Colin Fry is happy to be a medium. He sees it as a gift and a way of helping others, and he's long since learned to live with the sceptics, he tells Steve Pratt.

PSYCHIC medium Colin Fry pays no attention to those who are sceptical about his line of work. After 26 years of communicating with people who have passed over - "died" is a four-letter word in his spiritual book - he's learned to live with the doubters.

"Why do they put so much of their time and energy into something that's such a negative pursuit?," asks the man who brings his Happy Medium show to York Grand Opera House this week. "I gave up arguing with sceptics a long time ago. I'm not trying to do anything to convince them, I'm doing too much of an important job."

Colin became a part-time medium at 17, although his mother had noticed his "gift" years earlier. As a child he acquired a spiritual friend at a time when other youngsters might have an imaginary friend.

"My grandmother was a medium and my mother recognised there was something going on with me and that I needed to use my gift properly," he recalls. "I have a lot of people in the spiritualist movement to thank. They recognised my gift and guided me appropriately."

He spent 18 years working in the carpet trade before becoming a professional medium. The turning point was seven years spent caring for his stepbrother, who died of Aids.

"It was the effect of looking after him and his passing. I was grief-stricken. I resigned there and then from my job," he recalls.

He doesn't regret waiting so long before becoming a full-time psychic. When he was younger, he asked a trainer what made a good medium. "She said you need to have some joy in your life and some grey hair. At 16, I thought that was the most patronising thing, but realise now she was right," he says.

For every sceptic, there's someone wanting a link to a departed loved one. How else to explain the soaring popularity of Fry's programme, The Sixth Sense, on Living TV, and of his stage tours?

This is all part of his plan "to put the normal back into paranormal". His skill is to communicate with spirits, decipher their messages and share them with those who have lost people dear to them.

Touring helps fulfil public demand. Visiting spiritualist churches and small stage presentations wasn't enough. He prefers live shows to TV, partly because he has to make four Sixth Sense shows a day, which leaves little time for talking to the audience.

"We have 100 or 150 in the studio and I can only deal with two or three. There isn't a chance to talk to people," he explains. "With a stage show, there's meet and greet afterwards. That can take up to another two hours. I'll stay until the last person has gone."

Interest in spiritualist mediums has always existed, but has increased in this new millennium with people "looking for another dimension in their life", he says. "They want to know, where has my mother gone? And my dad? What's going to happen when my time comes?.

"At one point, it was ladies of a certain age who came to the shows or congregation. Now I look out into the audience and see families who've come with small children and people from all ethnic backgrounds. I don't think there's been a time when so many men came along. It has captivated so many sections of society."

Television has been wary of allowing spiritualists airtime. Fry believes there should be restrictions, while thinking some are "over the top and quite offensive".

"Obviously, we are asked not to put out things that would disturb people too much. But I would have to say that children and teenagers are some of my biggest fans," he says.

"It's breaking down one of the last taboos. You can talk about sex and other things that didn't used to be allowed, but the authorities have these severe restrictions about the one thing that happens to all of us - passing over.

"People individually are interested and, without wishing to be too controversial, some of the major orthodox church bodies have more power and more say over things than they should have considering less than one million people are regularly attending Christian churches.

"I would go to a church in the West Country and find it quite sad that I'd have a congregation of 150 to 200, and you would see half a dozen walking into the church next door."

Fry very much believes his gift is for the use of other people. "I can't give messages to everybody at a show, but if people come along with the idea they're going to be part of a shared occasion, everyone does get something out of it," he says.

"About half the audience stay behind for a quick chat and, hopefully, I will get a message during the signing. We don't contact the dead. I don't think they are dead, just eternally living."

Colin believes there are many people who have the ability he has but don't use it. Part of his time is given to teaching at the spiritual college in Sweden that he runs. "I'll carry on touring as long as I'm wanted. Doing television too," he says. "But, ultimately, my future lies in training other people to develop their gift," he says.

* Colin Fry's Happy Medium tour is at York Grand Opera House on Friday and Saturday, and September 15 and 16. Tickets 0870 6063595.

Published: ??/??/2003