How a couple found true love after death...

Losing loved ones was the start of their beautiful relationship. It led to them combining their talents and taking their psychic skills around the country, and it also culminated in them getting married in 2005.

Spiritualism runs in Tracy's family. Her mum and brother were enthusiastic followers but she was a sceptic. "I was the fly in the ointment!" she laughs.

She believes her mum turned to spiritualism seeking answers following the loss of a child. "She lost a baby five or six months into the pregnancy and was distraught," says Tracy. "That's what brought her into it. She went searching for some sort of peace."

Tracy's brother Nigel suffered from schizophrenia and sought spiritual healing to help with his illness. Tracy accompanied him to some meetings, she developed an interest and became a medium herself. But when Nigel took his own life by throwing himself in front of a train the night before his 30th birthday she began to doubt her beliefs.

"He drew me into spiritualism, he encouraged me to go to the circle he went to," she says. "I think it was successful in a way, it brought him into social contact with people and he had people to turn to, but you could argue that it wasn't successful because he killed himself."

Similarly, Paul's interest in spiritualism stems from his father committing suicide when Paul was a teenager. He sought answers from a well-known spiritualist and was told he could be a medium.

Paul and Tracy met when Tracy and her mum went along to one of Paul's spiritualist sessions after Nigel had died.

Paul mentioned Nigel and Tracy's sister, who used to sing with Nigel when he played keyboards. Paul also picked out Tracy - who had arrived later and was sitting in a different part of the room to the rest of her family - and told her not to give up her work as a medium.

"I'd been thinking of giving it up because it had knocked my belief. I had banished the spirit world out of my life," she says, referring to Nigel's death.

Tracy and her family went home much happier after seeing Paul, and Tracy met him again when he went to her mum's spiritualist church. "We became friends and that's how it began," says Tracy.

Paul was caring for a disabled friend at the time in his home town of Doncaster. "I'd call Tracy but we were just friends. She had her life, I had mine," says Paul.

Although he had had relationships he admits being a spiritualist can be lonely.

"You're travelling the country and people only want you for what you do because it's intriguing. It was nice to l From facing page meet someone who was enthusiastic, supportive and not after anything."

Tracy was married to someone else, but her friendship with Paul developed and they started swapping spiritual messages. Soon they were reading each other's thoughts and minds!

"That fuelled the friendship, we'd say what the other was thinking on the phone. We still do it now!" laughs Tracy. She started working with Paul but found that travelling the country doing psychic sessions put a strain on her marriage.

"Everywhere we went was selling out. We wanted to spread our wings and go further afield, but that took me away from the family home," she says.

Eventually she and her husband decided to part. Later that year Tracy was dealt another blow when her dad died from cancer. "Paul supported me through everything," she says.

"We were spending a lot of time together and adored each other as friends but after my dad died I felt more for him than friendship."

Tracy asked Paul about his feelings. He admitted he felt the same way but didn't want to put a strain on their working relationship. "I cried for three days!" she laughs.

Discovering someone who cared about him so much shocked Paul. He was eating a pork chop Tracy had cooked when he decided he'd have to act or risk losing her.

"Nothing came between me and my food but that did!" he laughs. "I thought losing her would be awful. I slammed my plate down on my lap and said We'll give it a go'."

Tracy adds: "We had a few years where we did less spirit work because we wanted to settle down. After we married we took it up again."

Now the couple are two of Britain's top mediums, working across the UK and overseas.

They have given live messages to television and radio audiences and have a huge following of dedicated fans.

The couple aim to educate people about psychics and mediums. They say psychic energy surrounds us all, some are simply more sensitive to it than others.

"I was brought up to know there are no such things as ghosts then I started to have experiences when I'd had my daughter. I went to live in a house that I believed was haunted," says Tracy, who recalls being frightened when her bed lifted up one night.

She admits to being a slightly reluctant psychic. I asked whether she's concerned about being possessed but she says mediums have methods to protect themselves from the spirits.

"The bulk of what we're about is saying to people that death is not an end," says Paul.

One of their most poignant psychic sessions was with a mother who sought their help following the death of her young daughter from a brain tumour.

Her testimony to the couple's talents is one of many on their website. "It was mind-blowing," recalls Paul "We relived the last few months of her little girl's life with her."

They accept there will always be sceptics. "Until people have experienced it for themselves they'll always think of a reason for it to be untrue," says Paul.

"I was a sceptic and I've ended up doing it as a job!" says Tracy, who worked for the civil service before entering the psychic world.

"It makes us think thank you' for bringing us together and for us doing this work. It's been a massive life changing experience, but with a sad beginning."

l You can watch Tracy and Paul in action when they bring their show - The Psychic World of Paul Norton and Tracy Hall - to The Priestley, Chapel Street, Little Germany, on Saturday March 10. For tickets ring (01274) 820666 or for more information about the couple visit their website at www.paulnorton.org.uk