An Evening of Clairvoyance

An event which bills itself as an ‘evening’ of clairvoyance is already courting controversy - not least because it contains a promise to deliver. Personally, I had always considered that the paranormal would be more difficult to pin down. A bit like a telephone call. Well, what happens if nobody’s in? With this in mind, I (successfully) make contact with Michael Kingscote - local clairvoyant and the medium who will be presiding over tonight’s show - via a phone interview. "I must admit to a substantial degree of scepticism", I start, not wanting to mislead him about my position. ‘But perhaps you could tell me about what you do, and see whether you can convince me."

Kingscote takes up the gauntlet admirably. "I’ve twenty years experience of working in spiritualism", he says, ‘I started as a healer and now I contact people on the other side in order to relay messages." I can’t quite believe that he has used the phrase ‘other side’ without irony, but I need to move beyond these thoughts if the interview is going to progress. I ask him about when he first realised that he had this ‘gift’. “I was six when I first started hearing voices”, he begins. Before I can formulate the thought ‘schizophrenia,’ he surprises me by saying that he was taken to a doctor and psychiatrist. “But they could find nothing to explain what I was experiencing”, he tells me. “My mother didn’t believe at the time, until one day when I was playing on the flat roof at home. A bolt slid over the door of its own accord. She believed after that.”