By Emma Clayton

THE closest I came to the spirit world was messing about with a ouija board during a school lunchbreak (not a good idea when you’re taught by nuns).

It soon became clear that the Victorian mill girl we “made contact with” was from the chapter of the Industrial Revolution we’d covered in double history that very morning, so at least one of us was faking it.

Over the years I’ve had my palm and tarot cards read, I’ve interviewed “mediums-to-the-stars”, and seen them chatting to people’s dead relatives on stage - and nothing has convinced me that there’s anything out there.

But that doesn’t stop me loving a good ghost story. There’s something fascinating about our primal urge to feel spooked, and the world would be a duller place without that.

This week ghost-hunter Mark Vernon revealed he has filmed what he believes to be a spirit at historic East Riddlesden Hall in Yorkshire. Mark says he discovered the ghost within ten minutes of arriving at the 17th century property - and it then followed him around the building.

I’ve been spooked by East Riddlesden Hall since visiting it as a child and learning about its ghosts; not least the Grey Lady, said to roam the house seeking her murdered lover, and the cradle that rocks on its own. In recent years I’ve taken my nephews and niece there, as youngsters, and told them stories of ghostly goings-on. I may have embellished one about a stagecoach tumbling into the ‘bottomless’ lake...

York Press:

Spooky: East Riddlesden Hall

But, apart from feeling a bit uneasy in the old barn, I’ve never seen or felt anything remotely paranormal there - or indeed anywhere else.

If there are people who can pick up ghostly chills or “see dead people”, I’m not one of them. I once spent the night in Bolling Hall in Bradford - said to be one of Yorkshire’s most haunted houses - and several hours in I was so bored I was desperate for some kind of sighting, or even a mildly spooky sound.

It started out promising enough. I arrived on a stormy evening, wind howling around the 900-year-old hall which looked suitably gothic, shrouded in trees against the turbulent sky. Handing out electromagnetic field zappers, over tea and biscuits, the organisers told us: “We are not responsible for breakages, thefts or poltergeist activity.”

The ghost-hunting team included paranormal investigators and mediums who claimed to have seen flying plates and marching Parliamentarian officers on previous ghost nights. As we gathered in a tense huddle in the house, one medium sensed someone with “arthritic hands” in a corner, while another saw a man bringing in slabs of meat. I saw nothing.

Trooping through the house, the mediums among us shook and wailed whenever they sensed something which, strangely, only they could see. It quickly became tiresome.

In the haunted bedroom we held hands in a circle, trying to visualise a spirit. Nothing happened.

In the dining-room, where “eating noises of old” are sometimes heard, we held an uneventful seance. There was a bit of a moment when my EMF zapper went red in the attic, indicating spirit energy, but it turned out to be nothing.

By the time we were in the music room, willing the piano to start playing on its own, I was so tired I slumped on to an old couch, which may or may not have been haunted. “I’m sensing Irish dancing, “ someone piped up. “I’m seeing Tibetan monks,” said another. I yawned.

It was nearly 5am and my energy-seeking divining rods were starting to droop. I used them to find my car keys and called it a night.