THE compelling story of a world-famous Belfast medium and the man who tried to expose her as a fraud has been turned into a book by former BBC journalist and Big Brother housemate Andy West.
 
Andy, originally from Buckinghamshire, first came across the story of Ormeau Road medium Kathleen Goligher while working as a journalist in Belfast.
 
“I was reading a book by the famed magician Harry Houdini called A Magician Among the Spirits, which is his personal account of his travels around the world investigating spiritual mediums and proving them to be frauds,” he said.

“On page 169, as I neared the end of it I came across a passage where he mentions Dr William Crawford from Belfast who had investigated a spiritual medium named Kathleen Goligher and who tragically took his own life on the Pickie Rocks in Bangor.
 
“He goes on to state that Dr Crawford must have discovered that he had been fooled by a young medium and shows a little condescending sympathy for him. Meanwhile, through my research I discovered that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle held his experiments in very high regard.
 
“His conclusion was that Dr Crawford’s suicide was his last greatest experiment.”

West described the story of Goligher and Crawford as one of the greatest tragedies in the history of spiritualism and mediumship.
 
“In spite of that and in spite of Kathleen and William’s worldwide notoriety, I quickly came to discover that their story had become all but forgotten. In Ireland, the story is as buried and forgotten as William is himself in an unmarked grave in Dundonald Cemetery.
 
“I thought that was so mind-blowingly shocking and so deeply sad that I had to find out more about the lives of these people and get to the bottom of things to bring William’s extraordinarily questionable experiments to a modern audience.”

Andy said that writing the book became an obsessive process but describes himself as being lucky as to have found a mentor in the world famous crime author Patricia Cornwell.
 
“She and I have a similar process in that you immerse yourself in the world that you are writing about,” he continued.
 
“She spent a lot of time in morgues, I spent a lot of time creeping around William’s old workplace, the Black Man Tech or standing on the Pickie Rocks and Park Avenue. I had delved into archives in Cambridge, Los Angeles and the Public Records Office in Northern Ireland where I could get as much information as I could.

“I was able to read personal accounts, look at photographs taken by William’s colleagues during the experiments and the most amazing thing that happened and that was really quite moving and went beyond the book was to be contacted by the descendants of both families who hadn’t been in contact with each other for over 100 years and to reintroduce them to each other.
 
“It really struck me that with even such a passage of time, these two families were so connected without even knowing it.”
 
Andy added that he has been pleased to say that the families have reacted positively to the book.
 
“As an author I had to explain to William and Kathleen’s relatives that I am going to use dramatic license, that I am going to make decisions which they may or may not agree with or may or may not be entirely accurate. My job as a novelist is to tell a story and I never set out to write a non-fiction biography.”

Despite that, Andy West says much of the book is based in fact and that speaking to the families allowed him to get an understanding of who the characters were as people.
 
“William was always seen as the dark horse both during and after his lifetime. Kathleen was known by her granddaughter whom I have spoken to as a really lovely, kind, generous and softly spoken grandmother.
 
“They helped me understand the character and ensure that while I was writing it in my own way that I was being sympathetic to their memory.”

Recounting a conversation with Most Haunted’s Evette Fielding, Andy said that he told her he doesn’t believe in the afterlife, but even so...
 
“I would say that through writing this book, time and time again creepy things have happened. There have been strange goings-on and coincidences that have made me question what I believe about spirits and the afterlife.
 
“I hope it allows the reader to readdress what they believe and why they think what they do."

A.J. West, The Spirit Engineer. Duckworth, London, £14.99. Available at all good bookshops and online.