My journey into the paranormal started quite young, however when my dad passed it pressed me to search for more…
It was in October 2013, myself and my husband decided to book ourselves on a ghost hunt at St Catherine’s Hospital located in Doncaster in the UK with a events team who at the time had a reputation for being the best and quite frankly since then I haven’t looked back.
I’ve managed events, co owned and managed other pages. Now, which I should have done what I wanted in the first place – I have my own amazing team, we own the largest community group for the paranormal on facebook, built our own page, blog site, gained a brillant reputation and we have our own identity as investigators, its doing great. I’m not one to brag but I am proud.
St Catherine Hospital
St Catherine’s was built in 1827 and owned by George Banks, a wealthy cloth merchant from Leeds. The house stayed part of the family until 1928 when a consortium of local businessmen bought the estate. In 1930 St Catherine’s was acquired by the South Yorkshire Joint Hospital Board and in 1931, following government pressure to do something about the growing problem of people classed as ‘mental defectives’ St Catherine’s was chosen to be used as an institution. The house welcomed its first residents in 1932, all of which were female.
Two wards were commandeered by the war office in 1939 for wounded soldiers and in 1945 these were handed back to the house and used to house children. By 1964 St Catherine’s house had over 530 residents.
What occurred?
We were excited for our first ghost hunt, we didn’t know what to expect and getting there proved some what difficult as on the way we actually were involved in a car crash which nearly resulted in us not attending at all. I have to laugh because if we had decided to head back home would I be on the path I am today.
With promises of evening of possibly encountering something of a paranormal nature within the event organisers advert, I did not quite know what to expect.
The opening vigil is probably is what most interested me the most.The medium present opened the circle and put a protection over us and as soon as he finished all of the outside lights shut off. I’m still not sure if someone had actually turned them off or if it was something of a paranormal nature because everyone did seem to be accounted for within the room.
I was introduced to paranormal equipment, mainly k2s if I’m honest and I can remember being completely fascinated by the fact the lights on the device seem to go on command to questions being asked. However, now I know how the equipment works a bit better, my advice to anyone who is attending a ghost hunt as a newbie is always ask what the equipment is and what it does away from the paranormal.
People tend to give you the theories on the equipment in relation to a paranormal investigation but they never really tell you what the actual main device is used for away from a paranormal investigation. Equipment is not design to detect ghosts – the detection of ghosts is all based on theories and not actual fact, for instance a k2 device picks up on electric magnet fields that’s why people put their phones into aeroplane mode when using them because they do detect other electrical disturbances like underground wiring and cables. But the theory is that ghosts could also form in a electrical source and that is why k2s are used in paranormal investigating.
I remember, on a break during the event the medium pulling me to one side and asking if I have a relative in the spirit world who was a spiritualist. I have written another blog on this before which I will include below. I did not realise at that point I did until the day after but the medium informed me that this was the start of something, that it would not end at just this event and that I would actually achieve things within the paranormal field and looking back now, he was right I have gone much further in this than I ever imagine I would…
https://paranormalhauntings.blog/2020/07/12/guided-by-a-past-relative/
We headed to the last vigil, which was in the basement area. A laser grid was used and I remember it twinkling really unusually. Looking back now, all the events and investigations I have done, I have never since seen a laser grid act in the way it did during that vigil.
On the way back home, we had a strange experience. One we often talk about and we still don’t know exactly what happened. Its only been in recent months, that I have really thought about it some more and I think what has triggered me to write about it, is the fact another investigator, a few weeks ago experience what he described as a time slip on the roads in Doncaster. Himself and a friend was driving back from a location, their sat navigation went bizarre and they ended up driving around for what they felt was 30 minutes but it in fact had been much longer….
We left St Catherine’s around 2am and we typed in our postcode to set off for home. The sat navigation started to act quite bizarre and we ended up driving down roads we didn’t know. The sat navigation seemed to right itself and we followed its instructions.
Somehow, and I don’t know how, we ended up back at St Catherine’s hospital, a hour and half after we had left. It did not feel we had been driving for a hour and half but we most certainly had… it did feel as if something had sent us back..it was quite bizarre and we still laugh and joke about that night now as it was if we had gone into some total time slip.
We managed to get home, after arriving back at St Catherine’s, the sat navigation seemed to work fine back home. The next morning we just woke, sat up and said to one another ‘what the hell happened last night on the way back’.
I think we always remember that first investigation and we should because its what triggered us off in becoming more fascinated with the paranormal. As time passes and the more you do and learn you may become more sceptical of things you may once would have thought was paranormal but new things occur that you cant explain and like a ton of bricks that thrill you had on that first investigation is back with you.
As of October 2021, I do not know where our paranormal journey will take us.
I have had fantastic opportunities this year, collected some amazing evidence and spoke with people – who if you had told me that I would have been having telephone conversations with back in 2013, I would have laughed and said I don’t think so but it happened and its all added to the experience and our journey and if I hadn’t had gone to that one event I might have been where I am today…
I just do not know where the path will lead us next…. we shall see.