The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah: Star of TV’s Most Haunted
The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah
Tv’s Number One Psychic
Derek Acorah
Dedicated to the memory of my beloved dogs, Cara and
Bonnie, who have now passed on to the world of spirit.
Until we meet again, girlies!
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
First Steps
A Breeze
The ISPR Visits the UK
The James Whale Show
Predictions with Derek Acorah
Investigations
Claire Sweeney
Coronation Street
The Birth of Most Haunted
The End of an Era
The Poltergeist of Penny Lane
Bereavement
Connections
Taking a Break
Most Haunted Investigations
The Auric Field
Warwick Castle
Kilroy
From Euston to Liverpool
Lady on the Ship
All at Sea
A Return to Liverpool Football Club
Psychometry
Lottery
Meeting my Spirit Guide
Treading the Boards
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
As a small child I lived with my mother and my elder brother and sister at the home of my grandmother in Bootle, Liverpool. My father worked as a merchant seaman and was home for only very short periods of time. Gran’s was a large three-storey Victorian house on Brazenose Road, close to the then thriving port of Liverpool. After school each day we three children were sent up to the top floor to play whilst our evening meal was being prepared.
My first experience of spirit occurred one day just after Gran had called Colin, Barbara and me down for our tea. Being the youngest of the three, and with much the shortest legs, I was always the last to arrive downstairs. On this particular day, as I reached the first landing of the staircase, I saw a man I didn’t recognize. ‘Hello, young tyke,’ he said as he reached out towards me. It felt as though he had ruffled my hair. I was afraid because I thought that there was a stranger in Gran’s house. Never had I reached the bottom of the stairs more quickly. I ran panting into the kitchen, shouting to Gran and my mother that there was a strange man in the house.
My grandmother and my mother hurried up the stairs, only to return a few moments later with bemused expressions on their faces. ‘Tell me what the man looked like,’ Gran said. On hearing my description, she reached for a tin in which old family photographs were kept. She took out a photograph and showed it to me.
‘That’s him!’ I shouted. ‘That’s the man on the stairs!’
Gran looked at my mother and said, ‘He’s the next! Derek will be the next person in the family to work for spirit.’
I looked from my grandmother to my mother, not understanding what they were talking about. Gran gently explained to me that the man I had seen on the stairs was not in fact a stranger but my grandfather, who had passed to the world of spirit as the result of an accident three years before I was born. His name was Richard. ‘In time, when you are older, Derek,’ she said, ‘you will see many people who have passed on to the next life. You will work with the people in the spirit world and will help many people on your life’s pathway.’
I soon put all this to the back of my mind, but occasionally over the next few years I would recall the incident and question my grandmother about this ‘world of spirit’. Each time she would explain to me that it was my destiny to work with the spirit people one day. ‘But I want to be a footballer,’ I would tell her. ‘I don’t want to be a “gook”!’ Gran would smile knowingly. All she would say was ‘We’ll see!’
At the age of 13 I began to realize my dream when I signed as a schoolboy player with Wrexham Football Club. I was happy. I lived, ate and breathed football. My bedfellow was not a teddy bear but a football, which I clutched to my chest as I fell asleep and dreamed of scoring goals for England.
At the age of 15 I signed as an apprentice-pro with Liverpool Football Club under the management of the great Bill Shankly, but sadly I didn’t quite make the grade as a first-team player. After four years I moved back to Wrexham FC, then to Glentoran Football Club of Northern Ireland.
It was at this time that I met my first wife, Joan. After a season with Glentoran, I joined Stockport County FC, but didn’t feel particularly happy with my footballing career. Joan had just given birth to our son, Carl, when I was asked by the players’ union in Manchester whether I would be interested in playing football abroad. The idea appealed to me and after a lengthy discussion with Joan, I agreed. We were Australia bound! I joined USC Lion of the South Australia Football League.
Unfortunately, although I was very happy living in Australia, Joan was not. She missed her friends and her family back home. The physical rigours of the game were also beginning to take their toll on me. Ultimately, we made the decision to return to England. By 1982 my footballing days were over.
Throughout my career as a professional footballer I had not lost my interest in the world of spirit. There had been many instances when spirit people had made their presence felt and impressed upon me proof of survival after this earthly life. With my return to English shores came the time for me to start working for spirit.
Sadly, my marriage to Joan had come to an end. Now living on my own, I began to do private readings for people in my home, but soon the demand became so great that I had to find office space. Although I was working as a full-time spirit medium, I had not yet developed the gift of clairaudience. This was about to change.
Ever since my grandmother’s realization that I was the one who had inherited her mediumistic gifts, she had gently tutored me and explained to me the workings of the spirit world. She taught me that we all have spirit guides and that I was no exception. Throughout my lifetime many guides would come and go, she explained, but my main guide was a black man from the Ethiopian regions of Africa and he would never leave me. One day he would introduce himself to me.
One evening I was at home alone. I had just completed my evening meditation and was sitting listening to some music. Suddenly I heard a voice saying, ‘Hello, Derek.’ This was repeated four times. Then the voice said, ‘I’m Sam.’
Even though I was perfectly well aware that I was alone, I looked around, expecting to see somebody. There was nobody there. Realization dawned—at last my spirit guide had spoken to me! The words my grandmother had uttered all those years ago had come true.
It was during these early days that I met my second wife, Gwen, who had herself been through the sadness of a marriage break up. I knew immediately upon meeting her that she was somebody who would understand me; we had a bond which remains unbroken to this day.
We moved to a home just outside Southport on Merseyside and as well as my private readings I began to work as a regular guest on a number of radio stations. I was driving through to Liverpool one day when my mobile phone rang. It was Gwen ringing to tell me that the Granada Breeze television programme Livetime had been in touch to ask whether I would be interested in making a guest appearance. This was the first time that I had been offered a spot on a television programme. Nervously, I agreed.
The following Friday I arrived at the Manchester studios and was introduced to the presenter of Livetime, Becky Want. ‘Hi, Derek,’ she said. ‘Now what we’re looking for is somebody who can read tea leaves.’
Tea leaves! It was National Tea Week and one of the producers of the programme had decided that it would be a good idea to get a psychic in to do a tea leaf reading for Becky. I was nervous. I had not conducted a reading using this method before, but as the introductory music began, Sam told me to relax, that everything would be fine and that he wouldn’t let me down.
The time passed quickly. I conducted Becky’s reading successfully and before I knew it she was thanking me and telling me that what I had told her was correct. The closing music was playing and it was the end of the programme. ‘That was wonderful, Derek,’ Becky said.
On the Wednesday of the following week I received another telephone call from Granada Breeze, asking me whether I would like to join them again the next Friday. The public response to my initial appearance had been so great that the producer thought it would be a good idea if I were to appear weekly. I was delighted to accept. So began my career as a television psychic.
Since that day I have had many adventures. From the relative obscurity of local radio and appearing on a minor satellite television channel, I have been catapulted into the public eye on a much grander scale—all thanks to Karl Beattie and Yvette Fielding, who invited me to take part in LIVINGtv’s celebrated Most Haunted programme.
It is almost three years now since the pilot programme was filmed and we are preparing to shoot the fourth and fifth series. Now I find that I am communing with spirits from different eras, from different backgrounds and different cultures. I have taken a journey into the history of my homeland—something which I sadly neglected to do during my schooldays. For the first time in my life, I have been frightened; for the first time I have sometimes been perplexed at the workings of spirit. What I have not lost, however, is my faith in the world of spirit. The spirits have never let me down.
In this book I have attempted to give an insight into my experiences whilst travelling the country, both on stage and in front of the television cameras. I hope that you will enjoy making that journey with me.
First Steps
Soon after I had met Sam, my work for spirit increased. My first experience of stepping up onto the platform in a Spiritualist church was a particularly memorable one.
Gwen and I had driven to Blackpool. It was a hot sunny day and as we headed out of the seaside town we heard on the car radio that the motorways were terribly congested, so we decided that we would delay our departure in order to miss the heavy traffic. To while away a couple of hours we thought we would take a trip further up the coast to Lancaster.
We arrived in the old town around half an hour later. By now it had started to rain, so our original idea of taking a walk around the town did not seem nearly so appealing. I drove around looking for a parking space and found one in a narrow side street. As we sat wondering what to do next to kill the time, I happened to look through the rear-view mirror and saw a small building behind me. Over the door were the words ‘Lancaster Spiritualist Church’.
I got out of the car, walked over to the notice board and saw that the service would be commencing in 15 minutes. We attended the Spiritualist church in Liverpool regularly, but I thought it might be nice to join the service in Lancaster. Gwen agreed.
We walked through the door and squeezed into a couple of seats at the rear of the hall. It was very small, with a capacity of no more than 50 people. The presiding medium for that day was a lady named Gloria Duthy. I had heard of Gloria, but had never seen her work.
The service began with the usual prayers, hymns and dedications before the medium took the platform. Two or three messages had been passed on from loved ones to members of the congregation when suddenly Gloria pointed to the back of the hall and said, ‘I’ve a man here. He’s a very brusque Scot and he wants to speak to Derek!’
Gwen dug me in the ribs with her elbow, but as I have no Scottish links in my family and as Derek is not the most uncommon name, I remained silent.
‘I know I’m going to someone at the back of the hall with this man,’ Gloria said. ‘I want the Derek who was linked to football! This spirit man is telling me to tell Derek that “the boss” is here and he’s still putting the goals in the “onion bag” over there!’
Now I knew that the message could only be for me. ‘The boss’ was most definitely my old boss from my footballing days at Liverpool Football Club, the legendary Bill Shankly. He was the only person I knew who referred to the goal net as ‘the onion bag’ and it would be far too much of a coincidence to have two Dereks in such a small congregation who both had links with football and the great man. I put my hand up.
‘Thank you, Derek,’ Gloria said. ‘This man is telling me that you shouldn’t worry about not making it to the top in football. He tells me that you’ll make your mark in another way—working for spirit. He’s saying that you must never give up, that you must continue on, no matter what obstacles are put in your way, because you are meant to do this work. He’s telling me that you should be up on this platform conducting the service. He tells me that I’m good but that you will be better. He’s laughing and saying, “Just tell him it’s Shanks!”’
Gloria continued with messages from my grandmother Helen, my Uncle George and a family friend called Micky. She told me that one day my name would be in lights and that I would work for spirit in all parts of the world, and finished by asking me if she could talk to me after the service.
When the final prayers and hymns had been completed and the absent healing requests read out, I waited at the back of the hall to speak to Gloria. She was a lovely lady and congratulated me on the work that I was to do for spirit.
After a few minutes the booking secretary for the church approached us. ‘I’d like to book you to conduct next week’s service here,’ she said.
‘Me?’
I was overwhelmed. Although I had spent many years as a member of a Spiritualist congregation, I had never taken the platform before. Gwen was busily digging me in the ribs, urging me to agree. She had always said that I should have more confidence in myself. I reluctantly agreed that I would travel to Lancaster the following Sunday to take the role of presiding medium for their evening service.
For the whole of the following week I was extremely nervous and wasn’t looking forward to our trip to Lancaster at all. Finally the day arrived. We set out to travel along the M6 but as we were nearing the service station at Charnock Richard, the car began to overheat. We pulled onto the forecourt and checked the radiator. Although there was no sign of a leak, there was very little water in it.
‘I think we’d better telephone the church and tell them that I won’t be able to make it,’ I said to Gwen.
‘No way,’ she replied. ‘You’ve said that you’ll take the service and you’ll do just that, even if I have to push you there in the car!’
We filled a couple of bottles with water and set off once more. We had to stop twice to let the engine cool and to top up the radiator, but eventually we arrived in Lancaster and parked up in front of the church.
As I walked in through the door my stomach was rolling and I was feeling terribly nervous. The walk to the podium seemed endless as I tottered along on quaking legs. Then the prayers were said and the hymns were sung and before I knew it, it was time for my demonstration of mediumship.
‘Please don’t let me down,’ I begged Sam.
‘Don’t worry, Derek, this is your destiny,’ Sam replied.
And I need not have worried. After a faltering start, the messages began to flow. I saw spirit people and I heard spirit people, and they all passed on messages of love to their family members sitting in the congregation. I found I was really enjoying myself.
Before I knew it I was being called to time by the president of the church. I received a round of applause and my heart swelled with gratitude. As I stood there on that tiny platform in one of the smallest churches I have ever been in, I knew that I had been foolish to question spirit. Those on the other side knew that I was ready to undertake platform work—they had told me so through Gloria—but I, through human frailty, had doubted it. Thank goodness that Gwen had an unswerving faith in my mediumistic abilities and had urged me to do just what Shanks had told me—to carry on no matter what obstacles were put in my way!
‘People Friendly’ Spiritualism
Over the following years I travelled the country appearing in Spiritualist churches in different towns. Although I very much enjoyed this aspect of my work for spirit, it frustrated me that so few people were attending the churches. At the very best, we could only expect an audience of 50 or 60 people. In those days people had some very strange conceptions regarding Spiritualism. They imagined the churches to be places where only a few rather strange people gathered to hold séances in a darkened room with a red light glowing. The hard and fast belief was that ‘normal’ people just did not go there, only people who wanted to ‘talk to the dead’. I realized that it was time that Spiritualism took a step forward into the present day and become more ‘people friendly’.
I knew that the great Doris Stokes and one or two of the better-known mediums in the UK had appeared in theatres. ‘What would happen,’ I thought, ‘if I did something similar, though obviously not on such a grand scale?’
With this idea in mind I contacted one or two cabaret clubs in the Liverpool area to see whether they would be interested in hiring out their premises to me for an evening of clairvoyance. Unsurprisingly, I received a number of point-blank refusals, but eventually I received a positive response from the manager of the Orrell Park Ballroom. A date was arranged and a month or so later I was waiting backstage to be announced to an audience of 250 or more people.
‘This is the way it’s meant to be,’ I thought to myself. ‘If I’m to be working for spirit, surely it’s part of my job to ensure that I spread that knowledge to as many people as possible.’ I knew that I had been inspired to make the correct decision.
It was the first time that I had demonstrated to an audience of more than 40 or 50 people. Word had got around from people who had been for private sittings with me and Gwen had kindly offered to print off some leaflets advertising the event and had trudged around the streets of the local area putting them through the letterboxes. This was a task she undertook on a regular basis for subsequent evenings of clairvoyance at venues throughout Liverpool, though her endeavours came to an abrupt end one day when a rather sneaky dog failed to announce his presence by barking, but silently waited under the letterbox and bit the ends of her fingers as she pushed the leaflet through!
That first evening at the Orrell Park Ballrom I began my demonstration with a short talk and then proceeded to approach people in the audience and give them messages from their loved ones in the world of spirit. Time after time I was met with tears of joy and gratitude from the people to whom I spoke. It was a wonderful feeling. At the end I received thunderous applause and I knew that the evening had been a great success. ‘This is the way it’s meant to be,’ I thought to myself…
Following the success at the Orrell Park Ballroom I decided to move further afield. Over the next year or two I appeared at civic halls and small theatres. Audiences were growing and interestingly I noticed that they were no longer comprised exclusively of women. I also began to notice that other mediums were following in my footsteps. The word of spirit was definitely being spoken to a wider audience now!
A Breeze
Time moved on and eventually I was spreading the word not just in theatres but also on television. One day early in 1999 I was arriving at the Psychic Livetime studios when I was stopped by Rachel, one of the assistant producers. ‘Derek, can you please help me? I’ve lost my engagement ring. I don’t know how or where and I’m so upset. Not only is it my engagement ring, but it’s irreplaceable because it’s an antique.’
Rachel was dreading having to tell her fiancé about the loss. She had spent hours searching all the rooms she had been into since arriving at the studios, but to no avail. The ring was nowhere to be found.
I closed my eyes and asked Sam to help. I was shown a room full of clothes with dummies dressed in different costumes. This was all rather strange because I knew that Rachel was an assistant producer and would spend her days in the gallery or on the studio floor and not in the wardrobe department. Nevertheless, I decided to ask her whether what I had been shown was correct. She stood and thought for a moment and then remembered that when she had arrived for work that morning she had taken a telephone call from the wardrobe department asking her to send a runner up to collect an outfit for the presenter Becky Want. She realized that as it was still very early, none of the runners would have arrived at work, so she decided that she would go and collect the items herself. When she arrived at Wardrobe, she was directed to an outfit hanging on a rail in the corner of the room.
‘Whilst you were there, did you do anything else in that room?’ I asked. ‘Because I feel you were looking for something else and that is when the ring slipped off your finger. My insight is that if you return to the wardrobe department you will find your ring underneath the rail on which Becky’s outfit was hanging.’
With that I had to go and get changed and go over to the studios where the programme was to be filmed. I was very busy for the next few hours, but at the end of the filming, I came out of the studio to see Rachel waiting for me. She was smiling broadly and twiddling the fingers of her left hand in front of my face. On the third finger was her engagement ring!
‘You were right, Derek,’ she said excitedly. ‘I went back over to Wardrobe and I found my ring lodged in some clothes which were directly under the hangar which I had taken to Becky. Thank goodness! I had completely forgotten about going over to that department. In fact I think it’s the only time I’ve ever been over there in all the time I’ve worked for Granada!’
All’s well that ends well!
Before Rachel walked away she said to me, ‘Oh, Derek, I nearly forgot! The editor wants to see you.’
This was most unusual. I wondered what on earth I was being summoned to the office for. At the end of the programme I walked over to Dean Street rather apprehensively.
As I entered the editor’s office, she was smiling. ‘Come in, Derek. We’ve some good news for you.’ She went on to tell me that because of the popularity of Psychic Livetime it had been decided to create a new programme which was to be named Predictions. People would be brought to the studio to demonstrate the various disciplines of mediumship and I would be given the opportunity to demonstrate my mediumship to a live audience in the studio.
I was absolutely delighted. This would be a first for British television. I felt honoured that I was to be the first medium to appear regularly working with a studio audience.
The ISPR Visits the UK
The International Society for Paranormal Research (ISPR), headed by Dr Larry Montz, is based in Los Angeles, California. Dr Montz has been a paranormal investigator for over 27 years. His speciality is field parapsychology. Early in 1999, at his invitation, I had taken part in team investigations of various sites in Hollywood. (These investigations are fully documented in my first book, The Psychic World of Derek Acorah.)