A dream about the death of Princess Diana just hours before her fatal car crash sparked a five-year quest by a North-East writer to find out more about premonitions.

Dan Jenkins reports on his remarkable discoveries.

THE death of Princess Diana in the early hours of August 31, 1997, had a profound effect on millions of people across the world. But it sent a unique chill through Cliff Goodwin - he had dreamed it all the night before.

"I went to bed and had a dream that I was her press agent, " he said. "We were in France and I was walking beside her.

"Suddenly, dozens of paparazzi descended with flashing bulbs. I remembered putting my arm around her and pushing them back.

"We were forced into a tunnel, she fell and the crowd fell on top of her."

In the morning, he got up, made a cup of tea and switched on the radio, to hear that Diana and Dodi al Fayed had died in a car wreck in a Paris underpass.

"What startled me the most was the obvious similarities between my dream and the actual events and this shook me into wondering where it came from, " he said.

Already a successful writer, having published biographies on North-East author Catherine Cookson and Carry On comic Sid James, Cliff began researching dream premonitions in between other projects.

Working from his home in Tanfield, near Stanley, County Durham, he has interviewed more than 200 people who claim to have had warnings in their sleepof world disasters.

What he has uncovered over the last five years is a growing body of evidence that he believes suggests such dreams are not mere coincidence, but proof of latent psychic powers.

Premonition dreams have been reported throughout all recorded human history. The Assyrians and Babylonians depicted them on clay tablets and they were accepted in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

The Old Testament is littered with dreams at times of crisis, or warnings of future dangers, such as the series of dreams by the Egyptian Pharaoh, interpreted for him by Joseph.

FROM the sinking of the Titanic to September 11, people have claimed they have had dreams warning of the disasters, sometimes months before.

The Beatles classic Hey Jude came from a Paul McCartney dream and the late Johnny Cash also claimed to have dreamed his enduring Country and Western hit, Ring of Fire.

While some would argue that it is easy for these modern-day prophets to speak up after the event, Cliff believes he has found enough evidence to persuade even the staunchest of cynics.

One of the most compelling tales came from the diaries of a man from Slough in Berkshire, who recalled dozens of dreams about the Munich air disaster. In his journal, he describes in detail the plane crash that devastated the Manchester United football team, known as Busby's Babes, in February 1958.

"He had dreamed about the pilot looking out of the cockpit window, watching men from the ground crew out on the wing of the plane, who were playing snowballs.

"The pilot survived the crash and was in hospital for five months before he died.

One day he was visited by his son and he told him about the snowball fight.

"That is a purely personal memory shared only with his son and did not appear in any media reports from the time.

There is no obvious explanation as to how a man from Slough came to know this."

He is compiling the results in a book entitled The Playing Fields of Time. The name comes from a theory expounded by scientists in the 1920s. It suggests that our concept of time is moving along a footpath that runs from corner to corner across a square playing field.

Sleep at a certain level allows us to leave the path and run around the field - essentially seeing into the future.

"This is not my definitive version of why and how, nor is this a dream interpretation book" he said. "I am just trying to collect in as many experiences as I can."

A former journalist, he still writes every word on a typewriter. "I have lost so many files through cock-ups on a computer that I gave up on them, " he said.

This quirk has grown into an unusual hobby and he now collects the machines that the silicon chip made redundant.

"I think they are a part of our industrial heritage that is worth saving - I've got around 40 now.

"They don't suck the words out of you in the same way a lap top does and you have to think laterally because you can't erase mistakes just by pressing a key."

While his research is complete on the "big" disasters and premonition dreams from celebrities, he now wants stories from everyday people to round off the book.

He cites the example of a retired miner from Ashington, Northumberland, who got in touch after hearing him on a local radio station.

"This man had an allotment and, about 22 years ago, his wife lost her wedding ring on it. They searched for it, but couldn't find it. Then, long after his wife had died, he had retired and given up the allotment, he had a dream.

"He dreamed that he was back at the allotment, was digging and found his wife's ring.

"He woke up and at four o'clock in the morning, persuaded his son to come round with a shovel. They went to the allotment, the old man paced out the exact spot he had been digging in his dream and went to work. A few inches down, he found the ring."

The Playing Fields of Time: A Dream Traveller's Handbook, is due to be published in autumn next year.

Anyone who would like to contribute a story about dream premonitions can contact Cliff Goodwin on (01207) 284929, or e-mail cliff. goodwin@btinternet. com