Reading in bed one night, I put my book down and got up to go to the bathroom.
As I reached the door, I froze.
Only me, my wife Laura and our baby boy Tom were in the house, but every instinct was telling me there was someone standing in our bathroom.
Suddenly, I saw a man wearing a wooden mask, glaring at me with unbridled hostility. Heart racing, I took my courage in both hands and flung the door wide open – only, there was nothing there.
Hurrying to my room, I threw myself under the covers.
‘Everything OK?’ Laura asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
When I told her what had happened, my usually unflappable wife said: ‘You need to do something.’
We’d moved in a year before after I’d become ordained as a priest – the house had come with the job. It had always been icily cold inside, but we didn’t think much of it.
But after this terrifying encounter, I decided to speak to my boss, the vicar. He came round with holy water, a sprinkler and a prayer book.
‘I’ll bless the house and you can follow me round,’ he said.
He walked round, splashing the water, but wouldn’t tell me what prayers he was using.
Then we went back to the living room and said the Lord’s Prayer together. Suddenly, this house, which had been cold and dark, felt warm and light.
My experience sparked an interest in this secretive area of the church’s work and I became a deliverance minister, also known as an exorcist.
I would go to people’s homes to help rid them of evil spirits, hauntings and poltergeists.
I balanced my supernatural sideline with leading christenings, funerals and weddings at St Giles’ Parish Church in Wrexham.
Whenever I walked into someone’s house, I rarely felt scared. Often, what was going on was not of paranormal origin but, sadly, stemmed from mental illness or stress.
One time, I was called to an old lady’s house. Whenever she got into bed, she thought she could feel a rat gnawing through her stomach. She could also see the blankets moving, but when she took them away, there was nothing there.
She was waiting for cancer test results and the rat represented her illness. As soon as she got the all-clear, the ghostly rodent disappeared.
But sometimes, deliverance cases do seem to have an other-worldly origin – and can leave me spooked.
One day, I walked into a home and noticed a pervading sense of gloom.
As I led the family in a recital of the Lord’s Prayer, I felt my body arch backwards as if something was travelling through my spine. Thankfully, after saying the final ‘Amen’, I opened my eyes and the house was bathed in warmth.
But there are moments of dark humour, too.
My friend, Lucy, lived in a 1920s house and would often hear an organ playing.
She assumed it was coming from next door, but when they moved, she was chatting to another neighbour who told her they’d never heard it but an old lady, who had been a theatre organist, had died in Lucy’s house before she bought it.
Lucy had also heard footsteps around the house.
One day, she called me.
‘There’s an elderly lady walking down the stairs and I can see the bottom of her pink nylon nightie,’ she said, sounding flustered. ‘I screamed and told her to go away and when I opened my eyes, she’d gone.’
‘Are you sure you weren’t imagining it?’ I asked.
‘If I was imagining a ghost, it wouldn’t be wearing a pink nylon nightie!’ she said.
I did my work and, afterwards, one of Lucy’s friends said a mist seemed to dissipate in the house.
The tools of my trade are a large cross, bottles of holy water and some salt.
I swap my cassock for a long black coat and sometimes a trilby. But in terms of similarities to horror movie characters, that’s as far as it goes.
My deliverance work was ‘outed’ by a newspaper after I was at a conference. I panicked because we’re not supposed to publicise it.
A literary agent asked me if I wanted to write a book. I spoke to the church who said as my name was already out there it would be a good way to get the message out about what we really do.
We’re often the last resort for people. Some pay a fortune to fraudsters claiming they’ll rid their house of spirits. I hope my book will provide comfort to people in distress and point them in the direction of someone who can help.
People are frightened when they come to us and if I can calm them down and leave their world a slightly better place, that can only be a good thing.
