Feature
I spent a night ghost-hunting in a haunted old church with paranormal investigators
Would you spend a night in a haunted building hunting for ghosts?
I spent the night in a haunted old church with a team of paranormal investigators, and saw one of the team ‘taken over’ by a ‘nasty spirit man who beat children’.
Have you ever watched Most Haunted on TV, as they investigate spooky castles and historic buildings, calling out to spirits and creatures in the dark awaiting a response? And even if you’re a complete sceptic, have you still wondered what it would be like to go on a night and see what it’s all about?
Watching the familiar face of Yvette Fielding on the telly absolutely scared out of her wits as she stares into dark rooms like bottomless pits, eyes wide open with mascara clotted lashes, it does make you wonder if we are alone in the dark.
Let’s face it, believers or not, we all love a good scare and perhaps – if anything – we’re just curious to see if we can be proven wrong.
In this spirit, one dark evening I met with a team of paranormal investigators from Greater Manchester and the North West called Dragonfly Paranormal. They’re a warm and welcoming bunch — exactly who you need when you’re sat in a pitch-black, draughty cellar as you try to make contact with a potential ghost.
It was a Saturday night and we met up at TS Warspite in Earlestown, St Helens – home of Newton Sea Cadets – at around 8.30pm.
Built on the site originally was the Wesleyan Methodist Church — formed by a few staunch Wesleyans from Salford, who had been transferred from the Ordsall Lane Wagon Works to the Viaduct in 1853.
They began work to build a chapel in 1866, opening its doors for Sunday service after its completion in 1867.
The building was also used as a Sunday school and then a day school that had accommodation for worshippers, with a new chapel built next door which opened in 1880.
This chapel was later demolished and another new chapel was built on the neighbouring Chapel Street.
This strange patchwork-like building, comprised of layers from different eras sewn together, is now shared between the United Reformed Church and the Newton Methodist Church.
As I stepped through the modern-fronted entrance into its historic belly, from lasting summer daylight into dimness, I was greeted by a group wearing matching black t-shirts and hoodies as they prepared their investigative equipment.
I was welcomed by organisers and husband and wife duo, Lauren and Steven Holmes, who have been running Dragonfly Paranormal for eight years. They hold both public and private paranormal investigations, and Lauren also does readings.
Other members of the team of spirit hunting enthusiasts included Kevin Drake-Owen, Freda Done and her daughter Chelsea, Lisa Harrison, and Karen and Mark Jones — who handed me a torch.
We were also joined by members Paul and Lee who are from a different paranormal team, and another inexperienced, nervous and excited ghost hunter, much like myself.
We all chatted amongst ourselves as we got to know each other over a quick brew and then Lauren summoned us to form a circle in the centre of the main hall as we closed our eyes, and had to ‘root’ ourselves into the building’s memories, opening ourselves up to whatever might reach out to us from the other side.
After we opened our eyes we were ready to begin the quest. We picked up the different equipment and as the lights went down we headed for a room based in the cellar — it was showtime.
When we reached the bottom, Karen jumped and immediately alerted us all to a chair that had been placed on a table top that she was convinced wasn’t there before. “Look!” she gasped. “It wasn’t there, it wasn’t there!”
Inside the room it was cold, dark and eerie as we took a seat around a table and set up different kinds of radio frequency recorders, temperature change detectors, ghost-hunting apps and cat balls — which light up when they sense movement and can be used by spirits to make a response.
The ghost-hunting apps record forward sound and then play it backwards to detect any words. As the room grew silent and still, Lauren tried to speak with spirits. Chelsea, Freda and Karen joined in, asking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to begin with.
A catball lit up as well as the EMF detectors, which pick up electromagnetic fields, and it seemed the spirit was playful. “Are you a young…” Lauren began as she was cut short with more activity. We heard a bang outside the room. Karen jumped and asked: “What was that?!”
The group asked again: “Are you a young boy or a girl?” Nothing came, but then everything lit up in synchronisation and it seemed the spirit, or whatever it may have been, was playing games with us.
We’d all set our mobiles to airplane mode or turned them off so as not to interfere with the equipment — which kept continuously going off in answer to questions asked. The air grew cold and I could feel a draft on my legs.
After a light show on the sensors, the group decided to get out a spirit board and see if they could talk to anyone or anything that may try to reach out from the other side. Not everyone partook in this as some didn’t feel comfortable, but the group talked me through what they usually do.
Chelsea and Lauren explained to me that they do it all correctly and make sure to ‘release the spirit’ and do a ‘cleanse’ after it. I felt reassured and confident enough to have a go. I’d never done one before and just hearing the name of it made me nervous.
Hearing ‘spirit board’ – or what many know it as, Ouija board – sends shivers up your spine and mental images hurling through your mind from all the scariest horror tales ever imagined.
Kevin and a few others sat it out. He told me he promised his husband that he wouldn’t ever do one. Just myself, Lisa, Lauren, Chelsea and Freda participated. I was starting to freak myself out, but before I could change my mind, it began…
After asking a few questions, the planchette began to move. I was only lightly touching it and looked around at other’s hands to see any signs of pressure, but I could see any.
It seemed we were talking to a ‘wicked man’, a priest or reverend, who wanted us to leave and didn’t say much else. The planchette mainly moved to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or landed on, or close to, a letter on the board.
Unlike the movies, it didn’t move in a fast and unnatural way while spelling out whole words or sentences. The planchette didn’t go flying off the board at the end either, as if the demon or spirit had taken control and released themselves into our world — much to my relief.
After it stopped talking to us, we ended the board and went to investigate a different room. We sat in a circle in the dark and I wore a headset linked to a microphone that picked up even the lowest of muffled and low sounds.
Thankfully, there was no demon reciting Latin transcripts in an aggressive, throaty, non-human voice while spitting and cursing at us. While I was doing that, a few women in the group began experiencing the feeling of what they describe as being ‘taken over’.
Chelsea and Freda felt their heart rates go up and seemed a little ‘out of it’, but when they came round, Karen, who seemed to be in a sleep, was taken over by a ‘nasty spirit man’ who ‘beat children’ and ‘enjoyed the power he got from frightening and hurting them’.
When she came round, I asked her what being ‘taken over’ was like. “It’s really hard to describe because I sometimes don’t remember it and it’s only when I hear it back on the tape that I think, ‘oh, right’, ” she said.
Adding: “It’s just a question of blanking your mind of everything and just saying what you are feeling.”
I asked her what got her into ghost hunting, and like others in the room she told me she’d experienced a dead relative visiting her, saying: “I’ve always been interested in the paranormal ever since I was little. My dead nana came to visit me after I had my first child and that was my first experience of the paranormal.
“Since then we have lived in houses that, let’s just say, are a bit uncanny.”
Several group members showed me photographs on their phones of weird shadow or ghost-like figures that they couldn’t explain, with Karen mentioning one of a ‘shadow man’ [pictured in the main header image] the ClubZero Ghost Group captured while at Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, which was used during the Cold War.
“We got a photograph of a huge ‘shadow man’ that we couldn’t explain at all,” she said, describing it as ‘the best experience’ she’d had in her four years with Dragonfly.
About why she goes on paranormal investigations, Karen explained: “Don’t expect anything and then whatever you get is great. This evening, we’ve had balls going off, lights going off, we’ve had voices on the recording.
“A lot of things could be coincidental and I’m not saying that everything is paranormal or that we get everything spot on all the time, but you can put a lot of what we find together and find a story of what has happened.
“For me personally, I’d love verification that there is something else and how that comes, I don’t know. I believe that this can’t be all there is.
“I believe there is another plane, plateau, heaven, hell, there’s got to be, I can’t believe that this is all there is.”
After a great evening with a lovely bunch of people, I felt exhausted from all the excitement and nerves – but also huge relief that no one got possessed and there was no need to call for an exorcist.
The group played back sound from the recordings to listen for noises and voices, everything could be explained apart from one ‘shout’. None of us recall it happening at the time and it definitely wasn’t any of our voices either.
We formed another circle at the end of the investigation and were guided by Lauren to release any energy from the evening and ‘uproot’ ourselves from the building.
Driving home I hoped not to find a ghost figure waiting in the middle of a dark misty road and wondered if I would sleep — which I did, but only out of sheer exhaustion. I’d definitely do it again, even just for the excitement of a spook. But, I’d say I’m still what they call a ‘sceptic’ for now.
If you fancy going on a ghost hunt with Dragonfly Paranormal, you can find them on Facebook or Instagram @dragonflyparanormal.
Feature
The personal trainer who trains disabled and elderly clients for free at his community gym
Javeno is changing things up in the gym world
A personal trainer at a gym in Greater Manchester has been supporting members of the community who are living with a disability by offering them free inclusive gym sessions.
If you head to Blackley in North Manchester, you’ll find J7 Health Centre, a community fitness gym run by Javeno McLean.
We went down to speak to Javeno and his clients about what makes this place so special and different from going to your ordinary gym or workout studio.
We stepped out of the taxi armed with recording equipment and so many questions, as we were dropped off on the main road close to the location of J7.
None of us had ever been there before, and as we were looking around, clearly a little lost, a woman asked: “Are you looking for somewhere?” I replied: “Yes, we’re looking for a gym.”
“It’s right there,” she said pointing to the end of a row set back off the main road. I thanked her and she gave a warm smile.
Clearly, she knew exactly the place we were looking for – it seems to be a bit famous around the area.
As we walked into the painted bright orange space, the music was blasting and friendly faces of other trainers greeted us. Inside, ‘80s power ballads were playing on the radio and ‘She’s a Maniac’ from Flashdance was pretty much setting the scene of what it’s like at J7.
Javeno’s personal trainer colleagues welcomed us and then went to find him. Three of his clients, Aimee, Josh and Fran were also there, so we could have a chat with them and find out about what goes on.
As the camera started rolling and I asked him my first question, but as he went to answer someone working out behind a big divider screen could be heard breathing heavily as they were on a weights machine.
Javeno immediately picked up on it. It made for a comedy gold moment and after we had all finished laughing, we started the interview again.
Javeno told me he’d been working with people in the community for a number of years, but before that he was a powerlifter and won several awards from competitions. He then decided to help people out in the community and give something back.
Now he offers free classes to people who are living with a disability, so they can come and train at his community gym and enjoy the benefits of socialising as well as the confidence exercising brings them.
Javeno told Proper Manchester: “I’ve been training people for 23 years. It’s been a long journey but one thing that I’m very proud of is, anybody disabled or elderly, I’ve never took a penny off anybody.
“I’ve always believed that if you really want to help somebody from the purest part of your soul, you’ve got to do it because you want to. And it’s just allowed me to build amazing, strong relationships with people.”
You’ve probably already come across Javeno and his J7 community gym while scrolling online.
The fitness guru has hundreds of thousands of followers and documents some of the sessions he does with clients who may be recovering from a stroke, cancer treatment or living with a disability, as they take on tasks, boost their confidence and most importantly, have some fun.
Some of his videos have gone viral across the world, spreading the positive movement J7 is helping to create. And, speaking to some of Javeno’s clients, it’s no wonder they chose to come back here time and time again.
On how she first came across ‘Jay’, Aimee said: “One of my friends messaged me and said, ‘you need to get in with this guy Jay, he’s sick!’. So then he got him on the phone and he said ‘I don’t wanna talk to you on the phone, I wanna meet you, get here now, like right now’.
“And I was like, ‘I’m currently in bed, I can’t move, what do you want me to do?’ He’s like ‘get here right now’ and I’m like, ‘I’m kind of stuck, but ok, we’ll go with that’.”
Fran also came across him on TikTok. She said: “I’ve been coming for nearly a year and it’s just been the best thing that’s ever happened. I saw Javeno on TikTok and was like ‘oh, who’s this fella?’”
On what makes J7 gym stand out from the rest, Josh said: “I enjoy just the general vibe and atmosphere. People think of the word gym and they think oh, it’s gonna be a job, it’s gonna be a chore, but here it’s not.
“I get to come here and I get to have a laugh with friends, and dance and make funny jokes and stuff like that. It’s just fun, it’s just fun.”
On what his community gym is all about, what drives him and how he aims to help people, Javeno tells us: “A lot of people don’t enjoy life, a lot of people go through life just existing – it shouldn’t be like that.”
He continues: “Whether it’s able bodied or disabled people, we ain’t here to exist, we’re here to experience life and take in every little bit of joy that life can give us. Sometimes they sit in that chair and they say ‘yep, this is me forever,’ – not with my guys.
“The main plan is to make sure that, that wheelchair, that disability or whatever you’ve got, is just a section of your life but doesn’t define your entire life. To me, seeing these guys living their lives and just being happy and normal – that to me is the greatest thing.”
On how Javeno has helped make a difference to her life and what makes her come back to J7, Aimee said: “For me, it’s all about disability awareness and showing people that no matter your ability or disability, you can get out of that chair if you really want to. “
She adds: “You just have to have the determination and I didn’t have that before I came here.
“And that’s one of the things that Jay has taught me and I will be forever grateful for that. It’s about reaching everybody’s potential and just loving yourself.”
Josh agrees as he says: “I like it better here because it’s more personal. There’s a lot of other personal trainers that are only there just to get the job done whereas with Jay, it’s more about how can I help you overcome your struggles.”
But it’s not just a place centred around physical health, it’s a place where mental wellbeing is also at the forefront, as Fran puts it: “We do weights, we do grip work, we also have a chat as well about mental health.
“That is just as important as your physical health and Javeno will ask me, ‘are you ok? How are you doing?’ and I will tell him straight.”
“The priority for me has always been are you ok? Are you good? Is there anything I can do and if you need me I’m here,” Javeno adds.
Javeno continues to offer hope to people across the globe with his inspiring videos as he challenges the status quo and discovers the many talents and wonderful personalities of those who train at J7.
J7 Health Centre is a community gym located at Unit 6, 73 Old Market St, Manchester M9 8DX.
If you’re struggling to find it, just ask one of the local residents, they’ll be sure to point you in the right direction!
Feature
Memories of demolished Trafford Park Bakery from the people that worked there
From bomb threats, to falling asleep on conveyor belts, to eating space cakes – fun times and sad times happened here, until one day it was all over
Trafford Park was once home to a huge bakery where workers would ‘get up to no good’ but still ‘get the job done’, until one day it closed for good. Here’s their tales from the Trafford Park Bakery days.
It once stood on Ashburton Road West in the industrial maze that is Trafford Park, until it was torn down in 2008.
The bakery was known for offering well paid jobs to people living in the surrounding areas, attracting workers from Eccles, Urmston, Stretford, Salford and Stockport, as well as a number of agency staff.
When the recession happened in the 1980s, a lot of tradespeople found themselves out of work, and for a steady income many of them took up employment at Trafford Park Bakery.
Ex-United defender Bobby Noble also got a job there. He had to retire early from football at the age of 23 after he was injured in a road accident, which damaged his sight and the ability to judge the flight of the ball.
He played among the likes of Best, Law, Stiles and Charlton and helped the team achieve League title victory in the 1966/67 season. Sadly, Bobby passed away last year, but his former colleagues remember him as ‘a lovely man’ and ‘funny guy’ with ‘great stories’.
Employees enjoyed the times they had at the bakery with their mates so much, they even set up a Facebook group after it closed down called ‘Trafford Park Bakery…They think it’s all over! It is now….’ to stay in touch and remember the best times.
Clare Callaghan got a job there after previously doing part-time work to fit around her children.
About how she came to work at the bakery, Clare says: “I’d never had a job like that before, I always worked in pubs, cleaning and doing school dinners – whatever fitted in with the kids.”
But when Clare’s kids got a bit older and went to school, she looked for full-time work and landed a job at the bakery as a quiche assembler.
She remembers: “I’ll never forget walking along the high corridor with glass windows on each side so you could see the production areas. And then you walked over to the assembly area where they actually made the stuff and all the machines were on and I thought ‘oh my god’, you know, it looked like Willy Wonka’s.”
Describing her job, she said: “So there was a conveyor belt and four girls on scales putting peppers and goats cheese on the quiches and then I topped them off with parmesan cheese. So I was just stood there sprinkling parmesan all shift. Sometimes my eyes would be closing.”
About the people she worked with, Clare said: “Every line was fun but our line was good fun. It was a mixture of younger and older women and men.”
Clare was quickly made the new line leader ‘in no time’ after one person got sacked and another moved to nights after photos of them ‘misbehaving’ at work fell into the hands of senior management.
Mike Minshall trained Clare up to work in the quiche department when she first started.
On how he found a job at the bakery, Mike said: “I actually found out through one of the national papers – my wife told me.
“And I applied and one of the daft questions was: ‘If we made nuts and bolts and we did 10 an hour, how many would we do in eight hours?’ In my answer, I put: ‘I thought you made pies?’
“The girl interviewing me was called Janet and she went: ‘Right, you’re in because you’re the only one who’s given me a daft answer’.”
Mike recalled his first day on shift, saying: “On my first day at work, I met my boss Pete – who I thought the world of. I went, ‘what do I have to do?’, he went, ‘lean against that wall’. I went, ‘what?’. He went, ‘lean against that wall and every time he [one of his colleagues] walks past, say knobhead.’”
“So I asked why and he told me that the guy was asked to clean the machine and he put a hose pipe in the panel and blew it up.
“He told me that was my job for the day; to lean against the wall and call him a knobhead.”
Remembering other hilarious happenings, Mike said: “My friend fell asleep on a conveyor belt and he was lucky he didn’t get dropped into the pastry cutter. He was on the hygiene team.
“One time, I walked into my department and this gentleman is there on his back in a machine that we wash the trays in, having a cigarette because it had an extractor fan. He’s lucky it was me.”
“There’s all sorts of different stories, there were affairs going on – there were 800 people who worked there,” he continued.
As Mike also recalled: “Our taps were touch sensitive so if you brushed past the tap it came on. So, this gentleman was telling someone who couldn’t work the water, ‘you have to be more assertive and say, water, as you brush past the sensor’.
“So this lad kept saying ‘water’ and getting told it’s not working because he needs to be more assertive when he says it.
“After 20 minutes this was guy was shouting ‘I want water, give me the effing water!’ When all he had to do was brush it.”
R worked at the bakery from 1988 on the Hygiene Department doing night shifts. He was also a line leader.
Remembering one funny incident, he said: “I remember one day the boss walked in while we were in the middle of working and told us that an animal rights organisation had been on the phone and issued a bomb threat to the bakery.
“So we were like ‘right’ and started to put everything down and make our way out of the door. But the boss was like ‘no, not yet, it’s not until 1 ‘o’ clock, carry on with what you’re doing’.
“We were all just laughing at him and was like, ‘I don’t think so’ and carried on walking out.”
Another time, R recalled a new lad staring on his line who was a ‘hard worker’ and so he mentioned to his boss to help make him feel welcomed so they could keep him working on their line.
He offered the new lad a lift into work if he was ever stuck for getting in. A number of weeks went by until one particular morning, the lad did call R before work and asked if he could pick him up on route.
He told him his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend had spotted him and was chasing him around the streets and so he was hiding in some bushes.
“I said ‘no problem, mate’ not thinking anything of it,” R said.
R pulled up and the new lad jumped in and was keeping his head down. R continued: “I told him ‘there’s no need to worry now, you’re in the car. But as we were driving in the car lit up and I was like ‘why’s the car lighting up? Is that a helicopter?’.
“Anyway, we got to work and I didn’t think anything of it. But later on my manager pulled me and told me I had to tell the new lad he was needed at the nurses’s station.
“They told me not to tell anyone and to keep it to myself. Straight away I knew what they meant and so I told him to go to the nurses station and police came to take him away in handcuffs.
“He was a really nice lad and a good worker, but it turns out he was a car thief too.”
Clare remembers another time when someone brought in ‘space cakes’ on a night shift and that one of the guys on the line ate one ‘and his head nearly fell off,’ she laughed.
The fun times kept on coming as people made friends for life at Trafford Park Bakery, until one day, news broke it was closing down and those good times would become fond memories etched in the minds of those who once worked there.
On his time at Trafford Park Bakery, Mike said: “I loved every minute of it there and if it was still there, I’d still be there. I worked there for 10 years before it shut. When it was closing down, I was told before everyone else. But it was announced on the BBC before they told everyone.
“My late wife rang me and told me ‘you’ve all lost your jobs’, and we were told to not talk to the media or you could jeopardise your redundancy. I miss my team. People move on but I do miss people. I miss the Christmas dinners there because the senior management had to serve you, and I’d be bossing them around.”
After the bakery closed, Mike went to work for Peugeot but didn’t like it. He then went back to ‘what I was good at’, which was repairing wagons. But he said he ‘didn’t like getting full of oil’. He then went to work for Rivita and West Mill at Trafford Park but is retired now.
He added: “I’ve had an interesting time but the best time was when I was there [at Trafford Park Bakery] with that lot because they were all crackers.”
About her time working there, Clare added: “It was ace. I mean, we got the work done, and everyone used to moan about the place but it didn’t matter what shift you were on, you knew everyone – it was just brilliant, you could make a television series out of it.
“But I mean, some of the things I couldn’t repeat!”
Clare still keeps in touch with Barbara who worked on her line and goes to visit her sometimes for a catch up.
Feature
Remembering Manchester’s lost underground market that now lies empty beneath the city
Do you have memories of shopping in the underground Market Centre?
Manchester used to have an underground market that now lies abandoned beneath the city centre.
If you walk along Market Street, you’re walking above what used to be the Market Centre – an underground shopping area filled with stalls and units selling music, clothes and a variety of other essential and non-essential items.
The underground Market Centre opened in 1972 and was a busy and bustling shopping emporium, much like the Arndale and Market Street both are today.
Punks would shop there for outfits, music fans could browse through the vinyl record shops and buy tickets to gigs at Piccadilly Box Office. It even had a Stolen from Ivor – which was the first place in Manchester to sell the jeans brand Levi’s, and where many would flock to get their hands on a pair of 501s.
Fashion addicts could hit up shops including Roxy, Oasis and Justins as well as a number of other boutique stalls, including the leather shop, for cool jackets.
DJs could sift through the collections at Underground Records Import and fans could shop at iconic music stalls including Collectors Records, Yvonne’s Record Stall, and the Spinn Inn Disc Centre.
The Market Centre was the place to be throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s until it closed down in 1989.
The entrance to it was located on Brown Street, with two other entrances on Norfolk Street and Spring Gardens. It had escalators going down under the pavement that led to this total treasure trove.
If you head to the Tesco on Market Street and go down to the lower level, you’re actually in what used to be part of the underground market.
But now it has fallen into disrepair, with the odd urban explorer who has dared to delve into the depth of the city to see what remains of this now eerie, decaying ghost market.
One explorer, known as Urban Sherman on YouTube, went down to have a look at what’s left of these once bustling underground stalls. Finding a way into where the old main entrance was located, down by the side of Tesco behind the food trailer, he climbs in and lands on the old steps with tiled walls.
As torches light up the dark depths of the city, we can see wires hanging, rubble strewn across the floor, graffiti on walls and one rusty sign that reads: “factory prices.”
It appears a wall of breeze blocks has been put up to block off any entry along the halls of the former market with the rest of it inaccessible, only to live on in the memories of those who once shopped there, and in old archived photographs.
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