When I first saw 1 Jubilee Terrace in Scalby with my wife, Kathy, we thought it was going to be our ideal home. We met in 1983 while working at the Elder Street daycare centre in Scarborough. I proposed to her within five days and we married six months later when I was 24 and Kathy was 22.

Scalby is four miles from Scarborough, in North Yorkshire, where I was born. It has two shops: a newsagents and a fantastic deli. No 1 Jubilee Terrace was our first married home. It was a lovely two-bedroom cottage, built in 1887, with a long garden. It was £17,500 and we stretched ourselves to buy it with a 99% mortgage, which was a phenomenal £145 a month.

Within a week of moving in, we discovered the house had a ghost. It was when I was in the back garden that he first struck. I heard some banging on the back upstairs window. I looked up and in the room was a man in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dark trousers. I ran inside but the house was empty.

The ghost also tried to get in the bathroom when Kathy was having a bath. She locked the door and suddenly heard the sound of someone shaking the handle. As soon as I got upstairs, the rattling stopped.

The taps turned on and off, so I had the plumbing checked, but there was nothing wrong. Lampshades came off the light fittings upstairs and bounced down the stairs into the lounge. Our dog was terrified and wouldn’t go upstairs. We felt we were being watched.

Kathy is an ex-copper and not easily spooked but she felt something wanted to get her. When she retrained to be a nurse and worked nights, I was so scared I slept downstairs. I felt like my life was being plagued by a supernatural force for about 10 months; I was ill with stress.

I went to the local vicar, Canon Chris Tubbs, who had married us. I told him we felt there was a presence in our house. He said: “You’re a Christian, all you have to do is pray.”

We went home, read the scriptures, prayed and told it to go. I remember screaming: “In the name of Jesus, leave this place.” It worked immediately; the atmosphere lifted and we felt a great sense of relief. I now believe it was a spirit of somebody departed who hadn’t moved on and a poltergeist — a malevolent spiritual force. I was ordained in 1995 and have done about 25 exorcisms and 50 house blessings; I invite the Holy Spirit to dwell in a place and say prayers for peace. I do a pastoral visit afterwards to ensure the spiritual force is gone and I’ve never had a dissatisfied customer.

Following the exorcism, we enjoyed life in our lovely cottage. I trained to be a policeman and in 1987 we moved to Pickering, where I was stationed as a police officer. Property prices were going up and the Scalby house was worth £26,000. We didn’t have to advertise because someone heard we wanted to move, knocked on the door and we agreed a price.

I never thought I’d be a writer when I lived there. In 2002, I started Shadowmancer, which has a deliverance in it, and there are evil spirits and poltergeists in Wormwood. I’ve signed a nine-book deal with Faber and received advances on the films.

We’ve looked at mansions, including a house for sale at £1.7m. My 13-year-old daughter, Abigail, said: “That house is too big. Can we have a normal house?” I’ve recently bought a bog-standard four-bedroom house in Scalby outright for £300,000.

I’ll be working as a priest until October and after that I’ll be doing it for free; last year I was ill with heart problems so my doctor advised me to take it easy. God has a great sense of humour. If I hadn’t got my book deal, I’d be living off £400 a month pension. I’ve got everything I could possibly want: a beautiful wife, three kids and a nice little house in Scalby.

The Wormwood audiobook (CD and cassette, £13.99) is published by BBC Audiobooks (0800 136 919, www.bbcshop.com). Interview by Louise Johncox

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