28th anniversary celebrations for the paranormal investigators

As you know, I love to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. In fact any excuse to take cake along to my group meetings. Last week it was Dr Who’s 60th, now this week we are marking 28 years of my paranormal investigation group, TIP. This means I have spent nearly have my life, in a pub, on a Monday night, talking ghosts and spooky stuff, and I just love it.
It all began towards the end of November in 1995 after my friends Dave and Adrian and myself had spent the weekend in South London at Charlton House on a training course for wannabe paranormal Investigators, run by a group called ASSAP.
I had seen an advert for the recruitment drive in one of the magazines I regularly purchased and had taken it along to one of our Monday night sessions to share with the lads.
These ‘sessions’ had started out as pool and darts nights at the Parkers Arms when my wife, now estranged, felt I needed to get a social life. So she fixed me up with her friend’s son, Dave, and his mate Adrian to spend a night together in a pub.
In between our games, our conversations turned to the paranormal and we found we shared a mutual interest in the weirder side to this world in which we live. We certainly had plenty to talk about for in those days our subject was well catered for on TV, with shows like the X-Files, bringing a ring of truth to its fictional tales and Strange But True?, hosted by the dependable Michael Aspel, making viewers consider the possibility that there is more to this world than science would have us believe. We watched these shows avidly and then discussed them at our meetings, along with all the various magazines and newspaper articles I could lay my hands on.
When I showed Dave and Adrian the advert, they were as equally keen as I was to give the training day a go, especially as it included the chance to take part in an overnight vigil in an allegedly haunted house, something none of us had ever done before then and so it was that the three of us set off early by coach to London, that late November morning, all eager to see what the day had in store for us.
As it happened, the workshops and lectures that ASSAP presented us with were a mixed bag. Some have stuck in my head, including a guy jumping on a table as part of a demonstration, the reason why eludes me, but the most memorable one was a test of our observational skills. It started quite normally, with the lecturer giving us an outline of his talk, then suddenly a guy bursts into the room, accusing the speaker of something, I forget what, but this led to quite a heated argument. I found it quite awkward to watch, so I kept turning away until eventually the intruder stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind them. The speaker then turned to us, assuming his original state of composure immediately, asking us to describe what we had just seen in as much detail as possible.
The whole scene had been acted out for our benefit, to test our powers of observation, to see what sort of credible witnesses we would make should we ever be faced with some unexpected paranormal phenomenon. I was rubbish, as I’d found the whole incident too embarrassing to watch.
One of the highlights of the day was meeting Maurice Grosse, the investigator who got embroiled in one of the most infamous British paranormal cases of all time, known as the Enfield Poltergeist, the stage version of which Sarah and I have booked to see in London next year. It was fascinating to hear his version of events.
After a buffet tea, it was time for the highlight of the weekend, the vigil. We were split up into groups, fortunately they kept us three lads in the same one, and allocated a room or section of the building to keep watch in for around 30 to 45 minutes. Then, after that time was up, we got moved around to the next section until each group had covered each one. This is a method we adopted whilst carrying out our own investigations and it has proven quite effective over the years the only thing you have to be wary of is what other groups are getting up to, which is where the use of walkie-talkies comes in handy.
I personally found the vigil quite exciting, sitting in darkness, straining your eyes and ears to pick up the slightest movement or sound. It’s interesting how quickly you tune into your surroundings when deprived of light. We sat in several rooms, with nothing much to report. Then came our most exciting moment when we were positioned on a landing and staircase outside of a locked room that wasn’t being used. Suddenly, a light came on inside, and several of us saw it shining underneath the door. We reported this at the debrief that was held once every group had had their turn in each location, but this didn’t match the other phenomenon that had been reported in the building over the years.
Then it was all over, and it was time to settle down for the night, before catching our coach in the morning. During the journey home we were all a little despondent, each lost in our own thoughts. The training day hadn’t been quite what we were expecting, the lack of activity during the vigil had been disappointing, and now we were faced with having to submit a report about paranormal phenomenon occurring in our home area in order to be considered for membership into the organisation. Mulling this prospect over, I came up with the idea of carrying out any research for ourselves and forming our own group.
Having ascertained that ASSAP didn’t really operate in the South West, we wouldn’t be treading on anyone’s toes. Deciding that the haunting activity reported at The Blagdon Inn, one of the other pubs we frequented in those early years was worth looking into, we ended our journey home happier than when we started. All we needed then was a name for our group.
The next day, we gathered at The Parkers Arms for our regular Monday night meeting to throw around a few ideas. We rejected DAD, David Adrian and Dave, fortunately settling on Torbay Investigators of the Paranormal… and so it was that TIP was born.
Here we are 28 years later, still celebrating its formation and hoping it will keep going for many years to come, with its now monthly meetings at Chelston Manor and the occasional investigation.