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Posted
on January 5, 2009 at 2:58 PM
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By night things could not be more different.
The Hartlepool woman
has travelled the length of the country taking part in ghost tours and
exorcisms and is also developing her skills as a medium.
Nikki admits to being scared by some of the things she has experienced.
But her inquisitive nature and demand for answers leads her to investigate paranormal activity.
"I am a firm believer in the paranornal because I have had too much proof," Nikki told the Mail.
"By
nature I am a sceptical person. But when you see things with your own
eyes, such as candles flipping over for no reason, it does confirm your
beliefs."
Nikki has always been interested in historic places and
her relatives were known to tell the odd spooky tale when she was
growing up.
But it was when she went on her first ghost tour in Hull that her interest in the afterlife really took off.
She said: "When I was younger I was really interested in the paranormal.
"My mother and grandmother used to tell stories and it is something that has always fascinated me.
"I
had a friend who was running ghost tours. So I went along to one to see
what it was all about. It was terrifying at first but it just fuelled
my interest."
Nikki, who lives on the Headland, has since been on
around 20 ghost tours, visiting some of the most haunted places in the
country and experiencing ghostly activity first-hand.
But it is in her native Hartlepool that her paranormal experiences are at their most intense.
Nikki
is part of a small group that regularly organise seances at the Heugh
Gun Battery and lead ghost walks around the Headland, discussing many
of the myths and legends of the historic part of town and trying to
make contact with the spirit world.
"There are quite a lot of spirits at the battery, adds Nikki, who works as a teaching assistant at Owton Manor Primary School.
"There
is one female ghost. But the majority of them are soldiers who lost
their lives during the war. They regularly make themselves known to us.
"The Headland is such an historic place. We literally find a ghost on every corner.
"On
the ghost tours we tell people what has supposed to have been seen at
certain points. There have been quite a few instances when people have
seen things for themselves.
"A young girl, a policeman, a prostitute and a dancer are some of the well known ghosts in the area."
The growing reputation of Nikki and her team has led numerous people to contact them to carry out exorcisms.
She has been involved in around a dozen, several of them in Hartlepool.
They are carried out on buildings and places rather than people and are not as spooky as you would imagine.
"With exorcisms people will call us up if they have a problem," said Nikki.
"A lot of people think we will come in and get the job done straight away but it is a lengthy process.
"It is a matter of conversing with the spirits and asking them to leave. Some will move on, others don't want to go.
"We
have a rule that we never tell people exactly what goes on in an
exorcism. It can be dangerous and we don't want people to go off and
try it themselves.
"However, exorcisms are a lot more down to earth
than people think. It is not about lighting loads of candles and trying
to create a spooky atmosphere."
Nikki's out of work activities are
taking up more and more of her time and she is currently enhancing her
skills as a medium in order to get closer to the spirit work.
It is an interest that a lot of people can be sceptical about. Yet Nikki is always happy to talk about what she does.
She
added: "At first I thought people would think 'oh my God' but most
people are really interested and I get a positive reaction when I tell
them what I do. It is always a good way to get a conversation going."
To find out more about Nikki's ghost tours and exorcisms then visit www.exorcisms.co.uk
Categories: Strange Reports