I have been interested in ghosts and the unexplained all my life. I first remember sensing a presence when aged about six or seven, and had many supernatural encounters in my youth. My parents consequently thought that I was a child who was ‘afraid of the dark’. I suffered from strong poltergeist activity at the age of sixteen, and my parents then began to believe that the incidents were not my imagination – well, mainly my father – my mother with some reluctance. Previously, it had been an uphill struggle to convince them that I was not ‘playing up’.My late aunt on my mother’s side of the family professed to be psychic, but I understand that she may have ‘embroidered’ her stories. The upshot was that my parents did not have much time ‘for all that nonsense’.I believe that being an only child has made me an independent and self-reliant woman, but it was sometimes a lonely existence as a psychic child, with unsympathetic parents.I lived in a very haunted apartment in Harrow on the Hill. My husband and I witnessed many different types of phenomena there.I have experienced a variety of supernatural happenings, at many places, up to the present day, including Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, houses in Penge and Croydon, and time slips at Ascain, France, on a train near Victoria Station and at Waltham Abbey, Essex. I was formerly a member of the Ghost Club.Having said all that, my life does not revolve around spooks. I had a successful career in finance, which resulted in a move to the Hertfordshire/Essex borders. My adopted hometown is Bishop’s Stortford, which I find fascinating, and the surrounding countryside and counties, captivating.My other interests include medieval French history, the Tudors and the Stuarts, jazz, classical music (I was a singer in a choral society – a lady tenor!) and continental cuisine. I am also a semi-professional artist and I have included some illustrations in this guide as an ambience to the narrative.