The day I met a Pendle witch

Lancashire is rich in tales of magic and sorcery, but the Pendle area is notorious for the witch trials of 1612. This August is the four hundredth anniversary since ten people accused of sorcery were hung in Lancaster Castle.

The drama unfolded in 1595 when an old woman called 'Chattox' and her daughter Alizon were blamed for hexing to death Christopher Nutter and his son Robert. Chattox came into conflict with another family, also known for witchcraft. 'Old Demdike' and her extended family lived in Malkin Tower. People in the villages that skirt Pendle Hill had complained about them all for years, but it was not until 1612 that the authorities stepped in.

On 18 March Alizon was near Trawden when she met a peddler called John Law. He refused to sell her some needles, so she cursed him. Law collapsed with a stroke, and when he recovered enough he accused Alizon of bewitchment. She went before Roger Nowell, a magistrate, and confessed.

She described her initiation into witchcraft by her grandmother, then implicated Chattox and Demdike. Many arrests were made, and they described how Satan had appeared to them, and that demons had helped them destroy their enemies. One victim was a child, killed using a clay image that had pins driven into it, there were other supernatural murders, livestock killings, graveyard robbings at Newchurch and milk and beer souring.

The case, which was very well documented at the time, left its mark on the area. These are different times, but there are still practising witches in the villages around Pendle Hill. I should know - I interviewed one many years ago. I'd been given a commission by the Editor-in-chief of She magazine.

"Would you like to write a piece for us, Peter," she said, "about modern witchcraft in Lancashire?"
Of course I said 'yes', and her next remark was: "Well go and find some witches, and have the copy on my desk by next Friday!"

I did a lot of digging around, and came up with some fascinating interviewees for my piece, including a senior Catholic priest for balance. One of my witches lived in Sabden at the time, although later she moved away. Yvonne wasn't the ugly fairy tale witch, nor old like Chattox and Demdike. She was a very attractive blond in her mid thirties.

Yvonne welcomed me into her stone cottage, and showed me her temple - a converted back room decorated with posters, photos and trinkets. There was a wooden table in the centre covered with occult symbols. On a piece of dark blue lurex sat a crystal ball and some Tarot cards. This was where she carried out her readings.

I later wrote about the Lancashire witches in the
 above book, available from my website

"I knew from the age of five I was different from the other children," she told me.  As far as religion is concerned, I was given a long leash, but my father, a retired army officer, had me educated in a convent. That didn't go down well with either the nuns or me! I worship the Irish mother goddess, Danu. The hill helps me a lot, I draw a lot of power from it."

Pendle Hill was where George Fox had a visionary experience that resulted in him founding the Quaker movement in the 1640s.

I asked her how she got on with her neighbours. She laughed, and said she was friends with most people in the village, including the local vicar. She did note though that sometimes her behaviour could be given a sinister interpretation.

"If one of my neighbours takes their dog for a walk up the hill - they're just taking their dog for a walk. If I do it there's tittle-tattle around the village that I've been up to something."

I saw Yvonne on one other occasion at her new home in Harwood. Then she moved elsewhere. Yvonne, where ever you are, I hope you're still raising tittle-tattle!


Read my paranormal thriller; Stench of Evil available only from Amazon:

UK paperback & Kindle ebook: https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

US paperback and Kindle ebook: http://goo.gl/7JYgG

Can be downloaded to Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android devices, PC, and Mac

The Book That I Wrote - with a little help from my ghost writers...

Having produced 18 books on the 'unexplained', and now published my first novel: Stench of Evil, if there is an area of human psychology that mystifies more than any other - it is how the creative process works. 

Stephen King lets 'the back-room boys'
sort out his literary problems

Many fiction writers comment they don't know where their stories come from. Science Fiction author Isaac Asimov said the stories were already written - and he just plucked them out of the air. Stephen King explains that if he has a problem he leaves it a couple of days 'for the back-room boys to sort out'.

That's not true for all writers. My friend Professor Raymond Leonard, who has written several science fiction novels, approaches his writing in a very methodical and scientific manner.

He has the plot and all the characters in advance, and even knows exactly how many chapters there will be. Ray then writes a synopsis for each chapter, and works from that, enlarging and creating the text.

That's not how it works for me.

I had the seed for the plot of Stench of Evil (see my blog Stench of Evil - satanic ritual abuse ), three main characters and that was all. The thing had an organic growth of its own, to the extent that at times I felt it had its own life, and I was just a clerk writing it all down.

It began while we were on the island of Gozo for a couple of weeks in a friends holiday home. The August heat was almost unbearable at mid-day, but the views across the bay to Comino were spectacular, and in the villages they were preparing for their annual firework festival. A perfect environment for writing. Linda spent most of the days scuba diving with a local club, and I was working on Stench of Evil. She'd return late afternoon and we' d walk down to the restaurants and bars in Qala.

I was about a third through the novel (although I didn't know that at the time) when I lost control of the story.

I lost control to some minor 
characters who got above themselves

I would sit down at the blank screen, thinking I knew what I was going to write, but when the words dutifully fell onto the page they weren't the ones I was expecting. More than that there were several characters I had down for minor roles - who against my wishes promoted themselves into star players. It was as if they were saying: If you think I'm just having a walk-on part you've got another think coming!

This wasn't a one-day wonder - it carried on for the next 40,000 words or so - until once again I regained control. It was as if they were saying: Okay, we've finished doing what we needed to do - you can have it back now.

The fascinating thing was that every decision they made, every plot change, every paragraph that was produced was exactly right. I couldn't have done better myself!

I'm not saying that I was producing 'automatic writing', that the story was 'channelled' through me by a spirit or demon (they might want a share of the royalties), but it was a strange experience, and if nothing else it highlights how much is going on in the unconscious mind, to the extent that it can over-ride what we consciously think.

I'm well into the sequel; The Devil In Them, and so far my ghost writers haven't wrestled it from me. There's still some surprises when I write, but I don't feel the loss of control I had with Stench of Evil. Perhaps now they think I can be trusted to do a good job on my own - or maybe they're still there, rubbing shoulders with me, making changes here and there, hoping I'll believe it's all my own work.

Read my paranormal thriller; Stench of Evil available only from Amazon:

UK paperback & Kindle ebook: https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

US paperback and Kindle ebook: http://goo.gl/7JYgG

Can be downloaded to Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android devices, PC, and Mac

The Search for Alethea Taylor

When we went down to Ludlow recently for a caravanning break, we didn’t realise we would be involved in the search for a missing woman.

 Linda and I were staying on a farm on the edge of Orleton, a picturesque village in north Herefordshire. There are two pubs, a village hall and a shop and post office supported by the 800 or so residents. Two of those residents are Alethea and John Taylor who have a funeral services business.

A few days into our break we were alerted on the Thursday evening, 19 January, by the noise of a hovering helicopter. I went outside and saw a police helicopter above the houses, moving to and fro, obviously searching for someone. This went on for an hour or two. 

In the meantime we tuned into BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester and learned that a woman had disappeared from Orleton earlier in the day. According to the reports, John Taylor left for work at around 8.30am and on his return in the late afternoon his wife had gone – although her car was still at home. When he couldn’t find her whereabouts, he called the police.

Apparently, I learned later, Mr Taylor was concerned because his wife had recently experienced two or three episodes where she would find herself in a place she didn’t recognise, with no idea as to who she was. It would seem she had wandered from home while in this altered state of consciousness. Fortunately on these occasions she had been re-united with her husband, and the amnesia had passed.

I spoke to villagers who described Alethea as a pleasant, jolly person, who was a prompter for the current play being put on by the local amateur dramatic society. It seems these amnesiac events were isolated incidents which didn’t affect her usual daily life.

The following day we went walking up on Bircher Common and the woods above the village, accompanied by the police helicopter as it widened its search. We kept a special look-out and walked as far as the hill fort above Croft Castle, but found no clues to the missing woman.

Over the weekend police dogs were out searching for her scent and the footpaths and hedgerows were investigated. Farmers were checking their outbuildings, and villagers looked in garages and garden sheds.

When I went for a Sunday paper from the village shop, I talked to a few locals, and everyone was mystified. We were due to travel home on Monday, but I had been told a search was being organised that morning, so we decided to stay an extra day and help.

We arrived at the village hall to find it a hive of activity. About 80 villagers had turned up with police and members of Severn Area Rescue Association who were using inflatable boats to search ponds and lakes in the area.

After we had ‘signed in’ the volunteers were divided into four groups each with its own leader. Linda and I were in Andrew Summers’ group who owns the village shop. We travelled with him in his jeep and a convoy of cars to the starting point of our search – about two miles east of Orleton near the hamlet of Morton.

Andrew was very well organised, which he put down to his involvement in the Sea Cadets! We stretched out in a single line and slowly walked across the fields. Over the course of the day we swept a number of fields and searched pockets of woodland for Mrs Taylor, or a shoe or item of clothing which might lead to her discovery. The only thing we found was an umbrella, which wasn’t linked to her.

We returned to the village hall at lunch time for a cup of tea and some sandwiches. The local BBC radio and television were also there, and they interviewed us, intrigued that we were from near Southport. Then we all went back to continue the search.

During the hours we spent with the group we got to know many of them, and they were surprised to learn that we weren’t local. They were dedicated to finding Mrs Taylor and very thorough. Some of them knew her personally.

I would like to say that we found the missing woman, or that she had been discovered in the eight days since we left. After we had gone the search did continue for a time, and the lake at nearby Berrington Hall was also examined. Sadly Alethea Taylor seems to have vanished. 

There were three potential sightings of her on the day she disappeared – but these were not confirmed. The Herefordshire police have now passed on her details to other forces nationwide. Of the 350,000 people who go missing every year in the UK, 2,000 remain unaccounted for. For the moment at least, Alethea is one of these.

PS: Police issued a statement on 12/06/12 that a man in his sixties has been arrested on suspicion of murder. It was revealed the next day that it was John Taylor, Alethea's husband. He has since been accused.


Read my paranormal thriller; Stench of Evil available only from Amazon:

UK paperback & Kindle ebook: https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

US paperback and Kindle ebook: http://goo.gl/7JYgG

Can be downloaded to Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android devices, PC, and Mac

Stench of Evil: Satanic Ritual Abuse

Most writers are asked: 'Where do you get your ideas from?' In the case of my novel Stench of Evil, its genesis was the satanic ritual abuse phenomenon in the 1980s and early 1990s that swept through many countries around the world, including the UK .

I wrote a book about it at the time called Witchcraft - A Strange Conflict which was based in part on interviews I carried out with some of the main players. These included a Church social worker, several witches, a senior Satanist, a prominent vicar, police officers, journalists and those who were alleged victims of SRA.

People claimed that from childhood they were kept in cages and physically and sexually abused in Satanic rituals to raise demons from the underworld. Babies from unregistered births were sacrificed to Satan and members of the cults had apparently infiltrated the highest echelons of society.

The phenomenon first emerged in the USA, and after police officers and social workers came to the UK and conducted seminars for their counterparts it spread here. Children in Nottingham, Rochdale, Manchester and the Orkneys were taken from their parents who, it was suspected, were Satanists, and put into care while police investigations were carried out.

In true medieval tradition, some of these children implicated other adults and the contagion spread. Not only here but in Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. In Manchester and Rochdale parents were prevented from sending their children Christmas and birthday cards - in case they contained 'trigger' words used to remotely control them.

When over a year later the cases finally came to court, they were thrown out from lack of evidence. Most of the children were returned to their parents - after being abused, some commentators said, by the very system that was meant to protect them.

I spoke to a senior police officer about the lack of evidence. He commented: "It's true there was no concrete evidence, but both myself and other detectives got a strong feeling all through the investigation that something indeed had been going on."

Years later, this was the starting point for Stench of Evil. What if, I postulated, that officer was right, and the allegations were true, but they had been covered up. If it was true, what were the powers that lay behind it, and what were their ultimate ambitions?

The story is pure fiction and set in the present day, but it is based on a very real witch hunt that gripped late 20th century society.

Read my novel: 'Stench of Evil' - a supernatural thriller

Kindle ebook and quality paperback: https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

AMAZON quality paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Stench-Evil-Peter-Hough/dp/1463681453/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322593326&sr=1-1

Stench of Evil

I've just published my novel, Stench of Evil, on Amazon as a Kindle download and a quality paperback. You won't find it in any book shop because I decided to give up on traditional publishers after trying and failing to get any of them to even view my new book. How is it that someone who has previously published 18 books, of which many sold foreign rights, newspaper serial rights and book club rights, found themselves in this position?

In the last few years print publishers has made a fundamental change in how they solicit new books. Unless you're a celebrity, or are already a top-ten best selling author, they will no longer deal with you personally. They will only deal with you through an agent.

I never needed an agent - even if I was approaching a publisher for the first time, after all that's someone else to dip into your advance and pocket their share. But now publishers have decided that's what you have to do - and it is all about saving money. If a publisher is relying on agents to sort the chaff from the wheat, they don't have to employ readers and support staff to handle queries from would-be authors.

The problem is that there are far fewer agents than publishing companies. Most of them are one man or two man (or women) outfits, already with a full list of clients. Becoming a published author has always been an uphill struggle - but it's even harder now. A lot of very talented writers will give up after trying in vain to attract the attentions of an agent. There will be dozens of best sellers out there which will remain as a file on a PC, and will never see the light of day.

Thankfully, for both published writers and newcomers, there is now another way.

It costs virtually nothing to put your paperback on Amazon, and your ebook on Kindle - if you do all the technical stuff yourself. You retain the copyright, and the only niggle is that the paperback can only be purchased from Amazon.com and not Amazon UK. But you can use your credit card to pay in dollars, and it will take longer to ship, but that's all. Some authors who spent years having their work rejected are now selling very well on Amazon.

I could have carried on in my attempts to find an agent, but even if I was successful, they would then have to get a publisher for my novel - and the fact of life is that from start to finish it can take months or more likely years before it is finally published. With Amazon it just takes days.

Read my paranormal thriller; Stench of Evil available only from Amazon:

UK paperback & Kindle ebook: https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

US paperback and Kindle ebook: http://goo.gl/7JYgG

Can be downloaded to Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android devices, PC, and Mac

28 weeks later...

It's almost 28 weeks since the Rage Virus spread through a large section of the voting public - and along with other colleagues - I lost my seat on Sefton Council.

During my five years as a councillor I've always given 100%, refusing to sit on the wall when difficult decisions had to be made, and championing residents causes when they were the victim of council bureaucracy. I even got some policy changes made which benefited local people. My achievements, and those of my former ward colleagues, are a matter of record. Many residents appreciated the hard work I put in, and contacted me to give their personal thanks.

So what happened on May 5th was that the Rage Virus turned people's heads towards central Government, and they wanted to send the Liberal Democrat coalition partners 'a message'. No cuts!  They did that by voting for the candidates of the party that is responsible (along with the bankers) for the financial mess we're now in.

Well, that makes sense then. But you can't expect logic when people are infected with the Rage Virus. Ask Danny Boyle.

We could let the economy go the way of Greece. They've already made cuts which are ten times higher than those being made by The Coalition - and are on the point of disappearing down a black hole. That's not to mention Italy and Spain.

The infected also wanted to send a message along the lines of: You traitors - why have you gone into government with the anti-Christ!

We could have let the Tories rule on their own. No doubt they would have won a second, autumn, election with a bigger, working majority, as the Millibands were still arguing over which of them was to be leader of the Labour Party. That would have been great. A right wing Tory government let loose on the country again - with no one to moderate them, and no implementation of Liberal Democrat policies like raising the tax threshold to £10,000 for the low paid or the extra £2.5 Billion funding for a million of the most disadvantaged pupils.

That makes sense too.

Their message also included: You reneged on your promise not to raise tuition fees!

That does have my sympathy. It was mismanaged - but Labour (who introduced tuition fees to begin with) have since said they would raise them too - capped at £6000 - a huge increase from their position during the election, when Ed and his buddies said they only needed to be increased by just a few hundred pounds! After studying the small print, the National Union of Students have now said that the changes made by The Coalition are 'relatively progressive'. That's thanks to Clegg and other LibDem ministers.

What was personally interesting for me, was how people reacted when I lost.

Several Labour councillors at the count shook my hand and said that it was not personal (having just shafted me!), and that I would be 'missed'. I received almost 60 emails from disappointed residents, plus letters, cards and phone calls.

While a number of my former LibDem colleagues contacted me to offer condolences - there were several others, who I thought I had a personal resonance with, who to this day (28 weeks later) have made no contact at all.

Perhaps their reaction was a consequence of how some people have a problem in dealing with other people's grief. They don't know what to say - so it is best avoided. Or perhaps they just decided to write me off. I seem to have been deleted from some email lists.

That's politics I suppose. Life's a bitch and then you're deleted.

Spontaneous Human Combustion

I came back from France last Friday on the day that West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin ruled that Michael Faherty who had burned to ash had died by 'spontaneous human combustion'. What makes this doubly remarkable is that this is the first time that a coroner has publicly cited SHC as a cause of death.

Having written a book on the subject with Jenny Randles in the 1990s, reprinted as a paperback in 2007, I was contacted by the Daily Mail who wanted me to work with them on a feature. What followed was the inevitable phone calls, emails, discussions, drafts and re-drafts until the piece was finally published today.

Within the constraints of space I think the article is a good overview. I have no intentions of repeating it here - but there are one or two points I would like to enlarge upon.

As I discovered - even during cremation, bones remained,
which are then ground up in a cremulator (c. Peter Hough)

The 'wick' or 'candle effect' suggests that in a closed airtight room a body can smoulder over 16 hours or more until it is reduced to ash. This was first demonstrated in a QED documentary broadcast in 1989, and has since become the favourite weapon of the sceptics. A hallmark of classic SHC is that even bones are reduced to ash - something that  crematoria cannot achieve. Despite claims to the contrary, bones still remained in the pig used to demonstrate the theory.

We investigated QED and talked to several of the participants. Even the sceptics complained that the programme had been edited to make them appear more sceptical than they really were - and that the experiment  was only partially successful. We were also told that the producers 'had an agenda'. There was a follow-up programme some years later, and taken at face value, it too was persuasive. But I'm afraid QED had blotted it's copybook - and as we didn't investigate this one, it is hard to comment further.

I'm not saying that the candle effect doesn't have its place as a partial explanation in some instances, but it is wrong to claim it is a 'catch all' for so-called SHC deaths. There are too many incidents which didn't occur in a sealed room, where the time frame was minutes rather than hours and where the victim survived to tell the tale. Then there are the cases that go beyond 'mundane' SHC and step into the realms of the paranormal - challenging even an open-minded soul like me.

The cremated remains of Mr Flaherty was found near the fireplace - but it is unclear whether there was a lit fire or not. Coroner Dr McLoughlin would have thought very carefully before coming to his conclusion - indeed he carried out extensive research first. Perhaps different explanations are required for the gamut of mysterious fire deaths that we put under the umbrella of 'spontaneous human combustion'.