'We call him Uncle Albert'

G ARY Fowler got a bit of help setting up his Internet site - from Albert Einstein. He writes down poetry dictated by John Lennon, and the day after George Harrison died, Gary was able to introduce a friend to the former Beatle and the two shook hands. Tommy Cooper and Kenny Everett are regulars at his shows, but not just anyone can turn up.

"It is only the people you have some sort of appreciation for that come close to you," says Gary. "I don't have a great love of Frank Sinatra and I don't see anything of him, but I love Benny Hill and he comes on the shows. I'm in contact with Albert Einstein - we call him Uncle Albert because he works with us. Most famous people who die and who are spiritually minded join our team."

It would be easy to be cynical and dismiss this softly-spoken Teessider as either deluded or a charlatan, were it not for the fact that everything is said so matter-of-factly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be speaking to both the author of the Theory of Relativity and a comedian who made his living chasing scantily-clad young ladies around public parks.

Even when making his most fantastic claims - that he can literally cause one of his "team" to appear in front of an audience - he is so sincere that you cannot but think that he believes it.

"I once had a dream that I went out to see some people and did some sittings for them. I got lost and got the A-Z out and saw a white van and found the address. I went in the house and did the readings in a bedroom and then woke up.

"Two weeks later, I was going to do some sittings and had a bath before I went and when I got out of the bath I felt disorientated, and then literally did the whole evening again, from the white van to the bedroom. That tells you that the past, present and future are all now. I thought that if I can dream that whole evening, that means the future is not where we think it is, it must be right now, along with the past and the present."

The 31-year-old, who still lives in Stockton, made quite a name for himself as a medium, performing all over the country. But for the last 15 months he has been lying low, taking time to recharge batteries, exhausted by a relentless round of shows, sittings and impromptu readings. Now he is returning to the stage, as well as plotting a number of other projects.

"I just needed a bit of time out to sit and reflect on what I had done. There is no worse pain than grief, it destroys lives and if I can bring a little bit of life and hope, even though I fully believe in what I do, from a psychological point of view it is beneficial.

"I have had people who have been to psychologists and I have spent 20-30 minutes with them and it has made them feel better. It has maybe not solved it, but just knowing that someone is OK, is safe, seems to be a major issue."

His own theory is that our brains are just computers, powered by electricity from our minds. When we die, we go into a different dimension, but that electricity is still there, just tuned into another frequency. This other dimension is made up of everything we have dreamed of during our lifetimes. As well as contacting the dead, Gary also claims to be a bit of a healer. Part of his show is dedicated to summoning people with ailments onto the stage and channelling his energy into them.

"It is almost like starting a car. When I'm on stage I'm like a fully charged battery, so when people come on I connect to them but their own body needs to kick-start itself. I don't heal them, I'm just giving their body instructions to start up. I don't profess to be able to heal everyone, but it does help."

But what promises to be the most unusual part of his show is the transfiguration - where the audience sees the face of a dead person in front of them. This particular phenomenon requires special lighting in the ultra violet spectrum, otherwise presumably the face doesn't appear.

"Where there is a large audience with a lot of energy, they can manipulate that energy and materialise the face of someone who has passed across over my face."

He used to do it with celebrities, but now he is planning to pull people up on stage so they can see the face of their loved one at close quarters. He is also planning to launch his own radio station on the Internet, with ambitions to have his own TV channel.

His gift first became apparent when he was about four or five, when he used to wake up and see figures standing at the end of his bed - "It was very frightening at the time" - he admits, but it drifted away, came back when he was 14, drifted away again before coming back for good when he was 21.

"I was more intrigued than frightened, I thought it was fascinating. I can sit in a friend's house and I feel they have got a call coming through and five minutes later the phone rings, and that isn't a shock. I can hold someone's keys and tell them what their house is like, what colour their wallpaper is. But on a day to day basis I have got to live a normal life and I have got to have a valve I can switch off.

'I get a great amount of comfort and joy out of it, but I also get pain and problems. It is a blessing in a lot of ways, but it is also a curse. I have been through times in my life when I just wanted to fit in, but everything else I do doesn't work, so I go back to it."

Of course he knows a lot of people are sceptical about what he does, but he says that doesn't worry him at all.

"At the end of the day I know it is right, and when you know something is right you are not bothered about what other people think. It is their loss, and if they don't listen then so be it. I don't want them to believe it, I want them to understand it, because in the end it will all be explained scientifically.

"But even if you view it as a load of rubbish, if it helps someone and is a positive influence in someone's life, then how can it ever be wrong? If you get results then that is what matters. If I have saved one person in my life it would have been worth it, but I have saved thousands and I know I have helped a lot of people."

*Gary Fowler appears at Billingham Forum on Thursday, March 21, 8pm. Tickets from (01642) 552663. More information from www.garyfowler.com