Our big break came when Bob Geldof's Television production company Planet 24 rang us to audition for a new programme to be screened early mornings on Channel 4 and to be called The Big Breakfast. We were to be their resident psychics. Each week we would appear with Paula Yates and predict the coming week's news headlines.

We were two of over 350 psychics they had chosen to interview, one being madam Vascoe, the Duchess of York's psychic and Nella Jones, the famous psychic detective. The producers decided we were the best in the country.

At the 'job interview' Jane and I gave private sittings to two of the most skeptical producers (one was Nick Love who was married to Bianca in East enders) so that they could ascertain whether we were psychic or not before we did a screen test. Both of them were shaken by how much we could tell them about their lives and people they knew in the spirit, indeed the young man I gave a reading to was so emotionally overwhelmed that he requested if he could take a little time off to come to terms with what he'd just experienced.

Next we did a screen test to camera in which we would make our predictions for the coming week. The camera crew laughed when Jane said that one of the Queen's beloved corgis would die but this prophesy and most of the other predictions we made all came to pass within the week.

We got the job.

Predicting Next Week's News today!

I'm sure Paula Yates was just itching to tear us apart from the moment she first saw us come onto the brightly coloured set to the tones of the music from The Twilight Zone. It's her Taurean instinct. But time after time our predictions were spot on and soon even she accepted that what we were doing couldn't be dismissed as cleaver guesswork. We foresaw world events with an accuracy that amazed everyone including sometimes ourselves. We predicted the El Al air tragedy in Holland, the birth of 'miracle' Siamese twins who were separated, that Princess Anne would marry and the venue would be Scotland, the Queen being hit by an egg, haemophiliac blood contaminated in France; men walking to the South Pole; Elizabeth Taylor's heart attack; Rembrandt drawings found; a mock assassination attempt on Ross Perot; the French farmers' lamb protest; Cliff Richard losing his voice; a boy impaled on railings; Mafia boss Totto seized; footballer Paul Gascoigne getting a black eye; cult leader Koresh killing himself; Chris Patten having an heart attack; the horse ripper attacks; oil tankers colliding off Indonesia; and an unscheduled meeting of the Queen with Boris Yeltsin.

Chris Evans, Paula Yates, Gabby Rossiter, the crew and even the owner Waheed Ali all became very interest in what we were doing and occasionally asked for predictions about their own lives. Chris told us that he was quite open to psychic things ever since his mother became very interested in spiritual healing.

At the first Big Breakfast party we were so swamped by people wanting impromptu readings that we nearly missed all the fun. Waheed Ali and Charlie Parsons had, it was rumoured, spent over £20,000 to make sure we were all rewarded for making the show such a huge success.

It was an amazing party. They hired a disused factory that had three floors. The first floor was decked out as heaven with stained glass windows angels and the like, the ground was purgatory with a 20 ft pair of hands pointing to heaven and to the Hell in the basement. In 'Hell' you could get drinks and candy floss if you bought 'Bank of Spank' currency from any of the chain smoking nuns wearing sunglasses. Various performers entertained throughout the building including a bizarre surrealistic pageant of ballroom dancers smiling gaily at the crowds.

This, in my opinion was their best party although a close second must be the boxing party which synchronised our celebrations with Frank Bruno's world championship challenge against Mike Tyson in America. In the centre of the party was a boxing ring in which the entertainment took place and we all stopped to watch Bruno fight on a massive screen that showed the fight live from America. Everyone placed a bet for a big prize and of course many people asked what Jane and I predicted. We didn't have the heart to bet on anyone except the magnanimous Frank Bruno who we'd got to know briefly on the show. He lost.

The Big Breakfast was great fun and certainly got us known quickly. It was also exciting mixing with the famous and every week we seemed to meet another mega-star. It was so casual. I spent quite a while talking to someone who I thought was part of the crew. "I recognise that bloke" I said to Jane innocently as we climbed the stairs to the dressing room.

"That 'bloke' is Patrick Swayze stupid. You know, the one that stared in your favourite film Ghost" But Jane is used to this she knows my legendary bad memory for names and faces.

A similar situation happened when the pop group Take That appeared on the show. They'd just hit the charts with their first single and we'd never heard of them. I think they must have found it amusing when Jane, thinking that they were young 'runners', sent Robbie Williams off to fetch her a cup of coffee. Surprisingly he obeyed without a murmur!

It's times like this that you realise that you're getting older

But the star that impressed us most must be the boxer Frank Bruno. When he cottoned on that we were the show's psychics he started pulling Jane's leg about being the 'Vibe Lady'. Frank was pure gold and had us all laughing at his witty quips that were as quick as his punches

We also met the boxer Chris Eubank on the show but he was a little more serious to say the least. He nearly bit Jane's head off when she said "You know money's not everything Chris". Clearly money is pretty important to him. However, we had a very interesting conversation with him about 'the warrior spirit' just before, in serious mood, he strutted off for his interview with Paula Yates

Paula wiped the floor with him

Most of the stars we met were as you would expect them to be. Oliver Reed was looking for the drinks cabinet, Glenda Jackson never lifted her head from the newspaper and Jason Donovan was as immaculate as his posters. Kylie Minogue was a bit of a shock though because you just don't expect a mega star to be quite that small! And super model Naiomi Campbell looked great until she opened her mouth. To camera she speaks in a convincing transatlantic accent. Off stage, her accent is from deepest Streatham.

Tom Jones and his manager son were surprisingly approachable and we enjoyed our dressing room chats with Billy Joe Spears, Rupert Everett and Brother Beyond. Only a few month's ago we'd never been into a Television studio except to take part in Kilroy. Now we were mixing with the stars every week. When Doris Stokes had told me at my private consultation with her that I'd marry a girl called Jane and that together we'd be two of the world's top mediums I never really believed it. But here it was. It had all started to come true.

The Big Breakfast was tremendous experience for us. It was a groundbreaking style of production that required supreme confidence of delivery. The time allocated to do our bit was worked out to the second so we had to get it right first time and, at the same time, let our personalities shine through. We jumped in at the deep end and swam. After the frantic live Television style of the Big Breakfast any other Television we would do would be easy.

Soon our faces were familiar to viewers and there followed a flood of television offers interested in our psychic and mediumistic work. Working for regional, network and cable companies, we soon found ourselves being driven or flown all over the country to take part in various features with a paranormal theme. Some of our predictions on Channel 4 were even screened on Fox Television in America.

We did the chat shows. Comfy pink settees at the crack of dawn. And inevitably we would be asked to demonstrate our psychic skills to titillate the viewers. For This Morning with Richard Madaley we demonstrated flower reading and psychometry successfully and then gave psychic readings to people who rang the show. We were told not to do mediumship as 'it may be a little too serious for a light entertainment show' but considering the pressure to 'perform' our accuracy on the phone was very good.

Richard Madeley felt quite armoured toward psychic phenomena. He admitted that like most people with a journalistic or media training he was taught to be skeptical but believed we 'have tremendous guts standing up in front of a camera and doing what you do. I find it all hard to believe.' On the same show to promote a new book was the famous journalist and one time editor of the Daily Express Eve Pollard who was, to my surprise, very sociable, humorous and apparently open minded about the existence of extra sensory perception.

Fortunately before we'd gone on This Morning we'd already had loads of practice at phone-ins. For nearly a year we had practiced giving telephone readings over the air for our local commercial radio station South Coast Radio. In this case it was a late night show and nobody worried if we talked about the spirit world or demonstrated mediumship. If only mainstream television were so open minded! For The Cheryl Buggy Show we were able to give some really uplifting evidence of survival. It was the sort of heart felt material that could bring a lump to your throat.

Sometimes we could give the full names of the spirit communicator, how they died and an accurate description of their personality. In addition we were able to give exact evidence of stories from their lives. For example I remember one caller, with a Wiltshire accent challenge us to say which musical instrument her father had played before he died. "The bagpipes!!" chirped up Jane. I remember we were also able to tell one caller that he had a leg missing, another that she was looking at a picture of her mother as she spoke yet all we had as a 'link' was an unfamiliar voice at the end of the phone line and the guidance of spirit.

Every time we appeared on the show the switchboard was jammed with calls.

We demonstrated psychometry and did a phone in for Meridian Television's Late Night Live with presenters Penny Smith from GMTV and John Leslie from Blue Peter. For this somewhat hectic show we read the vibrations from various objects including a glass eye! On set we also met our old friend Graham Rogers who's we had got to know when we gave guest appearances on his all night link programme Nighttime.

We did a series of shows for UK Living with Jane Irving, demonstrated aura reading, phone ins and interpreted dreams. For The Vanessa Show we gave readings to people in the audience and interpreted what they were feeling by the colours of their aura. Afterwards there was a heated debate with one man getting quite irate about how people like us are frauds. We all really let of steam and it was an exciting show.

We went on the Richard and Judy chat show and for the Daily Mirror's cable programme L!VE Television I taught astral projection and Jane demonstrated how to use the crystal ball. Normally in television what you say is edited down to just a few minutes but on cable there's so much time to fill that you pretty well have as much time as you like. I even went on News night to make predictions about the General Election.

One show that was a complete disaster was Sky's One to Three. I'd written a feature called 'The Twilight Bone' for The Sunday Mirror in which I related various stories that proposed that pets have a sixth sense. The programme producers suggested that we set up a Television experiment in which Jane and I would use telepathy to will a hungry dog to eat from the bowl of our choice. Unfortunately the woman who supplied the dog fed him just before he came on and, to our horror, continued feeding him tit bits right up to the moment we released him for the experiment.

The dog took no interest in the food whatsoever.

It soon became clear to us that British television is divided into two distinctive camps: 'entertainment and 'documentary'. Unless it's being trashed by magicians, psychologists and journalists, television rarely makes serious programs about the type of work we do. Even the investigative programs are still considered as entertainment. It's terribly frustrating when you consider the spiritual implications of what we are trying to say.

And as the Spiritualists have discovered to their cost, the media just aren't interested in the philosophical gauntlet that proof of life after death throws into the arena. It is almost impossible to put forward a case for mediumship. For a long time the BBC refused to screen anything remotely connected with clairvoyance or mediumship. Even today, a contrary viewpoint from the skeptics always has to be put forward at the same time. I wonder how the public would react if it was mandatory that every time a clergyman expressed an opinion on air then an atheist, psychologist or magician must give an alternative viewpoint. I can see it in the listings: 'Songs of Praise: tonight's programme includes a talk by the archbishop and a demonstration of water walking by James Randi.'

As we have never had a theatrical agent it is perhaps inevitable that we were never paid particularly well for our Television work. The entertainment programs were fun and useful but really we wanted to reach out to people and let them know about the serious and compassionate side of our work.

The opportunity came firstly through the newspapers when I signed a contract with The Scottish Daily Record to write a column idea I had proposed to them. I suggested that I write it in Jane and my name and call it The Psychic Postbag It would answer readers questions about psychic subjects and quote their experiences. The resulting weekly Saturday page was flooded with letters telling sometimes amazing stories. The Scots, perhaps because of their Celtic roots and the tradition of highland seership, were very open to what we had to say and the Psychic Postbag became a lively, informative and sometimes touching column. Throughout Scotland it caused quite a stir.

When Grampian Television's producers in Aberdeen, who had read the column, suggested that I host a serious debate called We the Jury I was delighted to at last be able to put forward some serious ideas. The theme we chose was 'Is there life after death?'. I would put forward my argument then a well known journalist put a contrary viewpoint.

For my witnesses I called doctors (who spoke about out of body experiences), Spiritualists, Swedenbourg followers, the Society of Psychical Research and representatives of different faiths. I had planned the debate well and the usual skeptics, psychologists and magicians in the opposing camp were soon demolished. The telephone poll, that was to decide who had won the argument, was overwhelmingly in my favour. In fact, the presenter said that it was the biggest majority the programme had ever seen.

Perhaps programme makers should note that the public are really very interested in the philosophical implications of clairvoyance and mediumship.

Soon afterwards we were both whisked off to Scotland to be the main guests on Scottish Television's popular programme titled Scottish Women. I demonstrated mediumship to the audience and gave some convincing proof. Jane gave private consultations to some members of the audience selected by the producers. Again without telling us, the same person was also given a 'tarot' reading by a psychologist posing as a clairvoyant.

Afterwards the people who had been given the readings were asked for their opinions. They had no idea that the other reader was a psychologist. Everyone agreed that Jane's reading was spot on but that the psychologist had said things that were so general that it could apply to anyone. When my mediumistic demonstration was picked apart it was found that everything I had said was perfectly correct.

Once again Jane and I had confounded the skeptics.

I can understand why so many psychics and mediums find that their powers aren't there when they try and demonstrate on Television. Producers are sneaky. They tell you that they are making a sympathetic programme then confront you with psychologists, skeptics and de bunkers. You never know what to expect and consequently most psychics are understandably unnerved when this type of thing happens to them on a show. Fortunately, Jane and I have now done so much television that it now takes quite a lot to make us fail. Most of the time we know what to expect.

Another debate that I enjoyed was filmed in Birmingham for Central Tonight. They packed me off to a location that a local psychic had said that a murder had taken place. I was supposed to find the body. I felt nothing and as far as I was concerned the local medium had got it wrong. I met the mother of the murdered girl and I remember telling her that a place by the name of Cromwell was important. The name meant nothing but a few years later dead bodies were discovered at Cromwell Road in nearby Gloucester. They were the victims of the serial killers Fred and Rosemary West. However I've had no direct confirmation that the young girl was one of their serial victims.

Central Tonight was a lively debate which I co-hosted with the excellent medium Stephen O'Brian and argued our case against the unlikely bedfellows of Susan Blackmore, a psychologist from Bristol University and a vicar. Susan Blackwell put forward her usual arguments about hallucinations caused by the temporal lobes and the vicar told everyone what an evil lot we are.

This was not the first occasion we've had been asked to use our psychic powers in conjunction with a murder. Winnie Johnson who lost her son to the serial killers Ian Bradey and Maura Hindley contacted us through the Big Breakfast to see if we could help her find her son Keith's body that had been hidden on the moors since the 1960's. Winnie spoke to Jane who was able to tell her a few things about her son over the phone that had never been revealed such as the fact that he was on his way to the opticians on the day he was abducted.

Jane was able to relay a few of her feelings about the whereabouts of the body but Saddleworth Moors is a huge, bleak place and Keith's body is still unfound. It's a heartbreaking fact that poor Winnie Johnson has scoured the moors every weekend since she lost her son in 1964. She said to Jane "If I could just hug my little boy's bones I would be at peace"

Keith's mum told how she is still haunted by the screams of little Leslie Ann begging for life and crying for her mother that she heard from recordings made by Brady and Hindley. They tortured and sexually abused the tied up children. In the background of the tape could be heard Christmas carols and the barking commands of Brady for the child to pose in sexually explicit positions. For Winnie Johnson the nightmare will never end. Some say that Maura Hindley should now be released from prison. I think not.

One of Jane and my best shows together was Something Strange for HTV in Bristol. For this one we were billed as mediums and were given the opportunity to demonstrate what we're best at- mediumship. We both gave very accurate proof of who we were communicating with and gave the correct names of the spirit person being described. For example I said to one lady in the audience "Your mother's in the spirit. Her name's Alice and she tells me that you've just bought a small yacht and are going to soon open a delicatessen shop" which was correct. And Jane told someone that she knew of "A fireman who had just hurt his back in a skiing accident" which was also correct.

Again there was the obligatory septic. This time they employed a magician who demonstrated sleight of hand to 'prove' that mediums, an particularly materialisation mediums, can employ trickery. Frankly, to put forward an argument based upon a few camera tricks was ridiculous and the audience knew it.

The medium Doris Collins also took part and was filmed giving some one-to-one readings in a private room. I've seen her do better and afterwards she seemed to be very snappy towards us. However, despite this, I believe that all the clairvoyants and mediums who took part, collectively gave some pretty convincing proof that it really is possible to prove that there is life after death.

Working under the hot lights of the studio and being told where to walk and stand and exactly when and how long to speak is of course not the perfect way to demonstrate mediumship. Television producers have no idea how ambient and subtle the spirit voices can be. They wrongly assume that we can switch our powers off and on to order. So when the makers of a programme called The Magic & Mystery Show asked if they could film my circle conducting a séance I was delighted. This time I could demonstrate mediumship on my own territory and surrounded by the supporting vibrations of my circle members. We would have what Spiritualist call the 'right conditions'.

They used the same 14th century hall that I hold my weekly meetings, lowered the lights and tried to film discreetly as I conducted the séance. Next to me that sat the skeptical psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman and opposite me the presenter Nick Knowles who I was to give proof of life after death

I opened my circle in my usual way talking the group through opening the psychic centres and we entered the silence of meditation. The energy in the room began to build. I resisted trance but held myself on the brink as I gave a spirit message to Nick Knowles. As I linked in I could tell that Nick didn't know many people who had died but I felt someone draw close to me who was really close to him. "There's a young man you know in the spirit" I said "He liked motorcycles"

"Yes" replied Nick as Dr Richard Wiseman sat next to me scribbling notes.

"He tells me that he died in Australia and that his name is **** ****" Nick Knowles nearly fell off his seat as I gave him the first name and surname of his friend who's grave he specially visited in Australia. "He says that he was recently engaged to a girl called *** before he died. Her birthday is **th ****. He sends his love and talks about children by the names of ***** and *****. You will be going to America soon."

Everything I had said was 100% except Nick hadn't made plans yet to visit America. I wasn't going to give them a chance to edit out the important bits so I shut up and told them that the power had now left me. I had learnt by now that Television will always edit what you say down to about 3 to 4 minutes at the most. They had to use what I'd said or cut it all.

All Richard Wiseman could argue was that if mediums get something wrong they say "Oh well that must be something for the future". But I'd only put America in the future and there was no way I could have cheated. I also had no idea who Nick Knowles was until they arrived and apparently they only decided to use him at the last minute. Also the spirit communicator wasn't of the Knowles family so he wouldn't have appeared in Nick's family tree. It was impossible for Dr Richard Wiseman to explain away how I knew these names and facts. I'd got em.

But the programme nearly didn't get transmitted at all.

They told me that what I'd said was so accurate that it may upset surviving relatives of Nick's dead friend. More likely they couldn't clear it with the ITC I thought. In order to show my section the programme was moved to late night viewing and they used a bleep to blank out the names and facts when I spoke to Nick. Fortunately however a commentator's voice explained that I'd given correct Christian names, surnames, locations and dates during my reading. But it wasn't quite the same.

I met Nick again sometime later when I was invited to do a telepathy experiment for a show called Put it to the Test with Carol Vordeman. Nick admitted that he'd been extremely skeptical at first but what I had said on The Magic & Mystery Show had astonished him. I blew his socks off again when I did the telepathy test and described in accurate detail what was happening in a clip of film that was being shown only to the studio audience. There was absolutely no cheating and a member of staff sat with me in the green room to ensure that there was no way I could inadvertently overhear conversations about what they intended to do.

The film showed a scrap car race with some cars in flames which I described as 'I feel confined like I am in a roller coaster but there are cars and flames flying. Whatever it is I am moving very fast. It's dangerous but exciting' I did a similar and successful telepathy with an audience for another regional show called the Workhouse for Anglia Television.

Our biggest Television triumph came when London Weekend Television approached us about making a programme. The producer Peter Davy told us that they had seen my first book The Psychic Workbook (Vermilion) and felt that some of the ideas in it would make a super Television programme.

The show would pit us and other psychics, astrologers and clairvoyants against pundits like Simon Hoggart, Angus 'Statto' Loughran and the Daily Mail's own Nigel Dempster to see who would make the more accurate predictions. Our answers to a range of questions about the future would belocked in a secret vault for six months and unveiled on the show. Hosted by Phillip Schofield, this programme would be shown at peak time, after the lottery, on a Saturday evening and would reach a mass audience.

In the January they filmed us making our predictions at the exclusive Hemple Hotel that was founded by a London socialite. The exclusive Hemple Hotel is a favourite haunt of many big stars and is often visited by Michael Jackson. It's a weird place and in my opinion very pretentious.

Outside it just looks like an ordinary small terraced house. There's no signs or anything to indicate that it's a hotel. Instead men (or should I say male icons) dressed entirely black look out for expected guests arriving in their limousines. As you come the front door you are immediately faced with a plain white wall which you move behind to enter the gigantic reception area. This is a huge white room with no furniture or windows. The floors are made entirely from white marble and through the centre of the room runs a long trench of white coals from which rise gentle flames. At the far end is a big white marble slab behind which sits a black clad receptionist. She was completely dwarfed against the whiteness of everything around her. A thought flashed through my head "Did I pack the embalming fluid?" It would be quite easy to mistake this hotel for a mausoleum.

Of course the hotel is based upon abstract art and in particular the ideas enthroned in Minimalism the movement that gave us such great works as piles of bricks or blank canvases. In my opinion this was art with a capital F. We'd have been much more pleased if LWT had spent the money on something useful- such as our fee.

Six months later in June the vaults were unlocked and the predictions we filmed at the hotel were compared to what had happened in reality. By the time it came to the show at the studio and Phillip Schoefield walked onto the set to reveal our results we had forgotten what things we had said to camera six months ago. I know my heart was pounding and so must have Jane's as they replayed the film we had made six months earlier. Would the journalists shame us? We'd got a few very minor things wrong but overall we scored a resounding success with many direct hits. The astrologers and other psychics who took part also did very well but Nigel Dempster and his team of pundits were right with many of the general trends but way out when it came to the specifics.

Jane's hits for 97 included: Michael Jackson will have a baby son, Mary Allwood pregnant, Liam Gallegher to marry Patsie Kensit, David Janson to win a Bafta Award, Victoria from the Spice girls will get married. And some of mine included: Pamela Anderson treated by psychologists for depression, England to win 2-0 to Georgia a car hit by a small meteorite. We also filmed many other predictions which came true but edited out because of time including floods in Bangladesh, palace grounds breached, Serbian leadership falls and riots in Hong Kong- all of which came to pass.

Unfortunately television is looking for entertainment so the real message that we are trying to convey gets lost amongst the glitter and glamour of showbiz. Our mentor, Doris Stokes knew this and made sure people understood the difference between a psychic and a mediumistic powers. She made it plain that she couldn't tell the future. She could of course but by saying this it made the produces and public focus on the real message of her work which is that the human personality survives death. Predicting the football results and whatever could be left to the astrologers and card readers. She was absolutely right and I have learnt how television can turn profound philosophy into cheap titillating entertainment.

I was pleased when Channel 5 rang me up to ask if I'd appear on their 'Espresso' programme and demonstrate my mediumistic powers. The person I was to give a reading to on air was Ellen Jameson who is best known for co-hosting a Radio 2 show with husband Derek. To her astonishment and mine as well I suddenly felt Doris Stokes with me:

'Craig knew nothing about my link with Doris, but he came through to me on the show' Ellen told the Daily Mirror reported who wrote a feature about what happened. 'Craig said that Doris was telling him that the first words she ever said to you were "I'm not a Tarot reader you know". I remember the first thing Doris ever said to me was "Stop doing the tarot cards", and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I was dabbling with them because I'd recently lost my Mum and I was in turmoil. I suppose I was desperate and I'd always been interested in finding out more about the psychic world. We had a sitting together and Doris helped me actually "see" my Mum and hold a conversation with her. We talked about a dancing clown musical box I've had since I was a child that plays the tune Send In The Clowns. Mum was trying to cheer me up, and, over the years the music box has started up several times of its own accord whenever I've been feeling tearful.

'Craig also said that Doris was saying "You're a chocaholic but you're doing well". I was astounded because nobody knew I had battled to give up chocolate two years earlier. Craig also went on to say that I was in the process of painting my living room in a shocking shade of fuchsia which was also correct.

'He then said that Doris had "opened the door" and let my father through, and gave an amazingly accurate description of him. He described Dad as a small man who'd had trouble with his legs before he died, and said that he was quite foggy when he passed over. That was spot on and I was very moved.

'I don't know how I would cope with the loss of a loved one without my trust in mediums. It would seem very strange not to be able to contact the other side.'

It was wonderful to communicate with Doris when I was with Ellen. It was clear the two of them are very close and Doris wanted to comfort Ellen by passing on news of her father. It's wonderful when the spirits can help us in this life, and I think you are a very lucky person if you have a friend in the spirit world.

They loved us when we went on the Gay Burns show in Ireland and I've recently had the Japanese asking questions about our work. I now have regular columns in newspapers all over the world and often write features for top publications such as The Daily Mail, Sunday Mirror, the People, The Record and Best magazine.

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