If you thought that meeting a psychic medium who communicates with the dead on a daily basis would be in any way spooky, then you've come to the wrong shop. Colin Fry is so down to earth, he's rooted to the kneecaps.
Colin is the UK's leading psychic medium with a large following at home and abroad. His touring shows are sell-outs as audiences queue up to witness readings that are gentle, sensitive, humorous and uncannily accurate.
Frankly, until several months ago, I'd never heard of him but now, as I'm about to walk into a hired room in Maida Vale to interview him, I reflect upon the strange journey that has brought me here.
Last year I experienced the worst bereavement of my life. At a time when the loss was hitting particularly hard, I was idly channel surfing when I stumbled across Colin's TV show, The 6ixth Sense (on FTN every week night, 8-9pm).
I was of the firm opinion that most of this sort of stuff was hooey. I'd seen so-called mediums before who went on 'fishing trips', leading the witness, reflecting their own information back to them, dealing in generalities which could apply to almost anyone.
This was different. Colin was dealing in specifics. He opened one reading by saying: " Would anyone understand that I have a gentleman with me wearing police uniform. And this man was very interested in past crimes - famous murders, robberies and so on. He did research into them and wrote about them."
How specific can you get? The man in question was claimed by his wife and grown-up daughter in the back row. After accurately describing how the man had died and relaying detailed messages to his family recalling experiences they had shared when he was alive, Colin stopped and said: "Why am I getting Venice? Did you go there with him? Is Venice significant in some way? "
Total blank. Many mediums, one suspects, would have hastily glossed over it and passed on but after a pause Colin said: "Now I'm going to insist on this, because I know I'm right."
Another pause and then: "Oh, I get it. It's a restaurant. An Italian restaurant.
Tell me, is there such a restaurant you would go to for family celebrations?" There was.
"And you're going there next week, aren't you?"
They were. It was the daughter's birthday.
"He wants you to know that he'll be there. And tell me, what's the name of this restaurant?"
"Venus!"
Hairs stand up on the back of my neck as I think: "We've got the real McCoy here."
I feel impelled to meet this man, so much, at this moment, do I long to make contact with my dead friend.
But, aware that I'm vulnerable and my judgment may be out of kilter, I decide to wait. When in doubt do nothing. Two months on, I still feel impelled to meet Colin. Discovering he no longer does private sittings, I set up an interview. Serendipitously, he has a book coming out, his first.
By the time I get to Maida Vale in London, I've become increasingly interested in Colin as a person and decide not to ask for a reading unless he gives me an unmistakable opening.
I enter the room to meet a neat, slight figure with a pleasant, open face and good skin, who looks far younger than his 45 years. His one concession to vanity, if TV appearances are anything to go by, is a succession of fashionable hairstyles. Today he favours a Tin Tin quiff.
I must come clean here and confess that after that first flash of needy intuition, my built-in, copper-bottomed cr*p detector has been scrutinising Colin's daily TV appearances closely for some months and I'm more or less convinced already that not only is he sincere, but also the genuine article.
One thing you can't fake effectively, long-term on television, is sensitivity, care and compassion without there being something awfully cheesy about it. Unless you're a consummate actor of Oscar proportions, the camera can be merciless.
First, I'm curious to know how long he has been talking to the departed. Since early childhood, apparently, and I have this picture of a little boy running around, merrily chatting away to the dead, unaware, in his innocence, that not every little boy does likewise.
At 10, he received his first message to pass on to the living and light dawned. This must, one feels, have elicited a startled response from those around him. Did he ever feel his gift was a burden or did he ever try to suppress it?
A firm no on both counts with no elaboration forthcoming but privately, I wonder.
Adolescence is tough enough at the best of times and to add to the usual teenage angst, Colin not only had to decide what to do with a gift that set him apart from his peers, but also adapt to the realisation that he is gay.
But he says: "I'm not ready to write the autobiography yet." Fair enough.
Perhaps it helped that he gravitated towards older people. "Even when I was very young, children rarely came through to me. It was usually adults. I'm actually amazed, now, that my civil partner is 20 years younger."
And indeed, particularly when reading for elderly subjects, Colin's speech has a faint, old-fashioned air about it.
I'm assuming that the voices are in evidence all the time? "I'm often asked if I can switch it off and I used to say I could, because it seemed to disturb people if they thought I couldn't. But yes, they are always there."
He can, though, relegate them to a background murmur. No off switch then, but a volume control.
Colin gives the strong impression of being thoroughly grounded and unassuming, conveying a great sweetness of manner and a keen sense of humour.
He has spent his adult life striving to develop his gift, training as a bereavement counsellor along the way.
"I'm glad I didn't turn professional until I was 28," he says. " It gave me time to experience pain and loss which really matters when you are dealing with people in the way I am."
Before making the 6ixth Sense he turned down three TV companies who wanted to sensationalise the subject of mediumship. "Then I spoke to the people at Living TV who understood what I'm about."
What Colin is about, it seems, is to use his gift almost as a vocation to comfort those who need to hear or understand that someone they loved, who has died, still exists, still watches over them and still cares.
And if he were a fake, this would, indeed, be the most reprehensible exploitation of people at their most vulnerable. Which is why the detailed "proofs" he offers are so important. On the other hand: "I've stopped trying to convince sceptics. I used to spend hours bringing forward detail after detail to try to prove to someone that our loved ones continue on in spirit, but if that someone is determined not to believe, then no proof will ever be enough."
When I see Colin's live theatre show, he deals with enormous sensitivity with one tearful lady who lost her 10-year-old son. But even the most poignant of readings are often tinged with humour. Towards the end, after giving the usual proofs (the boy's favourite toys etc), Colin says: "Why am I getting Puff The Magic Dragon?"
"It was his favourite song," she replies.
"Yes, but why am I only getting the first two lines repeated over and over again? It's a bit annoying."
The woman erupts into laughter: "I taught it to him and that's all I knew. "
Afterwards, the woman sitting next to me in the balcony - a sensible, down-to-earth soul - says: "The goodness shines out of him."
Emotional
You might think that spending so much time communing with the next world would make this one somehow less important? Colin is emphatic that it makes it even more vital that we live every moment here to its fullest. Hence the title of his book, Life Before Death.
So often, spirits contact him who want to repair rifts and fractured relationships they left behind them. Illustrated with some quite emotional, dramatic and humorous readings he has given in the past, he gives straightforward advice about how to take responsibility for one's own life, maximise the positive and leave no unfinished business behind.
The main thrust could, I suppose, be described as: let's all join hands, form a circle and attempt to contact the living.
It's time to go. Interview over. There's been no opening to ask for a reading but Colin's PR people are arranging for me to see his show in Dublin a few weeks hence and, who knows, I might be one of the lucky ones.
Then, as I'm packing my traps, Colin shoots me a penetrating look, saying sweetly and pointedly: "And was there anything else?"
Caught off-guard, I stumble a request, saying I know he's doing interviews back to back and understand if it's not possible.
A long pause and then: "Why don't we meet up again in Dublin?" It's a very generous gesture.
Fast forward to a bright, sunny terrace under an azure sky at Colin's Dublin hotel. No smoke and mirrors here. And, in fact, it's the very ordinariness of the occasion which is so impressive.
Colin has started giving one-day seminars in which he says his avowed intent is to remove the "para" from paranormal.
My lost friend, Pieter, was loved and revered in the world of theatre. He had a mind like a laser, an intuitive streak which bordered on the clairvoyant and altruism was stamped right through him like Blackpool rock.
It was a strange friendship. He was 20 years older than I and I met him when I was a very unhappy, mixed-up 14-year-old. Over 45 years our friendship developed to the point where we were almost two sides of the same coin, practically able, each to reach the other's thoughts. In constant contact, often several times a day, to say I was devastated when he died is a gross understatement.
He brings Pieter through with no difficulty at all and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
For almost an hour and a half, Pieter speaks of things that Colin couldn't possibly have known, some of which were only ever known to the two of us, others which have happened since Pieter's death, known only to me.
The words, as relayed, have the flavour of Pieter's speech. "That's just what he would say and how he would say it," I explained when Pieter makes a remark about a mutual acquaintance.
As Colin scored hit after hit, I then fill him in on the background of each one.
I've come with my handbag stuffed with tissues. Not needed. It is such a happy and relaxed experience which ends up feeling like a conversation between three old friends - at several points, Pieter includes Colin in the dialogue.
Whether Colin really is contacting the dead or, rather, has the psychic ability to retrieve memories from the unconscious minds of the living is settled for me when I deliver a message from Pieter to an actress he knew, but I didn't. The message is all Greek to me.
"Don't settle for Lady Bracknell," Pieter had said. She is intrigued. Two weeks earlier she had been offered the role but hadn't yet decided whether to take it.
At the end of the reading I'm convinced, comforted, uplifted and content. Just, I imagine, like so many others who have been lucky enough to enjoy this extraordinary experience from an extraordinary man.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/featu ... 730631.ece
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