But, in the end, he didn’t have to.

Since launching the Morpeth Ghost and History Tour, Mr Murphie has kept a log of experiences, such as sightings of faces in the windows of empty buildings, and people standing alone who suddenly felt invisible fingers touching them.

All of it has been substantiated in reports by different people on different nights in the same locations, and none of it can be logically explained.

But most surprising, particularly to Mr Murphie, is the role digital cameras have come to play on his tour.

Through the view finder, new technology brought with the digital age captures orbs that are frozen in time by snapping the camera shutter.

Mr Murphie tried to explain them as being dust or moisture in the camera, or perhaps a trick of the light.

But more than one camera captured the same brilliant energy at the same time, in the same spot, and enlarging the orbs revealed clearly defined faces.

Through his painstaking research on the town’s history before launching the business, Mr Murphie says he believes a particularly brilliant white orb in the grounds of St James Church is the spirit of Bishop Tyrell, and a blue orb in the backyard of Campbell’s Store is 10-year-old Thomas Cantwell, drowned in a long-buried well.

Since he began earlier this year, Mr Murphie has led 26 tours with almost 100 participants – and even the non-believers have come away shaken.

“The thing I like about my tour is that I’m a sceptic,” he said.

“I’m not a psychic; I’m not trying to make people see things that aren’t there.

“When people say they’ve seen something, or felt something, I ask them to tell the group what they saw, or what it felt like.

“And usually it’s what I’ve heard before in the same spots.”

Mr Murphie said two children on the tour had seen a woman inside the same Swan Street shop, staring back at them through the window, and several women had reported being touched as they sat on the memorial bench behind St James Church.