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Jeane Trend-Hill spends her life with ghosts. Not the green and slimy ones from the film or even the terrifying ones that lurk in a child's worst nightmare - but the ones that cling to people and places because they have a story to tell. Jeane is one of those rare people that can interpret these stories and who can, like Cole Sear in 'The Sixth Sense', see dead people.

Jeane was just seven years old when spirits started visiting her in her bedroom. The first she remembers was a friend of her grandmother's who had died three years previously. She had never met the old man while he was alive and her parents were stunned when Jeane described who she had seen.

Voices and colours

Until she was in her teens and before she attended the College of Psychic Studies in London, Jeane didn't think her gift was  in any way unusual:

"I just assumed everyone could see dead people and it was quite a shock to me to find out they couldn't."

Jeane would see auras, colours and have strange feeling when she went to meet friends and relatives. Some spirit figures would be defined and clear, at other times just a fleeting apparition or would manifest themselves through a feeling of unease, sadness or pain.

Jeane's formal training has taught her to control her own instincts, to mute her senses and to arrest the constant bombardment of voices. But sometimes, the feelings are just too strong to override:

"I was in a café a couple of months ago and a woman was sat at one of the tables. I realised she had lost a grandchild. The emotions that I felt were very strong and sad. Her daughter joined her and I realised that it was the daughter that had lost the child."

Sometimes spirits will talk to her or their name will simply pop into her head:  "It's a bit like a slide show - click, click, click - and I tend to just say what I see."

Doorway to the other side

Jeane's work is not just a one-way process whereby the living come to Jeane to open a door to loved ones who have departed - quite often it is the other way round. She says that spirits know she has unusual powers to communicate with them and approach her with their stories.

"They want to give us a sense that there is more to this life and we can move on to a better place. I can also sense when living people have lived before - there are a few old souls wondering around who have been here before."

Jeane's work can also bring comfort to people. "They want closure, especially if they haven't had a chance to say goodbye - they want a sense of forgiveness that they weren't there in the final moments."

While Jeane is happy to act as a medium in these cases, she doesn't go in for Ouija boards or exorcisms. She has however been called in to investigate poltergeist activity, which she says is usually the work of child spirits:

"Poltergeist activity is mainly children - it's mischievous and playful. If you lose your car keys, it might be them. I can almost sense them giggling and laughing because they think it's so funny that they've hidden the keys."

Kent investigations

Buildings, says Jeane, absorb sounds and events like a sponge and then replay them like a tape. Click on the links below for details of Jean's recent investigations in Rochester and Dover.

ROCHESTER >> Read or listen to Jeane's account of her visit to Rochester. She feels as though she'd been 'stabbed in the heart', she senses the drama of a knights' battle and finds a park with an 'oppressive' presence.

DOVER >> Jeane visited St James' Church and Cowgate cemetery in Dover. On the site of the church she senses that there had been a stabbing and she also sees Victorian children and a woman called Agnes.

Jeane has been born with a rare talent but remains undecided as to whether it is a blessing or a curse: "There are times that I would rather they leave me alone but I've always had this gift and I don't know what life would be like without it."

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