He uncovered from local newspaper reports sightings of a Tudor monk who died in the area during the 16th century. Jean, Joe, Phillip (15) and Diane (12) Pritchard moved into Number 30 East Drive, Pontefract in August 1966. The sounds can come as a whisper in your ear, a distant command from across the street, or a scream so loud you cannot bear it.

The sensory deprivation of waiting silently in the dark rivals the tenseness of any horror film, and for those who do believe I imagine it is a great way to reaffirm their need to hunt for more evidence. There was still a bottle in my jacket pocket when this photo of Chris Maynard and me was taken at 1.I still don’t believe there is an afterlife, as I need more proof than a torch turning on and off, but these ghost tours are a great form of entertainment. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. During this process, we uncovered the original cruck frame, and in my daughter’s bedroom in one of the cross members there was a knothole stuffed with what appeared to be rubbish. Ghosts are supposed to be the appearances of the spirits of the dead in a form visible to the living,” reads Chris’ introduction.

Ghosts was only one of “about 80” non-fiction books that Chris wrote in a twenty-year period from the mid 1970s onwards, and was published at a time that he now considers to be a halcyon era for the industry (“It was like producing music at the time of the Beatles and the Stones…” he tells me, “To be there, at that time… the golden age…”).Among paranormal enthusiasts, the town is now synonymous with something far sinister: the Black Monk of Pontefract. That was really helpful, and Eric was particularly good at steering us to those kinds of places, and winkling out little bits and pieces. They said lights were turned off and on, pictures were slashed, furniture disappeared and heavy breathing could be heard throughout the house.

A Facebook group formed by Finnish fans gained almost 3,000 members, and led to an August 2018 reprint that sold out within a week; with the country’s latest sales figures now surpassing 18,000. It would, however, be nice to have a record of the finds to be kept with this house, but the actual items do not need to remain here. However, the professional art director who co-authored The Black Monk of Pontefract book, believes the silhouette looks more like a demon rather than a monk. I can remember exactly where I was sitting when the Spectre of Newby Church first froze the blood in my unsuspecting eight-year-old veins.A lovely guy from Exeter…” muses Chris, “who had in his school library a copy of the book that he took out regularly, and it lasted and stayed with him. We wanted him as an advisor, as much to help me wade through this mountain of stuff that was out there.

I think this poor girl didn't get a moment of rest, wherever she went in this house there was always something bothering her. What followed was several years of incredible, inexplicable events such as lights being turned off and on, plants leaping out of their pots and landing on the stairs, cupboards shaking violently, photographs being slashed with a sharp knife and an endless list of levitating and thrown objects. This resulted in the coolest red carpet movie premier ever, where two competition winners walked the tiny red carpet down the garden path into Number 30 East Drive to watch the movie about that actual house.

The real problem here is that some of our visitors are more than a little careless and selfish - they have clear instruction to park elsewhere but many fail to do so. Both Maynard and my loved one became trapped in loops, unable to stop verbally repeating or redescribing their fears, frustrated that people around them didn’t appear to be acting with as much urgency. To my young father, though, Maynard seemed like he was more alive, like he existed somewhere closer to the truth than anyone else they really knew. Chris has fond memories of making contact with a community of paranormal enthusiasts and societies that were arguably enjoying their heyday, in a 1970s Britain whose fascination with the otherworldly frequently crossed over into the mainstream media. In 1966 Maynard entered the University of Alabama as a freshman, a little more than two years after George Wallace, a notorious racist and the governor of Alabama, had stood in the schoolhouse door of Foster Auditorium.