Perched on a sofa in a typically middle-class living room in Surrey, Nicola Hart bows her head and wipes away the tears rolling down her cheeks.
She has been talking about Barney, a dearly departed friend who she lost to cancer, for 15 minutes.
Although he died 17 years ago, Nicola feels the pain of his loss acutely and has paid psychic Sarah Gumbrell to contact her soulmate ‘on the other side’.
‘Let it go. You need to forgive yourself and move forward. I’m so proud of you,’ is the message Sarah passes from Barney, at which Nicola nods gratefully. Barney, it may be hard to believe, was an eight-year-old golden retriever.
Seeking solace: Nicola Hart, left, asked animal communicator Sarah Gumbrell to help her contact her beloved lost pets
‘He still comes to see you and loves to sit in his sunny spot in the garden, keeping an eye on everyone, like he did in the old days,’ says Sarah.
Barney came into Nicola’s life when she was 19 and recovering from a traumatic illness; she was on holiday in France when she suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst which nearly killed her. Unconscious by the time she reached hospital, she underwent major surgery and it was touch and go whether she would pull through.
Recuperating at home, Nicola’s parents bought Barney in the hope he would cheer her up. ‘He became my best friend,’ says Nicola. ‘He gave me a reason to get up. When he passed away it was awful. He was covered in lymphomas and in a lot of pain.
Medium: Sarah said she has received messages from Nicola's pets
Barney isn’t the only pet Nicola, 45, a reflexologist and mother-of-two from Box Hill, Surrey, has spoken to in afterlife.
Nicola had a border collie called Basil who barely left her side when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour 13 years ago, for which she underwent surgery and lost her left eye. She came across Sarah speaking at a conference about posthumous communication, so decided to give it a try. The results, she says, were startling.
‘Sarah passed on a message from Basil that my son, Jack, should continue his cartoon drawings.
'That afternoon we had come back from Portsmouth University where he was about to begin a degree in animation. People will be sceptical. But it means the world to me and I believe Sarah is genuine.’
While Nicola’s experiences may sound ridiculous to some, she is not alone in her admiration of pet psychics. Britain’s fascination in animal spiritualists was brought to the fore recently when Coronation Street actor William Roache appeared on ITV with psychic Jackie Weaver, through whom he ‘spoke’ to his late Jack Russells, Poppy and Harry.
Missed: Nicola's golden retriever Barney, left, and border collie Basil, who she has tried to contact through a pet psychic
‘Animals are very telepathic,’ Roache told them. ‘With your dogs you know when they look at you there’s things going on, so I want to know my dogs better.’
For Nicola, her experience with an animal psychic has been a huge comfort. ‘I was very sceptical at first. It still doesn’t make any sense to me,’ she says. ‘But Sarah told me things she couldn’t possibly have known.
‘The comment about the cartoons blew me away. Then she talked about the mad five minutes Basil and Monty, my cat, had every evening. They’d run around like lunatics — only our family could have told you that.’
That Sarah, 43, from Caterham, Surrey, is one of hundreds of animal communicators in the UK speaks volumes about our appetite for spiritualism. But while many genuinely believe they are helping owners, and there is no suggestion Sarah is anything other than genuine, others are not so scrupulous.
A survey revealed more than half of Britons believe it is possible to communicate with the dead, and the psychic industry is worth an estimated £100million a year in the UK — £10million of which is made up of animal communication.
But while some pet psychics, like Sarah, truly believe in their vocation, the industry is riddled with opportunists seeking to make a fast buck.
Taking advantage? Other pet psychics offer services on premium rate phonelines
And the opportunists are catching on to the potential for exploiting animal lovers. Even the reputable practitioners can take the breath away with their promotional activities.
Jackie Weaver’s website is emblazoned with endorsements from celebrities and media appearances and gives the user countless opportunities to spend money on books, workshops and consultations.
For £65 she will talk to your pet (alive or dead) with nothing but a photograph to prompt her.
Consultations are done over the phone, for convenience and, one imagines, to reduce overheads.
This is normal practice for animal communicators, keeping their costs down and profits up. Sceptics might feel Nicola’s traumatic life experiences make her susceptible. Yet she maintains the £25 she paid for Sarah’s services was money well spent.
Other pet psychics offer services on premium rate phonelines. Russell Grant, the celebrity astrologer, hosts a ‘call a pet medium’ service for £1.53 per minute ‘plus network add ons’.
Believer: Actor William Roache appeared on This Morning with psychic Jackie Weaver, far right, through whom he 'spoke' to his late Jack Russells, Poppy and Harry
Its operators are paid according to how much money they can squeeze out of clients — the staff training document reads: ‘The longer you keep the callers on the phone — the more money you earn!’
The only redress for those who feel ripped off is to take their case to Trading Standards, though how they can prove an individual does not have psychic powers is a moot point.
Funeral for a friend
Animal lovers are forking out £100 million a year on funerals for their pets, with 200,000 owners paying for ceremonies each year
They trawl the internet for appeals for help by traumatised owners and ring up to offer their services.
One person with first hand experience of the process is Dawn Maw, who was inundated with calls after she offered a £10,000 reward for the return of her missing pedigree pointer Angel. ‘I’ve had enough Mystic Megs on the phone to last a lifetime,’ she says. ‘All they’re after is money and sometimes they won’t talk until they’ve got it.
‘One said Angel had been kicked in the ribs, bashed over the head with a shovel and was slaving away on a puppy farm. Angel is spayed — she has never had puppies and never will. What does it achieve to tell people horrible things like that?’
Colin Butcher, a former policeman who runs the private investigators Pet Detectives, says psychics contact pet owners in the majority of cases he deals with.
‘People who are searching for lost pets are very emotional and extremely vulnerable,’ he says. ‘They are a prime target for unscrupulous people claiming they have the power to communicate telepathically.
‘At one point a client had us searching all the farms in the High Wycombe area where they milked sheep because a psychic had told them their dog regularly walked past one of them. We spent two days on that wild goose chase.’
There is no doubt many working in this field believe in their vocation. Many more, however, are out to make maximum financial returns for minimal physical effort.
It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see there may be trouble ahead.
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