind, that
terraced house, and I located it on the map and it's built on a
monastic burial ground. You couldn't write it. I tell you, you could
not write this stuff. So that's why they weren't happy about nocturnal activities.
She again, no names, no pack drill. Oh that's scary. Yeah,
and that so did that be your first ever experience that didn't shine you
away from it? Now, I'm very fortunate that I come from a very
very long line and the female line of my grandmother's family were midwives and had
been for generations in the little village called Whiton. It's on the north Norfolk
coast, not far from Wells and my great grannie's mum, she was known
as the mother of White and she was the kind of last of the line
of the traditional midwives because she actually trained to be a proper qualified midwife.
Before that, it was just handed down from generation to generation to generation.
She had a skill as well, or she had several magical skills. She
was a sineata. Now if you've heard of the singer sineta, that's not
the same thing, right, This is a sin eater. And in the
days when they used to lay people out in the front of their cottage or
their home when they're dead, they put the coins on the eyes, but
they'd put a little dish on their chest and they put some salt in it
through that night, the first night that they're laid out, and then come
the morning, my great grannie mum would come along and dip bread into it
and eat the salt. And she's taking the sins away, but they won't
affect her because they're not her sins, but she takes them away, and
that they would pay for the sin eater to take that away. But she
had she had the ability. She could also charm warts, and she had
the ability to kind of scribe the future and mediumship as well. So she
knew the art of bell, book and candle, which I was shown.
Women often have the strongest affinity and links to communication. I think it's because
if you think about it, here's a funny thing. If you think about
DNA, it goes down the female line is the mitochondrial DNA. And I
think that's interesting that the magical skills are often passed through. So if I'm
demonstrating these methods and I hand, I'll show the candles, and you have
a Bible yes and no no, and a key on a ribbon. We
don't use pendulum. If you got caught with a pendulum years ago, you
get burnt as a witch. That's witch equipment. It's all traditional, and
I'll demonstrate it will get some results. But you put that in a hand
of a woman or a young girl. If it girls in their teens,
do it sensibly, do it respectfully. Don't try and afford it because you
can't. You can't affward this. If you're holding an old Victorian iron key
on a ribbon, if you move your hand, you'll see and when you
really do see this key scrining or divination. Well, it's got various names
because it's a real old country practice. When you see it, it's rather
like when people used to put a wedding ring on a ribbon or a chain
to divine the sex of a child, for example. But this is good
divination, and when you see it, you'll get to recognize when, for
example, a child touches the ki because the movement is very very gentle.
If a woman touches the key, it's often a lot more gentle than if
you've got a male spirit. That's really interesting and you'd see a hand moving.
But this and you hold you hold the key over the Bible. And
so that's part of the old I try and teach people they've got to be
respectful. They must never ever misuse it. But the old methods are really
rather good worth learning. We do have the key as if it was a
pendulum or do you hold it? Different because obviously it's a thing swinging.
Do you swing? Does it swing or does it just move when somebody touches
it. Is that the difference between that and using a pendulum rather like it.
They can work like a pendulum in that they will. If the answer
is uncertain, they may spin round and round, but in the main it
will swing with quite a definite that you keep your hand still. There's a
certain way to wrap the ribbon around your fingers so that the tail of the
ribbon is tucked inside your hand and you have your arms that kind of a
rest the elbow on the table. Then there'll be a few inches of ribbon
then your key, and the key moves. It doesn't tend to spin very
much. It will and you'll have one card that says yes, one that
says no, either side of the Bible, and it will go one way
or the other. Really good to see that in action. I hope you'll
get a chance to see it. I won't I won't name any names,
but quite a well known personality on one of the regular YouTube channels had to
go recently and it reduced him to tears. Wow. I mean that because
he was contacting two children that I can't say too much more, but they
were two children contacted, and he's a guy a little bit older than me,
successful guy, and I have to say we were all touched because we
were all dads in that room and we know what it is Lord knows if
we'd had a lady or a woman to channel Wow, who knows? Because
it was powerful that night, really really powerful. But there are just three
geezers working on it. So when we talk about channeling, you've made reference
to that. And obviously the bell candle and bell book and candle yes candle.
Sorry, these methods are much more traditional than what we're seeing in paranormal
investigation today. We've made leaps and bounds compared to the traditional methods. So
when we look at the traditional methods, and obviously in your research that you've
done, where what are you leaned more towards? How do you feel about
using the more modern kind of instruments equipment box or SLS and e v P.
Well, I mean, everybody is entitled to work in a way that
they wish to work, and I do respect that. Yeah, but but
I believe and if you watch Good Practice and my good friend Dave Schrader and
Cindy Kayser lovely lovely people in the holes of files, they I think it's
an exemplar of a show to really show you how to conduct an investigation.
And the baseline is pure. The baseline has Dave and Cindy and of course
Shane Pittman's there were a lovely, lovely guy showing, but Dave and Cindy
go in as a pair and they just use her abilities. Now, I
say to everybody listening, but if you want to be a skeptic, well
that's fine. But I don't think that's always very helpful in an investigation.
I really don't. There are times to look at proving, and I think
most good people involved in paranormal research police themselves. They don't want people throwing
stones, kicking a table or whatever. You know, we don't want any
tampering. And to be honest with you, it's not helpful. I say,
go in pure use it. You know, if you don't exercise,
your muscles will die, they will, they will frizzle up to nothing,
you know, and the so will your psychic muscles. We're all born with
a certain amount of gift, a lot of it's knocked out a bit when
young, or don't talk about that, don't think about that, but don't
lose those gifts. And I think there's a lot to be said even if
if we've all got some sort of sense, haven't we that you can sense
if there's it's animalistic. Is their danger around? You can just got it
sense places you're not always very confident about being around. So I say go
in pure, even if it's just to sit in a chair, can be
a group of you. Don't mess about. There's all sad down. Don't
mess about, lady, don't mess about. Take it seriously, be quiet
and sense. Perhaps then you can hear it. Has it got clicks and
groans? Do the board's creek? What's the weather like outside? What all
these Has it got a clank? You old heating system. Just get used
to those sounds. And I think that will build your courage as a ghost
hunt her and a ghost hunting team too, so that when you hear that
suddn pin, it's not going to make you all jump out of your skins.
Do your baseline. Do it pure then, I personally, I just
used the old methods. And it doesn't always have to be a communication device,
just by sitting there quietly. I don't use anything that has a I
don't like any mobile phones really if I can help it, because they give
off a frequency. Explain to the spirits what you're doing. Speak to them,
you know, don't be afraid just say look this box is This is
a camera. It's got a little red light on it. There's nothing magical
about that. You know. If you are the person to reach that woman
who was executors as a witch hundreds of years ago and she sees that,
she's going to think that you are some sort of magicianal witch yourself, and
maybe she was just accused of it and she never was a witch. You
know, it's going to freak people out, so anything. And that's the
noise that some of these things make. It sounds like a steam engine.
Oh, for God's sake, just turn the darn thing off. What are
you getting hardly a voice? You know, Just just leave it alone,
That's what I say. You know, or do that when we've actually had
a baseline which is quite pure and electronic free and in my experience, the
results that you can get on a camera that's just an ordinary Digiti camera is
well, I've been astonished by what I've seen at times that's really interesting.
I know. I think we've all got places where we really want to go
and investigate and things that we really love to do. And one of my
dream dream things is to conduct an investigation in line with Harry Price like the
very basic investigative skills that he would. I know it's very controversial. Harry
Price is very controversial, but a lot of the investigative tools that we use
now are kind of a little bit built the foundations there. So actually being
able to conduct a old school Harry Price kit investigation would be a dream.
Is up there with my top thing to do. I've been wanting to do
it for years, so I'm hoping this year or next that's something I'm going
to be able to do because we don't see enough of it. We don't
see and they always say to look forward, you always have to look back.
So we how far we've come in terms of our menage, Why do
we use the things we do now? What do we have to look for?
Why do we look for those things? And a lot of that is
explained when you look at the methods that he used. So absolutely that's something
I concur very much. So just take it steady, you know. And
if you listeners don't know about Harry Price, he investigated a number of hauntings,
most famously Bally Rectory that burnt down, And yes, he is controversial,
but the methods that he was expounded are very good. You know,
it's the basis of all modern ghostanding in many many ways. Was he a
scoundrel? I would I wouldn't say that. I think he was a person
that really wanted people to believe. How far he would take that, now
that's questionable. But we do see this now though in modern day we see
people, oh god, don't you iss and they just really get to a
point. I mean some of his cases I absolutely loved, and you can
see you can see in the cases where there was problems there. But again,
if you just take it down to the bare bones of his investigative skills,
then yeah, absolutely, it's something that I would love. I would
love to do and you'll even better if we could do it in somewhere that
is relevant. Yeah, yeah, why do you you know if you're down
in Essex Way, in Suffolk Way, there are locations there that have associations,
and of course in Norfolk too, lovely many lovely historic places. So
yes, I think anything is possible. In fact, I've worked professionally on
two programs now in Colchester, okay, I found the folks at the George
Hotel very very welcoming, noted, very nice people there, and the place
has activity as does Yeah, there's in fact, yeah, we shall keep
it between us. We won't tell everybody, but in Norfolk, Suffolk and
Essex. Yeah, well that's my turf. It's your manner. We'll have
to import Natalie get a passports. Trains do run, they do run from
the Midlands to you know, East angli Ar. It's quite a modern thing.
I know. It will mean you will probably have to go through Peterborough,
which is probably one of the most toilets like railway stations I've ever known.
It's utterly characterists. Yes, Peterborough is a strange place. I worked
there for not the town but the station. You know, it's got cathedral.
We've handed ghosts there. It's on devil in disguise and help my house
is haunted, one of my most infamous cases that I've ever worked on.
With the team there, that's great. But the station, oh it's still
no, no, no, no, it could could do better. You
know, your stars do not recommend, do not no, no, do
not recommend, or should I say, could do better for presentation you know
a little bit more comfortable, but a little bit more welcoming, you know,
I don't know staff in the shops are nice. I regularly have to
go through there because if you come from East Anglia, it's the hub,
and you think if you've got a hub, you can do a little bit
better. The people, the staff and staff normally very helpful in the shops
and stuff. But anyhow, that's travel. That's boring. That come on,
let's talk ghosts. Well, actually I was obviously having a little bit
of a read up and I've noticed that you're doing. I think you've published
it now, the bram Stoker. Yes, absolutely, yeah. So last
year November I managed to go Romania. I went book Arrest. Did you
want to the castle? Which is really really small and really high up,
so if you're claustrophobic and scared of heights, it's not always the one.
But it was beautiful, absolutely stunning, and the history there we obviously we
had a tour and Vladimhala, who is an actual they worship him over there,
the things that he did for Romania. But yeah, so I'm I'm
I'm really interested in brown Stoka. It's a beautiful country. It deserves a
visit. Beautiful, Yes, it is absolutely. Ramstoker never went there,
Yes I did. He used travel guides and books and a wonderful guide to
the Superstitions of Transylvania written by a certain Easier Ard. Now it's quite a
posh. It's called the nineteenth century An. It was a periodical review full
of all sorts of articles and arts and literature and travel. And E.
Gerard read about the Transylvanian superstitions that Brand drew upon. But I don't think
everybody that read that article that Brand new. But a lot of people wouldn't
realize that E stood for Emily. So Emily Gerard was one of the inspirations
for the Dracula story. Amazing. And Bram had his vision of Dracula's castle
from way back in his first ever fiction book, which is called Under the
Sunset, And there's a picture in a story. There's beautiful. It's this
castle that's got like a skull built into it as part of the features.
Brilliant. And then he went to Edinburgh Castle he stayed opposite. Then if
you ever go to Edinburgh and you stay on the Princess Street in the view
that Bram had across there, and you see this rambling castle atop a stone,
a huge stone in the center of ed But that's one of the influencers.
And Slains which is on the on the coast of Scotland. Slains Castle
that was the the earls of Errol and Bram used to He even stayed there.
I proved that he stayed there. I found letters, So yes,
his influences are a little different. And you might also know I don't know,
but there is no mention of Vlad Tepesh in any of the notes or
Dracula Romanian tourist board really hate me, but there's no mention. Bram found
the name. He found the name Dracula. It's not even Vlad dracorl It's
Dracula. It's in Wilkinson's Guide to Wallakia in Transylvania, and he was on
holiday in Whitby and he had seen the wreck of the it's called the Dmitri.
In reality Bram changed the name to them. But he saw the wreck
of the Demetrian and Brams sort of thought, oh, yes, well,
that that's from Afar, and he wanted to learn more about Varna, so
that's why he went to the library. And his notes are quite clear that
he found this particular page in Wilkinson's Guide to Wallakia and there's Dracula. Before
that the book was going to be called Count Whampire and the Undead, not
quite the same. Ring Ram loved language and pronunciations and colloquialisms. He would
have been told it was Count Vampire because on the continent Germany, Austro Hungarian
Empire, the w is a V like a Berks bargain. You know,
you get the idea. So he Count Whampire. I think that had probably
come from Arminius vanbrie who was the He was at Budapest University. Gets a
plug in in Dracula as our friend Arminius. He's mentioned by Van Helsing and
the two Arminius Vanburriy and Bram were known to have had a wonderful night at
the Beef Steak Club, which is a little dining room attached to the Lyceum
Theater where Brown was acting manager. Greatest theater in its day in London.
Absolutely high brow. Sir Henry Irving, first actor to get a knighthood.
He was the boss, the chief, and they had these wonderful dinners of
explorers and royalty and the wealthy, the influential. They all went there and
he spoke to Vanbury. I bet that was Vanbury that gave him Wampire the
dy but I bet Brown never really deep down. It's a working title and
he was looking through Wilkinson's Guide to Alake it there it was on whatever page
it was, And we know the page because it's Ram's notes Dracula. He
writes it and he underlines it. And if you put Dracula on your lips
and your tongue or it kind of snaps, it cracks, It's rolls around
the towne fabulous. And in the end it's not even Dracula in the Undead.
It's just Dracula. And it's quite a gamble because nobody would have known
what the Dracula a Dracula was when the book was first published in eighteen ninety
seven. It's really interesting, good, very eclectic in his sources, then,
isn't he like, you know, just like whatever's around him catches his
attention and he just weaves everything in. It's quite quite interesting, like the
creative process of it as well. The fact that that was fabulous that people
you enabled him, he could have traveled, you know, he was the
first man and with the Lyceum Company on tour, he was the first man
to write a modern travelogue of America. It's called a Glimpse of America.
It's very very well regarded in this fledgling modern country. You know, part
of America still got the American West going on there. You know, in
the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties, when he was exploring an incredible man. I
greatly admired Bran I think his He was just fascinated in just about everything,
even in even science. He loved science, but there would always be a
dark edge to it. So he used to correspond with Sir Oliver Lodge.
They were in some early members of the Society of Psychic Research, and Brand
and Lodge used to sort of discuss the power of the mind. Brad wanted
to know was it. Well, if you think about in Dracula, the
power that Dracula had was over the beasts of the night, but also over
Renfield, who's hundreds of miles away, but the Master has control of his
mind. So like that. But also Bram wanted to really take that further,
that could you kill could you kill just by the power of the mind.
And he explored that in his last book, The Layer of the White
Worm, which is a real crazy book worth a read. I heard of
it. Check it out. It's a cracker. My my, My must
read pile was getting bigger and bigger after this Dirty Lady. That's what I
say, get amongst it, lots of time, work to do. I
love that, I love I love yeah, I love anything that's kind of
gives a different perspective or understanding of what we know. So absolutely I love
that. So talking about traveling and going all over the place we've brown and
the places he didn't go and the places he did go, is there a
this is a two parts it's an evil or so is there a place that
you wear that really resonates or is there a story or a person that has
kind of stayed with you through your research, your paranormal research. Oh wow,
wow, that's a very very good question. I think it's both.
I think that certainly the experience that we had on our first ghost and that's
stuck with me. Stories, yes, without a doubt. Story of the
Fair Penitent. It's a play by Nicholas Rowe. It's an eighteenth century play
really, and it was performed in my hometown in North Walsham. It's done
very very well in London. A woman by the name of Elizabeth Barry was
the main actress in that she'd been born in the town, came from a
wealthy family. She married an absolutely horrible man. He was very unkind to,
used to beat her up and stuff dreadful. She tried to hide the
bruises and study. He was a violent, nasty piece of work, but
he had money, you know that. Anyway, One day he just disappeared
and people thought he'd gone to London, run off with another woman or whatever.
And in all in good time, this young girl goes to London herself,
not to seek him out, but she goes onto the stage and she
marries. She becomes missus Barry, and she does well, gets a very
good reputation, and in later life she moves back to the family home,
which she christens and she expands it. It's called Hamlet House, quite right,
you know, it's a bit of a bit of a Shakespeare connection.
And she revives the play in Billy Scragg's Barn of Entertainments because they weren't allowed
to have a theater in those days, so they had to really convert barnes.
It was quite nice. Can imagine there's no smell of animals in there.
Anymore, it's got seats, it's got a bit of limelight, you
know, it's got an atmosphere of a country theater. Now by this time,
she's a mature ladies in those days, if you're fifty. That was
old bones, wasn't it, back in the eighteenth century, And she,
in her youth had played this quite young, coquettish girl, and that the
people in the town. Can she really carry off? Callista the character in
the fair Penitent On the night she had the figure of a young girl.
She had the makeup and the lighting was really good, and everybody believed the
role was fantastic. But there's a scene where she has to place her hand
upon a human skull and deliver a speech. There'd been a storm brewing outside
all that night, and when she placed her hand upon that skull, the
storm broke, and not only did it lash down with rain, but the
thunder and lightning added drama to it. That moment, and it's her hands
on the top of the skull, there's a flash of lightning and the whole
room is bathed for that moment. That definitely pale light and her face is
a mask of terror. She slumps onto the stage She's dead within forty eight
hours, and they try to find out why, what could have caused this,
And they find in the top of the skull is a shard of metal.
And they asked the old grave digger in the town, and this is
all attested. It's a known story. Whose skull is that? Oh,
I don't know. He said, no, it's unfortunate. But when he
died, it was coming up to die and to testimony and what had happened
many years ago. He was a young grave digger. The family, the
woman who became Elizabeth Barry, had come to him say he need you to
bury someone. We're going to pay you a lot of money. You know,
that old swine used to attack that poor girl. And all she had
done was one day, when he was really laying into her, she had
just wanted to fend him off with a piece of wood and she hit him
with it. But the trouble would was the piece of wood had a bit
of metal embedded in it and it poleaxed him. And so they buried him
deep in a grave and put another burial on top. When the grave digger
was becoming an old man, he wanted to go. He has he helped
hide a crime. So he dug out that skull that went on the stage,
and that killed missus barry Stone dead the shock of seeing that, and
her ghost walked, her ghost walked down by him that house. Nobody lived
in that house beyond that And when that burnt down in the nineteen seventy and
I've known some of the farmer they were there. There was a figure of
a woman seen in one of the windows and the lad was melting on the
roof of the house. They put a ladder up to come and get her,
and she wouldn't come. This figure just disappeared into the smoke. And
they thought, when they clear they will rubble, I'll find a body.
There's no one ever found. But where they built the close of houses,
now they'll hear the voice of a woman rehearsing lines over the hedgerows. Wow,
that's mental. Could you imagine on the night though, watching that on
the seeing it on the stage. I'll tell you did. About ten years
ago we reconstructed it. We used kids from my old high school, North
Walsham High School. There you go. I was headboard many moons ago,
and I've never lost touch with my old school and I've always believed give kids
a chance, even if you get a chance to do a good project,
and that they had some money. They said, what we're going to we're
going to do. We want to do something special for the community for play.
And I said, right, we're going to restage the fair Penitent.
Now the old theater's gone. So we staged that in that church with the
churchyard where the skull was found all around us. Wow, I tell you.
And when we had that scene, and we had a very talented young
girl, she was she would have been what's sixteen years old. Of course
kids are taller nowadays, aren't they. We've got eighteenth century style costumes.
You know. They looked the business, these kids, and she did the
missus Barry, and my god, you never felt any because we're all wearing
breeches and periods stock you know, like a like a long stock they call
them beaches and stockings. And our ankles were all cold because a cold draft
went through the lower part of that church. I kid you not, I
kid you not. My surname is story. I looked down and the gravestone
that I was standing on when there was ones in the church floor. That's
a story. That's one of my ancestors that I've never noticed it. Oh
wow, you talk about and you can see it. It's there to this
day, and I can show you the spot there it is. It's an
eighteenth century grave to one of my ancestors that would have been around in the
town at that time. The whole synchronicity of all of these events, yeah,
absolutely incredible. And a lot of the kids I work with them,
I'm still in touch with them, you know, and they've never ever forgotten
that special project that we work together on Magic. I can see why that
story staying with you. That's amazing and I love I think that's so important
when we do things like investigations and research. It's really important that we know
what is happening or what's happened through time in these locations, but not to
prim us, not to develop a I lean lots into the Phillips experiment,
not not to have that impact, but to understand, to save us from
investigating things that aren't there, that are alleged to be there. Because this
character has been created. And I think knowing that story makes your experience so
much more, so much deeper, isn't it, Because you think it was
a massive that kind of twist. I wasn't expecting that. I didn't know
that grave was in that church, but to have so many people and that
church was packed. When there's you know what, it's like, it's a
it's a good show. The kids have all been raving about it. So
mum, dad's, aunt is and uncles, little brothers and said, everybody's
coming, and it was, it was, it was, And all the
instruments were traditional. We had traditional singing and songs and it was in a
funny sort of way. That's connecting with spirit in it. Really, yes,
yes, because they have a candles lit, the old music, the
old costumes, a lot of people giving a very good it's a good vibration,
you know, really good atmosphere, very powerful atmosphere, a lot of
people, local people, old families coming in, a lot of people thinking
this is this is good, we want this and then for that to happen.
That's powerful. I love that. That's a sense of history, isn't
it the continuation of history? You know, when you've put people in the
same place through generations, that resonance builds up, doesn't it. I should
imagine And yeah, and when you tap into that, it's it's quite powerful.
Like you say, memorable, I'll never forget it. Yeah, that
to those kids to hand that story on in a way that's memorable for them,
that they want to perpetuate it and retell it for their kids, because
I know they have. And it links back into the very beginning of this
interview where you said that your journey started because you had all these people around
you. That story was going to end when with them, and you didn't
want that. So that is actually links quite nicely. Yeah. And it's
good that you've got that sense of history and it is shared, it is
passed down for generation, because that's really how we get a good sense of
where we've come from as well. It's true and I hate people that consider
history their property. I'm not talking if you own a historic house, yes
that's yours. But if you've found things out, you should share it,
don't ring fence it, you know. But you're right, you don't need
to know about everything before you go into a place, but it's nice to
if you've had a name come through or there's something you're captured on a photo
bit of information, it's not as able to find out, isn't it.
Were you right? Yeah. And also I think it guards us from,
like I said, having that priming. At what point do we investigate the
alleged taunting or are we investigating the location, Because if we're going in and
we're looking for an entity, we're looking for a being, then actually we're
investigating this false collective memory. Absolutely the actual vibration of the location and what
could be there, you're not getting that. So knowing that also guards us,
protects us as investigators to not fall into that trap of just because so
and so said that this was there, and then the next time someone goes,
it's got a name, the next time someone goes, it's got a
voice the next time, and all of a sudden, this collected spot.
Yeah. I wish more. I wish more para normal investigator. And I'm
going to use the term ghost hander because I'm old I'm not that, but
you know what I mean, I'm old school. I don't like hunting in
any form. But we were ghost standards and I always will be. That's
what I am. And I just think play it straight, tell it the
way, but you don't need to go into reams of information and knowledge,
you know it Just I'll tell you when I film help my house is haunted.
It's very rare that Ian Lorman and I even speak because when I'm filming
my little bit, I'm normally on once a series and I'll speak to lovely
Jane Harris, who is one of them. That whole team is like like
seeing a family that you love to go and see and stay with, you
know, a few times a year. You know the thought. You know
it's for Christmas and birthdays. You know, that's the atmosphere. It's really
positive. And so Ian is doing his filming the walk round of the house
and we haven't even said hello. On somewhere. He's got a he doesn't
even have to really have a call sheet. You know, he's in a
hotel somewhere and he's taken somewhere. That's it. That's how cold he goes
in. I'll be talking to Jane. With my research. There might be
a researcher that I've dealt with. They've given me a remit. They certainly
don't know all I'm going to say. They trust me. They know that
I'm not going to swear or be vulgar or let them down. They all
know that there's a good there's a good story. Here, and so I'll
tell it to Jane while Ian's film, and then to I mean, for
example, there was there was one the guy who plays is it Steve McDonald
on on Colination Street. Yeah, it was in one of the celebrity Help
My House. It's on it. And you know we don't even meet.
I don't always meet the celebrity means it's very straight back that they play,
so it can't give any deal away. And I found the story of this
it's very very dark tail of a mother and daughter. I have a horrible
feeling it was murder. The daughter was pregnant and in those in the nineteenth
century, no dad, you know, young girl pregnant. But it's kind
of some people would say bringing shame on the family, you know, it
was. It was dreadful, and the mother and daughter found they cut each
other's well. I think the daughter either cut the mother's voat or they both
cut their own foat. She using the same blade. It just doesn't add
up, and they bled out over a bowl. It's truly horrible. And
when the girl's body was examined, she had been carrying a child and the
birth had been forced. And after the inquest, I think it was after
the inquest the body of the baby was found, and to me, they
seemed there were cuts on that baby that stank of ritual. It was very,
very, very very dark. I don't think they've said too much about
that on the show. It's not easy viewing or listening, is it,
really. But when Ian Lawman walked into that house, and it's on tape
you can see it, the first thing he heard was the choir of a
baby. Wow. Remarkable if you're just stabbing in the dark, just guessing,
mm hmm. It's the guy's got a very very genuine talent. He's
one of kindness, lovely. So when that's all done that, it's great.
We can have breakfast together or something like that and have a good old
arm. But it's very very we never meet before any of that is filmed,
but we get on so well because he says, Neil, the stories
that I tell, what Ian tells, I proved them. Yeah, they've
already proved if you see what I mean. Yeah, it's already there.
Yeah, he's found them. But I tell the stories that he's I kind
of prove that he's right. And it's a great synergy a lot, and
I'm so proud to be associated with help I really am. Yeah, and
that I mean I think back in the day when before. I think when
Barry first was on the first ever his first ever TV show, had the
pleasure of interviewing him, and he's he's adorable, he's such a nice guy.
Yeah, I can imagine that the the connection between the team works really
really well if you've got all those kind of all those matching energies. Everybody's
kind Barry Guy, haven't mentioned you yet, Barry you star. He's just
he's just lovely. Everybody is. You know. These are like meeting old
friends. And you'll notice that Ian Lawman's mustache has improved the series have been
going on. That's all down to me. I can assure you mustached work
properly. Afford me more where that came from. But we do have a
laugh about the big touch addressing elephant in the room. No, I won't
mention it, but I have noticed, well it is quite a large one,
Kerry. I I've never had any complaints. You know that. People
are quite impressed, particularly when I waxed my tips. You see Salvador Darling
without this. I didn't always have this mustache. I had a PM life,
which is pre mustache, when my face was as boring as a potato.
And I grew that from some First World War events. And everybody is,
oh god, because I didn't want to stick on. It's going to
fly off. And I have you still got that? The Americans. I
lecture in the States and I have groups of paranormal researchers come over, mister
Starry, have you still got that mustache? Oh god, we love it.
Oh God, you can't. You can't get rid of it. So
it stayed my facial. This feature in charge is in charge. I've been
told it pluscious against the cheek mentioned in the Americans American counterpart. You're working,
you've got some events coming up. I mentioned Americans because Dave schred Trader.
That's correct. I love hands holdser well. There's been a journey to
get to hands Holzer. Sibil Leak was how I got into hands wholes Are.
And then I love the fact that he's a parapsychologist, but that he
used mediums. I've never come across another parapsychologist that works in the way that
he did. And similly is an absolute what she did for for womanhood and
for Witches and I mean, she's yeah, and I love her. She's
amazing. So that's how I come across Dave, who is also what is
wonderful? And you've got an event coming up, haven't you in the coming
months. We certainly have. We've got a special tour later this year,
September time, and I'm sure they'll look find us on Facebook and have a
look on the Mysterious Adventures Tours site and you will see that Dave and I
are going to be touring some of our favorite haunted spots in Great Britain.
We'll be going to Chillingham Castle, we will be going to Whitby the Land
of bram and Whitby Happy and we're going to go to the festival The Unexplained
will be there and then we're going to go and this is just a hint
of the places where're going. Hell Fire Caves. Hell Fire Caves, no,
if you've never been there. They are Francis Dashwood's creation for the hell
Fire Club, the chalk all underground carved out and you think you know where
you're going, and you can easily get lost, and I'll admit, Dave,
it brings along very simple EVP Oh my god, what we got out
of the strange white lights where there's nothing, There really is nothing and people
have seen these. These are strange, all black lights captured on camera.
Absolutely incredible. So your health ar caves. We're going to go to London.
We're going to do the Jack the Ripper sites and we're going to get
a stone hinge. So it's mysteries and legends and all our favorite of a
few ghost hunts. And yeah, privileged access because I get on very very
well with the team at Chillingham. It's Britain's most haunted castle. Come on,
you know it's it's a very very special place. Have you been there,
Natalie. It's in the Midlands, proper North. How of the North
is my province? No, I've not been there yet. No, I'll
have to look it up. If it's If it's quite that notorious, well
i'll tell you what you must Chilliam Castle. And you know when Kerry's driving
up, you know from from the east, swing by and pick you up.
Pick me up. By the way. There we are where they're at
Chillingham. It's a genuine, genuine medieval castle. It was used as a
staging post really when the English Army came up to fight the Scots. Wow.
So you know the king that was known as the Hammer of the Scots
used to stay there. And this was actually were mentioning about ghosts becoming manufactured,
and there's a manufactured ghost. There's nothing to do with chilling. Really,
I've got a horrible feeling they've got a dark entity there. Now.
I don't use the word demon lightly, unlike some people that seem to find
a demon where that they go. That's one of the places some sort of
entities there's latched on. They've latched onto people going there thinking that there's this
torturer called John Sage. There's even a backstory that he's supposedly had a wound
to his leg and you'll hear him going around the building dragging his withered leg
behind him. He's known as drag Foot and God say, there's no his
document of this man. Torture is actually illegal. The only known real tortures
are carried out in the Tower of London. That's it you might get.
If they're trying to interrogate somebody, string them up on a tree and give
them sort of strapardo thing and whip them to Later you're not using the devices
in the collection under the stairs. Okay, that's not going on at Chillingham.
It's a construct, but there are enough people when one thing gets out.
It is like slender Man, It's like some of these other projections.
The dark forces are out there, folks. I am not a denier.
Do not deny them. I tell you you know. In fact, I
think a lot of your fans here, Carry and Natalie are quite sensible enough
to know and probably experienced the dark side. You know, it's real.
It's dangerous. And if they've got people not sorting the circle out properly,
trying to communicate, really wishing this John Sage is going to come forward.
It's a dark force. Yes, guess what. He will have a name,
He will come forward. He will even develop your story and he might
come home with you too. Hey, that's great. Yeah, special attachments,
the gifts that keep on giving. Then that's going to be an increasing
issue with the increasing popularity of ghosts in places. Do you think that slender
Man type effect is going to be an increasing issue over the next sort decade
or so. I think it already is. I think that's why certain images
are even turning up on camera phones that these are not always ancient hauntings shadow
figures. Perhaps, I think there's a lot of mileage in those. I
mean, Lord and knows what people are picking up there are these lost entities.
Are we actually dealing with something that we see another dimension that we were
we never had the chance to see before. Is it all a fraught?
I don't know. I think there's some pretty good and honest people pointing cameras
around their house or having a lock off camera, security camera, and they're
getting some sort of shadow figure peeking around the place. I mean, let's
face it, where do our medieval ancestors get some of these stories from stories
of little people? So that you can find evidence of shadow peoples, black
eyed children. Yeah, they're coming to the fore now, but look around
you'll find them. So we've got to be careful. What's happening. Are
the old spirits some of them being regenerated? Are these some sort of is
it a complete construct or is it a hijack by a spirit that's kind of
inhabiting the story that's existed for a long while. I mean that's known,
believe it or not. In Indian culture, Hindu culture, where you will
get they look at the Richard Burton story, not Richard Burton the actor,
Richard Burton the explorer. He translated Rick Rahman the Vampire, and the Hindu
notion of a vampire in the Richard Burton translations is a spirit that will kind
of they can reanimate the dead, or if you're weak as a human,
they will reanimate them. So there's all sorts of we've seen this sort of
stuff, but we've never really understood it. We still don't really understand it
because sound like we're being clever and we do. All I can say is
be careful, folks. There's an old saying, be careful what you wish
for. I agree, and I think we are. I think that's a
beautiful sentiment to end on. Actually be careful what you wish for. And
also it is really important that we understand what we're messing with when we're messing
with it. And I say the word messing loosely. What I mean is
you don't really know what you're working with until you know, and then by
then, if you're not moving in the right way, if you're not approaching
in the right way, you don't know what's going to happen going forward.
So I think that's a really good, good warning, to good sentiment to
end on. So for our listeners that are with us, now, where
can they find you? What can they watch you on? Where can they
read you? Where can they follow you? Cyber? I mean you can
follow me on Facebook? I have all sorts on there and it is me.
You know, I don't use publicity people. You could only be my
Facebook friend though. If you're kind and respectful a minute you're rude or anything
weird and nasty and un you're gone. In fact, don't don't press the
button. If you haven't got kindness in your heart, right, you haven't
got that. I don't want to know here you. If you're kind and
respectful to other people, that's that's the community that I foster. I want
to read my books. Well, you can go to a book shop.
Do you know what this bookshop's out there? Going to look on the shelf
and if you haven't looked online, what put Neil's story in? But don't
find me a bookshelp? No, go look me up on Mysterious Adventures tours.
I'm in Salem this October. Come on England, come and Jomy.
We've got the witches and vampire as tour of old, Old Witches and Vampires
of Old and New England over in Salem for Halloween. Come on, this
is this is Halloween Central, you know, come and join us. I'm
there. I'm there. It's going to be absolutely amazing. So that that's
going to be Halloween for me this year. So yeah, Mysterious Adventures tours,
books, online, books and bookshops. And if you want to see
some of me in action, have a look on Sam and Colby the Demon
of Chillingham when I'm with the wonderful Dads, Sam and Colby, the great
episode. That's the episode where we really look at John Stage and the truth
of the haunting, their pleasure to work with those guys. Or have a
look. I'm in one episode every series of Help my House is haunted,
but all episodes are well worth a look. I mean mine of the best.
There's a certain magic that synergy. It's mustash see. It carries you
through. You know, it's a good story if the Tash is there,
that's that's the fact. And I also the other rule is I don't take
myself too seriously. I think that's important in life. Have a laugh,
look after each other and just be kind, beautiful. Thank you, thank
you so much for joining us this evening, and thank you to everyone that
has listened. Feel free to download Say for Later. I enjoy it right
now and we look forward to seeing you next time. Bye, Z