Jenni Kemp

I have been interested in ghosts and the unexplained all my life. I first remember sensing a presence when aged about six or seven, and had many supernatural encounters in my youth. My parents consequently thought that I was a child who was ‘afraid of the dark’. I suffered from strong poltergeist activity at the age of sixteen, and my parents then began to believe that the incidents were not my imagination – well, mainly my father – my mother with some reluctance. Previously, it had been an uphill struggle to convince them that I was not ‘playing up’.

My late aunt on my mother’s side of the family professed to be psychic, but I understand that she may have ‘embroidered’ her stories. The upshot was that my parents did not have much time ‘for all that nonsense’.

I believe that being an only child has made me an independent and self-reliant woman, but it was sometimes a lonely existence as a psychic child, with unsympathetic parents.

I lived in a very haunted apartment in Harrow on the Hill. My husband and I witnessed many different types of phenomena there.

I have experienced a variety of supernatural happenings, at many places, up to the present day, including Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, houses in Penge and Croydon, and time slips at Ascain, France, on a train near Victoria Station and at Waltham Abbey, Essex. I was formerly a member of the Ghost Club.

Having said all that, my life does not revolve around spooks. I had a successful career in finance, which resulted in a move to the Hertfordshire/Essex borders. My adopted hometown is Bishop’s Stortford, which I find fascinating, and the surrounding countryside and counties, captivating.

My other interests include medieval French history, the Tudors and the Stuarts, jazz, classical music (I was a singer in a choral society – a lady tenor!) and continental cuisine. I am also a semi-professional artist and I have included some illustrations in this guide as an ambience to the narrative.