Superglue: The surprising (to me) hero of forensics.

 

Superglue is one of the unusual heroes of Forensic Science. In an episode of the BBC’s Death in Paradise, the detective uses it to develop a some fingermarks from inside a pair of surgical gloves.

Did I just say FINGERMARK rather than fingerprint? Well yes, I think the entire cohort I took my course with learned that lesson on the first semester end of term paper – it was  -½ a point for each time we made that mistake.

To be clear:

FINGERPRINTS are the clear, complete images taken at a police station by a dedicated officer.

FINGERMARKS are the dodgy half imprints left behind at a crime scene.

Superglue or rather Cyanoacrylate fuming is primarily used for non-porous surfaces like that surgical glove mentioned about. And of course, the readiest form of cyanoacrylate is superglue. The method was discovered in the late 1970s by the US army stationed in Japan. The cyanoacrylate reacts with moisture to create a hard coating over the lines in the latent fingerprints, and it prevents the mark from accidentally being rubbed away. If you have a big enough ‘fuming cabinet’ it can hold a lot of items that need processing making it a cost effective volume processor for when a number articles are held as evidence. The fuming process produces a faint white mark that requires an extra stain in order to see the print. The vapour also leaves a white residue on surfaces of the cabinet. The fumes from superglue are noxious but not toxic[i].

So who had the brilliant idea about fingerprints in the first place? Sir William Herschel, a British Administrator in India, used fingerprints in1858 to validate civil contracts. The first use in a criminal investigation was in 1891 by an Argentine police official, Juan Vucetich, who used a fingerprint on a door frame to prove a woman had killed her own sons[ii]. In 1901, Scotland Yard adopted the use of fingerprints in identifying criminals, although the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes used fingerprints to solve crimes in stories published before then[iii].

The main issue with fingerprints is they are often ‘latent’, which means hard to see, and require some form of enhancement. The oldest method of fingerprint analysis is the use of silver nitrate. On exposure to sunlight the white silver nitrate, bound to the Chloride in the latent fingerprint, turns black. However, after about a week details in the fingerprint fade and this makes it difficult to make a long-term fingerprint data base. Which is why, nobody uses this method anymore[iv].

The other main method in use at the moment is Ninhydrin dye. Ninhydrin dye is attracted to ammonia and primary and secondary amines – compounds with nitrogen in them – in the sweat residue of fingerprints. The advantage of ninhydrin is that it can be used to enhance a fingerprint on porous paper, as well as the non-porous surfaces that superglue works on. The porous substance is dipped in ninhydrin dye and left to dry – usually for 48 hours but this can be hurried along by warming, as in the case of this experiment. Once dry, the fingerprint is displayed by a deep purple colour called Ruhemann’s Purple, after the man who first noted the effect in 1910. It is also good for enhancing old fingerprints, but the reagents are expensive. As the ninhydrin remains on the treated surface further prints can develop if it is incorrectly handled[v]. Ninhydrin is toxic and an irritant. If gloves are not worn when handling the ninhydrin coated paper then the holder’s fingers will also turn purple.

There are other methods of developing fingerprints but they tend to be more expensive like gold plating the fingerprint, which is long-lasting but not practical for everyday police work. 

For those of you for whom this is not new information, I had never watched an episode of CSI or other serious cop shows. I walked into the Graduate Fair at the University of Strathclyde expecting to sign up for a Pharmaceutical MSc or other Bioscience. Somehow, I ended up getting talked into Forensic Science. I started that course from cold, 30 years after finishing my BSc (hons) Biochemistry, 20 years after I had to give up laboratory work to care for my Autistic son.

And I loved it.

So to me superglue is marvellous, the cheap and cheerful method of storing fingerprints and fingermarks to create a decent database.  

---

[i] Penven, Don. (2015) ‘Developing latent prints with super glue’, Crime Scene Investigator Network. February 27. [Online] available at https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/cyanoacrylate-fuming-a-mainstay-of-crime-scene-investigation.html (accessed 28/09/2019)

[ii] ‘History of Fingerprints’ (2018) Crime Scene Forensics, LLC, Concord, NC; www.crimescene-forensics.com [Online] available at http://www.crimescene-forensics.com/History_of_Fingerprints.html (accessed 28/09/2019).

[iii]O’Brien, James. (2014) ‘Sherlock Holmes: Pioneer in Forensic Science’, Encyclopædia  Britannica, Inc, March 31 [Online] available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sherlock-Holmes-Pioneer-in-Forensic-Science-1976713 (accessed 28/09/2019).

[iv] ‘Chemical detection Techniques’ (2019) Australian police.com [Online] available at https://www.australianpolice.com.au/dactyloscopy/fingerprint-detection-and-enhancement/chemical-detection-techniques/ (accessed28/09/2019).

[v] ‘Ninhydrin – visualizing of fingerprints’ (2019) Eviscan. German eForensics. [Online] available at https://www.eviscan.com/en/glossary/ninhydrin-visualizing-of-fingerprints/ (accessed 28/09/2019)

How Effective Are Pre-Laboratory Videos?

 

How Effective Are Pre-Laboratory Videos?

 

 

Presentation of Poster at MiCER2020 conference.

The Methods in Chemical Education Research held an online conference last year. My MSc supervisor encouraged me to attend the conference and present a poster to show my work. I was lucky enough to have my poster accepted for a presentation slot. These were held on June 11^th 2020 in Zoom breakout rooms – each poster had its own room for 40 minutes. Conference attendees could switch between breakout room.

My poster was to be presented in session A, breakout room 8.

This was the final version of the poster I presented at the conference after taking in the advice from my supervisor Dr Patrick Thomson.

I had a short spiel, which I could keep returning to as people arrived and left the poster breakout room.

“My name is Vanessa Knipe. I’m an MSc Student reading Forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde.  Due to CoV-19 I am unable to do a regular lab project so I have invented this project to fulfil the thesis requirements of the MSc degree programme. As you can see I’m a mature student, due to a career break to care for my Autistic son it has been 22 years since I last worked in STEM, 30 years since I attended University.

“The project grew out of the startling difference in presentation of the subject matter, in fact I found the degree of ‘interactivity’ that modern students expect from their tutors to be very distracting.  In undergraduate practical laboratory sessions, and working in medical labs, we had been required to follow strict standard operating procedures but the MSc practical required interpretation of the instructions. The university provided pre-laboratory activities to help with the interpretation. I felt that the pre-lab videos were the most helpful of those activities and wondered if the other students shared that feeling. Did this feeling show any correlation with improved grades?

“As laboratory-based projects were not possible in 2020, I was allowed to undertake a statistical analysis of the grades of four years of students taking the course culminating in the cohort of which I was a part. In this time one of the practicals had a pre-lab video removed for what were considered good reason, so I could analyse the data of this practical against two controls, one with a video in all four years and the other with no video for all four years.”

As this was a Method in Chemistry Education Research conference, I took them through my intended methods using the simple flow chart shown below.

“Even when I was at University 30 years ago, I loved mathematic and statistics. When I started on this course they introduced me to Excel, which was nothing like the Excel I used to use. I could calculate the standard deviation of over 2000 results in under 2 minutes. I was charmed.

“I was also given permission by university Ethics committee to run a survey of students in my cohort. After evaluating the various survey platforms, they seemed to have similar functionalities, I chose Qualtrics on the basis that the University of Strathclyde already had an account.  This is intended to give me some numerical values which I can compare against the results of my statistical analysis and some written answers to give me a context in which to interpret my results. The written answers will be analysed using the methods of Thematic Analysis made popular by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clark at the University of Auckland.

“I hope to see whether or not the videos have been effective for the teaching of MSc Students, and also to write a script for a new teaching resource for one of the experiments which has no pre-lab video.”

For the actual day I used an outline version to prevent me just reading from a script instead of presenting the poster.

It runs as follows

• ·         I’m an MSc student in Forensic Science
• ·         Due to CoV-19 I am unable to do a regular lab project so I have invented this project to fulfil the thesis requirements of the MSc degree programme.
• ·         It has been 22 years since I worked in STEM
• ·         30 Years since I last attended University
• ·         The difference in presentation of the subject matter in Lectures was startling.
• ·         I found much of the interactivity parts distracting
• ·         The laboratory part of the course required interpretation rather than following strict SOPs
• ·         I felt the pre-lab videos very helpful with that level of interpretation and wondered if other students had the same feeling
• ·         Did this ‘feeling’ about how helpful the pre-lab show any correlation with improved grades
• ·         As I couldn’t do a laboratory-based project I was allowed to undertake statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the videos as my MSc project
• ·         I hope to see whether or not they are effective and to write a script for an new teaching resource for one of the experiments that had no pre-lab video. 

I used this as a basis to run a circular talk which visitors to my breakout room could drop in and out again at the point where I started repeating.

At the end of each cycle I asked if there were any questions.

Two interesting questions were...

Q1 – I’m having trouble engaging my pupils with pre-lab videos, what have you found that helped.

A1 – I suggested that there was a difference between the traditional video that depicted a demonstrator at the front of the lab and the new style of First Person Perspective (FPP) videos using a Go Pro camera. This might help engage reluctant learners if the video was in FPP.

Q2 – As someone trying to do a project in this time, what was the most difficult part of making up a survey?

A2 – I suggested that my research had shown that nine minutes was the ideal length of time for a survey to take and I had difficulty in compressing my questions to fit that ideal time.

Both appeared happy with their answers.

I had an interesting discussion with another person about the usefulness or otherwise of Likert Scale versus sliders in the Qualtrics Survey platform.

 

Eclipse

 On the 20th of March 2015 there was an eclipse that came to about 93% of totality over the house where I used to live in York. 

I had just that Christmas received a new camera from my father so I was eager to try it out. I bought filters and everything.

At 8am the day promised to be absolutely perfect. I sent my son off to Sixth form with two pairs of eclipse specs so that he could share if they let the students out of class to watch. 

Of course the perfection didn't last. 

By 9am the sky had clouded over. And even worse, my special silver filters didn't photograph the sun through clouds. 

Wearing my pair of eclipse specs meant I could see the sun through the clouds that prevented my photography. Oh well, at least I'd see the eclipse, even if I couldn't record it.

That was when I had my bright idea. While the special photography filters didn't work, holding my pair of eclipse specs over the lens gave a sort of red filter that let me photograph the sun through the clouds. 

I achieved a series of shots by using the red filter when the clouds covered the sun and the silver filter when I had a gap. 

This is my favourite one. 

"Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!"

-Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland.

The Intelligence Value of Drug Profiling

 

 What was I doing last year? I was at the University of Strathclyde reading for an MSc in Forensic Science. This post was originally a presentation, now adapted for my blog. 

The Intelligence Value of Drug Profiling

Before I signed up to this course I took the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Forensic Science, run by the University of Strathclyde. While it was mostly about a Murder Investigation, the course content took a little side quest into drugs. In my previous work I did Drug Testing for recovering addicts and thought I knew quite a lot about drugs, but the MOOC taught me one new thing: by profiling drugs, that is identifying their component parts like cutting agents and route specific markers, you could link batches of drugs that came from same clandestine lab.

It is my ambition to communicate science to non-scientists, so I’m taking a slightly different angle.

In order to answer the question of the Intelligence Value of Drug Profiling we have to visit the 3 of the 6 Ws which are so important in a police investigation. Why do we need profiling? What are we profiling? And How does profiling work?

So…. Why do we need profiling?

    Detective Lola Cat is hunting for the source of illegal catnip in her town.

Illegal catnip is pouring into the small Scottish town of Dalry. Irresponsible dealers are addicting innocent kittens to the foul drug. Detective Lola Cat is hunting for the source. Juveniles of all kinds are more easily addicted to drugs and Detective Lola Cat is determined track down the clandestine lab or labs responsible for catnip products flooding the market.

Drug Profiling can help track down the source of illicit drugs

What are we profiling?

Drugs come in a variety of forms

Drugs come in many different forms. They can be tablet based or powders. They can be smoked, injected or swallowed. New products come on the market with alarming regularity. Intelligence is needed to find a link between products and dealers in order to shut down the supply.

Here are a sample of recent seizures of catnip-based products. As you can see, starting bottom left and going clockwise, there are the classic leaf-based products, pellets that are smuggled inside cat toys, edible products and the latest release of semi-synthetic catnip in the form of  sprays. This collection is from multiple different seizures and Detective Lola Cat needs to know if there is a link between them. The way to ascertain if there is a link is by drug profiling.

How does profiling work?

 

Drug profiling’ is defined as the extraction of a drug’s chemical and/or physical properties to be used in the application of policies against the illegal use of drugs. - Forensic drug Intelligence: An important tool in law enforcement.  Pierre Esseiva et all.

With drug profiling it is possible to trace a common origin of the product by looking at the added diluents and adulterants. A diluent is a chemically inert product used primarily to bulk out the drug so that more can be sold. Adulterants often have similar properties to the drug but can be obtained more cheaply and easily.

When the test results come back Detective Lola Cat finds these catnip biscuits have been adulterated with tuna. The analysis reports that none of the other products contain tuna. This Intelligence eliminates the biscuits as coming from the same clandestine lab as the rest of the catnip products and directs the course of the cat police investigation. Detective Lola Cat is looking at two or more clandestine producers of catnip.

Am I being a little silly and not taking this assignment seriously?

 

  Drug profiling - image from University of Strathclyde, Centre for Forensic Science, Future Learn open course website.

 

Not entirely. I admit I simplified a very complex subject matter to fit into a five minute presentation. 

This is how drug profiling works. Chemical analysis of a seized drug can show the ratios of drug to impurities. No matter what cutting agent is added, the ratio will remain the same. Additional analysis identifies the cutting agents. Two samples may have different cutting agents but the ratio of impurities in the samples is the same. That tells us that two different dealers could be obtaining their pure product from the same clandestine lab, before cutting agents are added.

The Intelligence value of Drug Profiling is that it gives the police linking information so they can follow the drugs back along the user/dealer network.*

*Keith Borer Forensic Consultant‘s Website. Available at https://keithborer.co.uk/news/drug-profiling-common-source-what-does-it-actually-mean-your-case  

 

 And remember, Detective Lola Cat urges your vigilance in protecting kittens from the dangers of catnip abuse.

 

 

 

Short Story - Christmas Time

I really hate Christmas. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m no Scrooge or Grinch. Momma Foyle taught her baby boy to love the sleigh bells and the whole candy cane crusted joy. It’s all the other stuff that I hate.

So here I am; it’s Christmas Eve. The carpet in the corridors of this apartment building is good stuff, not what you normal see in these places. Usually my feet tap on linoleum or scrape over the tough carpet tiles you replace in sections when the grime gets too much. No, this stuff my boots sink into the deep pile.

Some kids charge along the corridor and I flatten against the wall – wouldn’t do for them to run into me, especially as they can’t see me. Their mum races after them, laughing. Maybe she catches a glimpse of me – out of the corner of her eye – cos she frowns at the patch of wallpaper I’m crushing my wings against. But she shakes her head and continues with the chase game.

Wings? Yep, well I’ll get to that in a moment, but there’s an itch on my right pinion which makes me thinks that I’ve crumpled a feather.

Anyway, here I am: number 1431. I’ve got this neat gadget that opens any lock so I’m through that solid wood door in trice.

There’s the decorated tree in the corner - check. The client has even put an angel up top – don’t I loathe those insipid little harp players that get all the good PR. Its wings flutter in a breeze.

There’s a phone flung on the floor, screen up showing a text message from her BFF. A once beautifully wrapped parcel has been stomped flat and broken watch parts driven into the fibers.

Since the messages are telling her that her fiancé is screwing around on her, it’s no surprise that the draft in this room is from where she’s opened the door to the balcony. She’s perched on the rail. Tears leaking down her cheeks.

I wander out and lean on the railing to watch. She’s kneading the balcony rail as she sits there, still not sure she’s going to do the deed. I press the right point on my necklace pendant thingie and the invisibility falls away. 

She gasps – it takes most people the same way when their Guardian Angel appears as if by magic. We do these fine tricks with time; to the clients it looks like spells but it’s pure science.

I scratch at my head. “I agree red’s a real festive color, but not splattered over the sidewalk.”

Her mouth drops open. “But…”

“And look see down there. Y’all would land right on Santy Claus’s head.” I point out where Santa is swinging his bell and calling out for some Christmas charity.

“But…”

People point up at the balcony where my client is considering ending it all.

She’s staring at me, not the audience. “You’re from Texas!”

Some people have to point out the obvious, don’t they? “Seems like, hon. you know, if you edge this way, you could still jump and miss landing on Santy Claus.”

“Aren’t you supposed to talk me off the ledge?” She’s starting to get cross now. That’s good.

“Nope, divine grace ‘n’ all that – you wouldn’t want me to override your free will.”

“Bastard! He cheated on me!”

“Bastards do that. What they really like is when the girl they cheated on ends it all. It feeds their bastardness. Trick is finding a partner that ain’t a bastard.” I make a play of checking my watch – not that I need to worry about being on time. “Can you make a decision? ‘Cos I got another appointment in ten.”

She stares at the rail she’s sitting on surprised, like she hadn’t noticed she’d climbed on it. She clenches the rail tightly.

“Can you give me a hand off here?” She’s starting to quiver – cold? Fear of heights? Probably both if you ask me.

“Sure.” I grab under her elbow – I’m strong enough and it don’t do an angel’s rep any good to be caught groping a client – and steady her as she swings her legs onto the safety of the balcony. She staggers inside.

Seeing the cell phone, she slumps to the floor wails again. “I thought he loved me! What do I do now?”

I slide the door shut against the cold. “If it were me, I’d call that friend and get her bring over a quart of ice cream and a bottle of wine.”

I’m reaching for my pendant again.

She stares at me. “You’re not what I expected in a Guardian Angel. I mean, I never thought they came from Texas.”

I fade out of her view. As she’s calling through to her friend, I slip out of the door and head on to the next appointment.

Now when someone says Guardian Angel to you, I’ll bet you’re thinking all golden hair and snowy swan’s wings, aintcha? No need to blush. I never was a blond even, when I was alive. Your wings match your coloring, so my wings grew in like a tawny owl. Now y’all are screaming about the word ‘alive’ – how they tell it to us when they recruit us as angels, we’re the ones who died all untimely so they’re givin’ us the chance to ‘live’ out our full life span bein’ useful and helping other people who shouldn’t die out of their allotted time.

I’m no ghost.

Well not normally, but at Christmas I guess we have to do the redemption thing. My next appointment wasn’t going to be all that fun. Mostly cos it takes so long to preen the dust and cobwebs outta my wing feathers.

So I meet up with Holger – he’s kinda my mentor angel, he recruited me, but that’s a different story. It’s midnight now. Did I mention we play with time – so for some fella it’s gonna be midnight three times tonight.

Holger helps me on with the shroud-like cloak – it’s murder fitting it over the wings. “You’ve got a broken feather back here.”

“Huh?” I flap the right wing, sure enough I feel the drag of a broken plume. “I have to clean up after this anyway. I’ll preen it out then.”

“It goes with the scary costume.” Holger scatters dust and cobwebs over me. “Now remember to keep your mouth shut.”

“I don’t see why the Ghost of Christmas Future has to keep his mouth shut.”

“It’s scarier and tonight we get to terrify the man into better behaviour. And who is ever scared of your Texas accent?”

What is so odd about a Guardian Angel from Texas?

No one tells me what we are scaring the fella out of, but as I walk into his personalized nightmare he’s gibbering from the previous visitations. Yep, I’m the tall, silent one who gets to show the victim his grave and all the people giving Eulogies on the theme ‘thank goodness he’s gone’.

I tumble him back into his bed at dawn – nifty time tricks again – and he’s all about giving his money away to charity.

Yep, this angel gig is fine sometimes, but just once in a while I miss my home. But that’s the one thing they warn us against.

With Holger’s help, I shed the cloak and take off for my stomping ground in Houston to pick the cobwebs outta my wing feathers.

There’s not much traffic around on Christmas Day so I head over to the Sam Houston Park – ain’t nobody climbing off of their sofas today.

My Angel sense twangs – someone’s in danger!

There’s this woman carryin’ a heap of presents sidling between two parked cars. She’s gonna get splatted, on Christmas Day. I go from a standing start to sprint in like 0.2 seconds. I ain’t going to make it. Hands jump to my pendant – I can stop time if I have to – and I’m the only thing moving in the grey world.

Everything is lined with a rainbow halo, but the colors on the cars and the people are gone. Jumping on the hood of the nearest auto I haul the woman out of the way.

Time speeds up again.

A pick-up races past – the speed limit’s 20mph here and he’s way over.

“You saved me!” Then a gasp.

I look down – I’m staring into the face of my Momma. No really, it’s Momma.

“An angel!”

Momma is never lost for words, but I sure am. She studies my face. “Why do you look like my son, Jack?”

“Under stress, you can often see the most reassuring thing.” I can bullshit with the best.

“So I see you as my son.” She smiles at me and rummages in her bag. She holds up a candy cane. “Thank you kindly for my life.”

I take the red and white striped candy cane – I know my mouth has dropped open; no one thanks us or gives us presents.

“I’ve always known my son was a fine man – he makes for a good angel.”

She gets into her car. She glances round, but I’ve got the invisibility on – I don’t want her seeing my tears. I wanna go home and feast on turkey with Momma and Poppa and my sister and her kids.

They warn us never, ever go home, never try to contact your family – to them you are dead.

Somehow the longing sends me through time and I’m walking up the steps to Momma’s house. There’s the old porch swing – I used to kick back with the gang and a crate of beer on that bench.

Car horn – my sister’s old Buick pulls into the yard. The house door bursts open Momma and Poppa race out. Two kids clamber out the back and run for Gran and PawPaw.

I jump out of the way. No point being trampled.

My dad, Pawpaw, swings the boy up to his hip and crouches to give the girl a hug. The kids drag him inside – they want to see what Santy Claus has left under this tree for them.

Momma kisses my sister’s cheek. “I saw a strange thing on the way back from Church this mornin’.”

“What d’ya see, Momma?”

“An Angel pulled me out of the way of speeding car – it looked just like Jack, talked like him too.”

“Like Jack!” My sister don’t believe I’m the sort they make angels from. “Did Father Jenkins put an extra ‘sweetener’ in the communion wine today?”

“Don’t you cheek your Momma.”

Voices call from inside – the kids are gettin’ impatient about their toys.

“I’d better get in there and sort them – Angels, honestly Momma.”

Momma has a sad smile on her face. I pluck out that loose wing feather – I blow it with a kiss towards her. As I let go, the feather loses invisibility.

She catches the feather and touches it to her lips. “It’s nice to think that when I get to heaven they’ll be angels who talk like I do.”

At least my Momma don’t think it’s odd an Angel comes from Texas.

Holiday on the Other Side

Holiday on the Other Side

It is the first night of your holiday and you settle down in your comfortable bed. You wake in the middle of the night. The window is open and all the covers pulled off your bed. That is what happened to a tourist who stayed at one hotel in York.

         When my late husband left university he worked for a time in the York Tourist Industry. He ran a ghost walk.

By some counts there are as many as 500 hauntings within the City Walls, and more in the surrounding area. That makes York the most haunted city in the UK, maybe even the World.

There has been a city here since Roman Times. With all the churches and graveyards it was always going to create a liminal space, which touches on the spiritual world, even if there was not one there already.

So let us start our brief Ghostly Tour at the very beginning of York, or rather Eboracum as it was called by the Romans. The very meaning of the name is evocative, the Place of the Yew Trees. Yews are found in graveyards all over Britain.

In1953, Harry Martindale, then an apprentice plumber, was installing a new heating system in the basement of the Treasurer’s House. A horn sounded in the distance. Then solider in Roman dress rode through the brick wall on a great cart horse. His shoulders sagged and his face was lined in despair. Marching after him was a column of worn-down legionaries, using their spears as staffs to keep them going.

And the strangest thing of all? They were all marching on their knees.

Later excavations discovered a Roman road about 18 inches below the cellar floor.

More recently, in 2006, a driver, returning home from work, saw a rider on the road near the Four-Alls pub on the A64 rode to Scarborough. He pulled out to pass, as a good driver should, and saw the rider wore fancy dress: appropriately enough, as a highway man. Checking in his rear view mirror that he had not spooked the horse, the driver became spooked himself, for the figure, horse and all, had vanished.

Locals say Dick Turpin, the notorious highway man, still rides the night in Yorkshire.

 

While you walk within the old city, check out Mad Alice Lane – they have renamed it now to Lund’s Court. Some people have seen a grey figure drifting along that covered walk, lamenting that she was put to death for poisoning her husband.

Then there are the Royal Ghosts. The shade of Catherine Howard, who was beheaded by Henry

VIII, has been seen walking through the buildings of the King’s Manor where she is said to have conducted her affair with Thomas Culpepper in 1541. Unusually she walked through a new building, the Principle’s House. Investigators realised that she was walking in her old rose garden, which old plans located on that spot.

And finally, and most worrying for all you tourists, there is the Barghest. Don’t walk alone in the snickleways of York. Locals are safe from this huge black dog’s predations. It feeds on lone travellers, taking the shape of vast black canine with a white face – some say that the head of this ghastly dog is a skull.

If you do choose to visit York, bring a recording device. When you sense a ghostly presence, turn on your recorder for an hour or so. Then play it back at highest volume. Maybe, just maybe you’ll hear voices that weren’t audible to your human hearing.

But for those of you who are here for the shopping you’ll be pleased to know that Marks and Spencer have relocated from their haunted premises in Coppergate.