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One of his earliest recollections is, as a three-year-old, the death of the old lady who lived next door to his Wavertree home.
His mum told him that she had "gone to heaven after being taken away in the box".
What he couldn't understand was why, after the funeral, she had come in through the back door to greet him - something she continued to do periodically for years afterwards.
WHEN he was about nine, he was walking home and saw a well-dressed man drop down dead in front of him.
Adam Franklin, Billy Roberts, Brendan Riley and Joe Bielawski go ghost hunting in the Slaughterhouse pub, Fenwick Street, Liverpool
"He then stood up from the body, walked away and disappeared," explains Billy matter of factly.
He didn't begin nurturing his gift until his 30s.
Before that he had spent much of the 1960s and early 1970s on the road with such bands as the Kruzads - who supported the likes of the Stones, Chuck Berry and The Moody Blues - acquiring a life-threatening heroin habit along the way.
Since then he has written a number of books about the paranormal and lectured about the phenomenon in colleges and universities around the world.
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Walking with the dead
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WHEN he was about nine, he was walking home and saw a well-dressed man drop down dead in front of him.
Adam Franklin, Billy Roberts, Brendan Riley and Joe Bielawski go ghost hunting in the Slaughterhouse pub, Fenwick Street, Liverpool
"He then stood up from the body, walked away and disappeared," explains Billy matter of factly.
He didn't begin nurturing his gift until his 30s.
Before that he had spent much of the 1960s and early 1970s on the road with such bands as the Kruzads - who supported the likes of the Stones, Chuck Berry and The Moody Blues - acquiring a life-threatening heroin habit along the way.
Since then he has written a number of books about the paranormal and lectured about the phenomenon in colleges and universities around the world.
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Billy is relating his truncated biography 48 hours later.
It's just before midnight on bleak, cold night inside the pub's eerie, dimly-lit cellar and we've been joined by Adam, Martyn,
Brendan and Billy's business partner, Joe Bielawski.
Joe claims he harbours a healthy cynicism for the histrionics of Most Haunted but admits to wearing protection all the same, a crucifix once owned by the saint, Padre Pio.
He's also carrying a "ghostometer" a hand-held detector that measures fluctuations in magnetic fields, a reliable indicator of paranormal manifestations. When a spirit comes calling, it's supposed to emit a high oscillating pitch and its dial indicator fluctuate wildly.
At the moment, it's purring quietly.
Billy doesn't need this device though. This is a visual aid purely for our benefit - being clairvoyant and clairaudient he says he can both see and hear the dead and doesn't need a machine to know that they're there.
"The voices that I hear can be very clear like a radio on inside my head," he says. "If there was something here I'd talk to it not like I'm talking to you. It will be a voice inside my head which is very specific."
So far he has heard and seen nothing - and has not been told anything of the manifestations he is expected to encounter.
Which is the way it should be. "I'm not easily led, I'm a very sceptical medium. And not all mediums are genuine and I don't like people filling my head with all kinds of s--t before I go into a place.
"I like to go in and work it out for myself. If we had a conversation on the phone beforehand, little things would be going into my mind. It can produce what's called retrospective analysis. The subconscious mind will hold on to things and bring them out later on when it's quite easy to imagine that you've felt or seen something."
Not all images are ghosts of the dead either, he maintains.
"WHEN people frequent an establishment, they impregnate these subtle atmospheres with a sort of energy that can become visual and create images so that anyone in here alone might see an old person and surmise that its a dead person's spirit when it might be the image of somebody still living."
Adam Franklin, Billy Roberts, Brendan Riley and Joe Bielawski go ghost hunting in the Slaughterhouse pub, Fenwick Street, Liverpool
We decide to go walkabout. On the "evil" stairs leading out, the ghostometer begins to sound uncomfortable and Billy claims he feels a presence but nothing too strong and certainly not malevolent.
We proceed through the main upstairs bar where the rain is clattering against the windows from the empty streets outside. On the first floor landing is the green room, complete with table, settee and empty beer bottle left behind by a previous comic occupant.
Again nothing really and the ghostometer remains well behaved.
It seems a good time to ask why hauntings and why, more especially, houses?
Billy says: "If you go into an old house, sometimes you can get a lovely warm feeling. That's because of the people who lived there. They impregnate the psychic structure of the house and that becomes the representation of those people.
"And it can work the other way whereby an evil or unhappy family who've lived there will influence the minds of the people who subsequently come along."
We proceed to the top floor and it's here, at the top of the stairwell, that Billy first detects something.
"The impression that I get here is that there was some kind of self destruction that somebody committed suicide. Somebody died in this area but it must have been some time ago. It was a man who hanged himself here."
The ghostometer duly goes slightly bonkers emitting a fluctuating whine like that of the dentist's drill. We head a little more quickly back downstairs where, back in the bar, it's thought that it might be a good idea if Billy went back down in the cellar, alone this time, so as not to be distracted.
Billy, for some reason, doesn't agree.
Minutes later Joe and I are perched on stools downstairs and after a brief surf with the divining rods - this area of the city apparently being awash with ley lines which convey psychic power - Billy has placed the ghostometer at the centre of the low stage at the far end of the room.
He then retreats to another stool on the far side where he sits occasionally stroking his chin apparently preoccupied in thought.
No words are spoken. The only sound is the warble of the ghostometer in mild distress.
Ten minutes later Billy springs up and walks over. "I've just been having a conversation," he says calmly and then points at the stage.
"It's a guy sitting over there. He says his name's is Walter Langton. He worked here in the 1800s. He's very rude and bad tempered and he says he wants to do me harm. I've told him he can't. He chooses to be here. He also knows that we are here and he wants us to go. But I don't feel intimidated."
Billy then says that there is another presence on the stage. It's a middle-aged woman dressed in grubby smock and bonnet. She's possibly from the 19th century and called Meg or Mary. She's unaware of us but is apparently looking for her son.
" He was crushed to death here," adds Billy simply.
Needless to say neither Joe or I have seen or heard anything - it is, unfortunately, the drawback of the medium's trade that concrete proof is hard to produce.
Nevertheless there's an unnerving feeling that we're not alone and there's relief in finding the stairwell behind the bar - and not adjacent to Walter's alleged spot at corner of the stage - to return to a curious Adam and co upstairs.
It's now 3am and, despite his recent encounter, Billy remains surprisingly magnanimous to his erstwhile opponent.
"There's a lot of paranormal here but nothing malevolent. Walter's been here so long he just lives here now so a blessing by a priest would not make any difference."
He's asked if there are any more spirits to be uncovered here.
"I'm sure there may be - but I'm not waiting around tonight to find out," he replies.
Was that a look of amused relief on his face.
If so, the feeling, rest assured, was entirely mutual.
* BILLY Roberts can be contacted at
www.billyroberts.co.uk or on 0151 733 3434.
http://tinyurl.com/yclrxn
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