MEDIUM Sally Morgan will never forget the day she knew in her heart there was a life beyond the one we know.

Death isn't the end for us, says Sally

By WAYNE SAVAGE, entertainment writer

Medium Sally Morgan will never forget the day she knew in her heart there was a life beyond the one we know. The 59-year-old, who brought her live stage show to the Regent earlier this month, has vague memories of strange experiences when she was a baby.

But an encounter when she was just four at the little council nursery around the corner from her home remains as clear as a bell.

“We were sitting having, I don't know, milk or something at this table with lots of other children my own age and I saw a man standing next to this girl in front of me. I just knew in my head he was her grandfather,” she remembers.

“Now, my grandfather used to take me and my sister to nursery every morning to help my mother so she could go to work. So I said out loud to one of the helpers 'why can't my grandfather be here with me now'.

“So, this teacher said 'well your granddad brings you every morning'. I said - and my face must've been honest, she must've known a little four-year-old's not going to make anything up like this - 'no, he's here now over there'.

“This woman said 'what does he look like' so I described he had a black hat on and a long black coat. I said 'here he his', got off out of my chair and walked round the table, pointed at him and looked up at him,” Sally says.

“He looked down at me and smiled and as he smiled he melted away. This teacher must have seen me smile and I may've said something, she went absolutely loopy. She picked me up and upstairs was the baby section from nought to a year old, that sort of age. I sat in a high chair all day screaming my head off.”

It wasn't until she was 22, when she realised she could control her gift, that she decided to use it to help others.

“Basically 22 was when something happened that I realised I could ask it to be there and ask it not to be there, I discovered the on/off button. Until then I always thought it was random, but of course it was just time allowing me to realise it wasn't,” she adds.

I've caught up with Sally soon after minor hospital surgery - “I'm fine, no problem; up and about, absolutely super duper”, she assures me in that easy-going manner of hers - which begs a question.

Given her ability to commune with the dead; does she find hospitals difficult places to be?

“Not at all; as I was going under I saw a particular person around the anaesthetist that astounded him, so that was a first.

“There are hotspots, most definitely; bricks and mortar are like negatives. They hold the energy and they will out when they want to, normally something to do with the date or if someone with a certain amount of energy around them walks in the room or building. But nothing happened in my little hospital that I stayed in, no.”

Sally's abilities mean not only can she see, hear and speak with the departed but she can also read an individual's past and predict their future.

Over the last 30 years it has led to her reading for the famous - in fact she's getting ready to read for an undisclosed celebrity while we speak - politicians and police investigating difficult to solve crimes.

Perhaps the most notable celebrity she has read for over the last 30 years was the Princess of Wales.

“I was informed four days after her funeral, by a very close person connected to her, that I had predicted her death a year before; and it is on tape,” she adds.

In 2005, Yale university professor Gary Schwartz scientifically tested Sally's abilities, branding her “one of the most accurate mediums I have ever come across” and “one of the top five in the world”.

She says there's no process, no ritual she goes through to be able to do what she does, it's just instant.

“It's like something comes into my head. If I said to you describe ice cream, straight away you visual maybe ice cream in a bowl or cone, it's like a memory. It's like a thought hits my brain and all of a sudden I'm part of that memory, even though it's a person I've never known in my life and they're dead.

“I trust the thoughts that are coming into my head and then pass them on in sentence form. Luckily people can understand what I'm talking about.”

Being sought out by spirits would terrify most, but not Sally.

“I've never been frightened by spirits, sometimes they don't look very nice. Sometimes, occasionally, when you look at the Thriller thing with Michael Jackson, I've seen the odd face similar to that - a blue hue, very gaunt looking and the eyes are not quite right.

“I've never looked and thought oh dear, I've never gone arrgh. If I ever did that they wouldn't want to frighten me because why would they want to destroy a relationship that they can get through? They know if they come to me I'll do my utmost to get their message across.”

Despite her experiences, Sally says she is her biggest sceptic.

“I have to believe in the afterlife, if I said to you I don't believe there's another place tell me what I am getting? In my life I've been through phases where I've thought this is mad, I can't be talking to dead people. Then it happens again and again and again.

“Being a medium is about trusting the information I get from the spirit world. Spirits are resting. It is another dimension, it is an energy form. Why would they want to escape it? They are in heaven surrounded by love,” she says.

It's been an amazing 18 months for the certified psychic, with hit television shows, two best-selling books and thousands flocking to her live spectacles.

Most recently she has been filming a new series, Psychic Sally: On The Road, for Living. It follows her as she tours the country, performing to huge audiences as well as offering one-to-one readings to fans and celebrities.

“It's been an amazing 18 months. I got on an express train not realising it, thinking I was getting on a little choo choo train. It's very exciting but what comes first for me is meeting people because I can no longer do one-to-one readings because of the demand. The only way I can get to see the people that want to see me is by doing a show,” adds Sally.

“The TV, they took a risk with me because I did warn them. I said to them 'if you do a programme on me you don't expect any scripts because I don't want a script, don't expect me to hold back on anything because I won't and what you see is what you get'. They took a risk, it paid off and that's what I am and it's brilliant.”

Sally promises to bring her larger than life personality to her stage shows.

“There was no way it was going to be a show where I walked out where it was going to be very flat and there wasn't going to be any music or bit of life. What you see on the telly is what you will see on that stage.”

As we chat, it's clear she enjoys her work, despite the huge responsibility resting heavily on her shoulders.

“The biggest questions are where are they; are they happy, did they know how much I love them. It's a big world out there and dreadful things happen.

“Every night on stage there'll be a person that has died in a really tragic way and those deaths are perhaps slightly different and there may be different questions,” she says.

“The most satisfying think about my work is that it makes people happy, it helps people realise that when we go it's not the end. I'm told by people that I comfort them and I'm able to bring them some sort of peace with their sorrow.

“It's a dark subject because it's a light going out on here on our plain. I'm not a miracle maker; I can never take away their sorrow because I can't bring their loved ones back. It's the peace of knowing they're waiting there for us.”

Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, I think we can all say amen to that.