I have been thinking about the nature of my blog, where it is going, and what I need to do with it. A brief glimpse at my yearly stats told me that readers here are generally interested in my posts about being a housewife and working mother, and about vampires. Hmm, interesting combination! And one that I am very happy to provide content for.

And so, for my new followers and visitors to SpookyMrsGreen, who exactly am I? Well, my name is Catherine Green, and I am a housewife and mother of two. My children are both under the age of five, which is why they dominate my attention at present. But I have a darker side as well… don’t we all? I am a paranormal romance author. And I hunt ghosts.

Yes, by day I masquerade as the dutiful English mother and wife. I do the preschool run. I wash nappies, I tend to the baby, I chase around trying to clean a perpetually messy house, and I walk the dog. Oh, and I cook (occasionally), and I organise my work-obsessed husband. All that while grabbing half an hour here and there to get on the computer and update my blogs, or do some social networking, or research my latest project, or simply write my stories.

But around all of this I am an author. I have four published novels. The first three form a trilogy, and introduce us to the Redcliffe novels series. This is the story of Jessica Stone and her adventures in the pretty seaside resort of Redcliffe, Cornwall. I am currently working on book 4 in the series, and things are getting pretty steamy with the werewolves let me tell you!

And, don’t worry, there are plenty of vampire shenanigans to entertain and excite my readers as well. In fact, my fourth published novel, The Darkness of Love, tells the story of how our favourite bad boy Marcus Scott became a vampire under the rule of his Victorian lord and master…

*Stay at home Mother image courtesy of Babycenter; Always the Quiet Ones image courtesy of Pinterest

I am pleasantly surprised by the stats for my blog in 2014. Truthfully I expected a drop in viewing figures, since I dropped off the blogging radar and lost focus for a while. But, it seems that my hard work and effort at producing informative, entertaining content in previous years has paid off.

My most popular posts are ones from 2012 and 2013! Apparently, that means I have staying power. That is good news for me as an author! My books will continue to thrive long after I expire some time in the distant future… Well, if you are interested, here is my WordPress report:

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,800 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Today draws to a close a very difficult year for my family, and an exhausting time for me. We celebrated a very quiet Christmas, and we were lucky to be able to bring my father-in-law home from hospital for the first time in nine months. He had to return to hospital in the evening, and it was a tense day due to the nature of his condition. But the important thing is, he came home, and we all made the most of the day.

Aside from serious accidents and subsequent recovery, I have been dealing with other emotional and mental health issues within my family unit, from many different sources. None of these have been resolved, because they will take time to heal and manage, but that is ok. It is difficult, but we are working to improve our situations, and that is all we can do. We are only human, at the end of the day.

I have spent some time reflecting on the year, and right now I am happy that we are still here, we survive, and we evolve. I will not be participating in any extravagant celebrations for New Year. Instead I look forward to a quiet evening at home with my husband and children, when he returns from work. We are all recovering from a particularly nasty cold virus, which I am pleased to say is retreating after almost three weeks, phew!

All that is left to say now is thank you my friends, for your continued support on my blog. I feel I have not been present this year as much as I would have liked, but I also accept that it had to be this way. I move into 2015 with renewed vigour to continue my healing process, to develop my business, and to be Mother, Wife and Friend. Happy New Year!

*Image found via Pinterest

With his blond hair, ice blue eyes and sculpted physique, Marcus Scott immediately turns the heads of everyone he encounters upon his arrival in London at Christmas time. Unbeknownst to all the women and men who fall under his spell with just one glance, Marcus is a vampire with a desperate need to feed from the young and the beautiful. When he unexpectedly encounters the Lady Amelia Richmond, the vampire instrumental in his own transition, the two begin to plan a holiday feast to satisfy their deep hunger.

Christmas with the Vampires

Christmas with the Vampires is a special seasonal Kindle short story that you can download now. Have a very merry festive holiday my friends!

Some of you might already be familiar with the Redcliffe novels. If you have already read them, I wonder if you have tried my historical vampire romance novel, The Darkness of Love? This tells the story of Marcus Scott, who made his appearance in my Redcliffe novels, and then proved to be rather a forceful character. So much so that he now boasts a novel telling the story of his initiation into vampirism, and he has a seasonal short story in the form of Christmas With the Vampires.

The Darkness of Love tells the story of Victorian stable hand Marcus Scott, and his adventures in love with his master’s wife. Lady Sarah Stockton is a beautiful woman, and Marcus dreams of rescuing her from her gilded cage so they can live happily ever after far away from the Stockton estate. But neither of them are aware that Lord Gregory Stockton is using them in his own game as he secures an heir to his fortune and an unwilling protege in his eternal existence.

Hello my friends, and welcome new followers of my blog. It has been a little quiet over here lately while I worked on my NaNoWriMo project whilst juggling the ever present domestic dramas of daily life. So it is that you might not yet be familiar with the Redcliffe novels. Well, allow me to introduce you to our  heroine Jessica Stone, her mysterious new boyfriend Detective Jack Mason, and his identical twin brother Danny…

In Love Hurts (A Redcliffe Novel) we meet bookshop owner Jessica Stone, a happy young woman living in an idyllic English seaside town with her best friend Elizabeth Gormond. Jessica’s life begins to unravel when she meets a sexy police detective, Jack Mason, as he inadvertently draws her into the midst of an unresolved undercover mob operation he was infiltrating with his identical twin brother Danny.

Book 2 in the series, Love Kills (A Redcliffe Novel), picks up the pieces of Jessica’s shattered life. She just discovered that she is in love with a vampire, and that his brother is the local werewolf pack alpha. Not only that, but Jessica’s close friend Simon has revealed his own secret double life. What lengths will Jessica reach in order to protect her relationship, and what secrets will she uncover about herself in the process?

The conclusion to this trilogy comes in Love Redeems (A Redcliffe Novel). Jessica is a changed woman in every sense of the word. Her life will never be the same again, and now she must decide if she really can stay with her vampire lover, or whether she is safer simply to walk away now. Love is strong, emotions run high, and Jessica is tormented by her own inner demons as she makes her choice and accepts the consequences.

Tonight, like many thousands of people in the UK, my husband and I are watching Sports Personality of the Year on BBC1. I am not interested in sports and never have been. I prefer the arts, hence my passion for writing and crafting. But for some strange reason, I always have to watch this award show, and I cannot fail to be aware of major sports activities around the world as I listen to BBC Radio 5 Live almost every day.

Anyway, I have seen the heartfelt support for our famous sporting heroes who are currently ill with serious brain injuries following accidents in 2014. I am talking about Michael Schumacher and Jules Bianchi. Now, I do not profess to know anything about these men, apart from what I hear on the BBC news programmes and across social media. However, their accidents came at a very strange time for my family.

You see, on March 9th 2014, my father-in-law, Steven Green, had a serious cycling accident while out on a routine Sunday morning training ride in the Staffordshire Moorlands countryside. It came as a complete shock. I mean, he did have a cycling accident in January 2013, but that was an isolated incident from which he recovered sufficiently enough to cycle from Lands’ End to John O’Groats in May 2013. Oh yes, he is my sports personality of the year!

My father-in-law rediscovered his favourite hobby back in 2010, and since then he has cycled in Sportive challenges all across the North West of England and in London. He cycled Coast to Coast in 2012. And he did the big challenge, Lands’ End to John O’Groats in 2013. His challenge for 2014 had been to cycle the length of Ireland in September, but that wasn’t to be. Following the accident back in March, where he was airlifted to hospital and spent a month in Critical Care, he remains in hospital. We don’t know when he will return to full health. He was pretty much unconscious for his 60th birthday. But he is a fighter. And we are certain he will return to us in time. Until then, I would like to say that I am very proud to be your daughter-in-law. And Merry Christmas, Steven Green.

Good afternoon my friends, and happy December! Wow, I cannot believe we are here already, almost at the end of another year. Actually, I say that every year. It’s bizarre, how time ebbs and flows… Well, enough pondering. I am buzzing from the achievement of finally completing #NaNoWriMo2014, and ahead of schedule. I did it! My word count came in at 50,197 when I validated my novel. It is not finished. I still have to write the end sequence. But that doesn’t matter. After the disappointment of giving up NaNoWriMo in 2013, I feel that I am back on track and raring to go. Let’s get some more novels published!

And, while I am on the subject of books (it’s a recurring theme with me), I would like to invite you to two events taking place next week. The first is called #ReadTuesday. It is the antidote to all of the crazy hype over #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday, and is an all-day event which is very simple: We ask that you consider buying books as gifts from independent authors and small publishing houses. We need your support! I thank you in advance if you decide to partake…

The second event takes place on Facebook, on Wednesday 10th December. The fabulous author Mary Martinez invites you all to join us for a winter celebration with the Becketts. Who are the Becketts? Well, pop along to our party and all will be revealed. I will be there throughout the day, and I will bring along the vampire Marcus Scott from my novel The Darkness of Love, and my Kindle short story Christmas With The Vampires. There will be a select group of authors involved, and you have the opportunity to win books, swag and special offers from under the Beckett Christmas tree. See you there!

Phew! It has been a tumultuous week, my friends. It stared with me being the epitome of the writer in despair. Head in hands, grumpy and tired, I whined and complained because I just couldn’t get it. My novel was not working. The words were not flowing. And the worst part? I could feel them, simmering, somewhere just beneath the surface. But they were stuck. And I was frustrated.

As the week progressed and my mood worsened, I decided to take charge of the situation. I can’t fix the sleepless nights when my daughter refuses to settle. I can’t force my husband to take a holiday from work even though he desperately needs one. But I can write my novel for #NaNoWriMo. And that is what I am doing. Emerging from the desert of writer’s block, I got a grip. I sorted it out. I wrote.

Hooray! I am so excited about my work now that I feel physically exhausted. My mood has gone from exhilaration to despair, from sadness to joy, within a very short space of time. Right now I actually feel quite queasy, and it’s because I am channeling the heightened emotions of my protagonist, Hannah Oakley. She just killed her first vampire in ten years. She thinks her hunting partner is dead, killed by the vampire they were chasing. Her husband has no idea about her work, and he is sitting at home with the children, about to receive a phone call from the hospital. What happens next? I don’t know. But I will post a sneaky excerpt over on my author blog, Catherine Green. Take a look…

*Frustrated Writer image courtesy of Flickr

Last week I had a holiday in Scotland with my children and some friends. We had a lovely time. We stayed on a good old-fashioned family caravan park, we visited the town of Ayr, the city of Glasgow, and the Cocoa Bean Chocolate Factory near Kirkcudbright. It was both relaxing and busy as we tried to fit in activities for the children, R & R for for the adults, and enough sightseeing to feel we made the journey worthwhile.

I set my friend a challenge while we were away. I am back in the  groove with my writing, and currently working on book 4 in the Redcliffe novels series. I have been working on  it for almost a  year  now, and it remained untitled, simply listed as Redcliffe book 4 in my computer folder. I wanted it to be something a little different, something that represents the nature of the story, and something that still makes sense next to my first three books in the series: Love Hurts; Love Kills and Love Redeems.

Love Hurts (A Redcliffe Novel)

My first novel, Love Hurts, was named after the classic rock ballad by the band Nazareth. My friend had brought along her rock ballad CD for the car. We listened to every song, and she would randomly shout out, “How about this?” “Would that fit?” “There’s a title!” Nothing worked, so we spent our car journeys half listening to the children chatter, and half listening to the songs for inspiration. Our efforts were rewarded. I now have a title. Thank you, Jo!

Here it is, drum roll please…. Book 4 in the Redcliffe novels series is called Eye of the Tiger.

*White Tiger image courtesy of Animal Kingd0m 

It has been 5 years since I visited the Lancaster Grand Theatre, so in honour of the season, here it is. This is the diary of my first Halloween ghost hunt…

I love this venue and cannot wait to return again. The building actually seems very unobtrusive and not very grand from the outside. It is still used for productions but once you step into the auditorium you can’t help but feel the anticipation of everything that has gone before.

During our walk-round I could actually feel the anxious energy of previous performers over the decades in the backstage area and I felt very jittery myself. I led a séance on the stage, and as we sat in a circle in the dark we all felt strong cold blasts of air across our hands and around the edges of the circle, as though the spirits were walking around us curiously. We heard a shuffling sound at the door leading to the basement dressing rooms and knew that we were the only people in this area, so it was most definitely spirit activity.

The dressing rooms apparently had a reputation for being haunted and for making people very uncomfortable. So we decided to test them for ourselves! We started in one small room which was very cramped, and when we turned the light off and tried to communicate with spirits everyone in our group felt very uneasy. After only about 5 minutes we decided to move on. In another dressing room we tried to be a little braver and we spoke to a woman using dowsing rods. She wanted us to leave. We asked her to give an obvious sign like making a loud noise or showing herself, so she pushed the man holding the dowsing rods. He jumped forward with a shout that she had touched his shoulder and we agreed to leave!

When we stood in front of the stage I sensed a woman in one of the upper boxes. She appeared to be a lady of title, and was waving, apparently to the crowd sat in the seats below. She seemed unaware of our presence so I believe her to be a photographic memory in the building, an old-fashioned unconscious haunting. I asked my colleague and medium Gemma if she could see anyone in the stalls and she nodded and said yes, she had already seen the woman when we first arrived.

Upstairs in the bar area there is a huge mirror on one wall and when we entered the room we could clearly see small handprints across the bottom of the glass. We watched the theatre manager clean all of the marks away while he told us that there were stories of child ghosts in there. Later we returned to this area and the bottom of the mirror was streaked with tiny handprints and finger marks! I had not seen this phenomena before so was very impressed. Eventually while in the upper stalls we spoke to a child named Emma via the dowsing rods. She responded to my sister Emily who was the youngest person in our group and Emma seemed comforted by her. We think she was approximately eight years old.

When I first walked into the central aisle of the upper stalls I had an overwhelming fear that someone would push me down the stairs and over the balcony. It was so strong that I found myself hurrying to the side and literally holding onto the handrail as I pressed my back to the wall! It was an irrational fear but I was not comfortable at all in that upper area. While up there we checked that all the seats were in their upright positions and then after a walk around we found that some of the seats had been moved into sitting positions. I wasn’t the only person who felt this uneasy in the central upper aisle, a couple of fellow ghost hunters experienced the same irrational fear and we heard from the theatre manager that there was a story about someone who fell over the railing and died as a result of their injuries many years ago. Again there was no obvious ‘conscious’ spirit presence so I think this was another memory imprinted in the energy of the building.

We finished the night with some attempted table tipping on the floor in front of the stage, and then a few people sat in seats in different parts of the ground floor area to see if anything happened. The table did move a little for the people that were using it, and I think it was the spirit of a friend of theirs communicating. At this time I had chosen to sit down in the main theatre and watch what was happening but I found that I suddenly went very drowsy and had to stop myself from falling asleep! Now this might have been due to the late (or early!) hour of the night but I was interested to notice that I felt quite comfortable here and as though I was surrounded by friends, even though I was in a place I had never visited before with people I had only just met, and we were in the darkness with just our torches. Obviously there were more friendly spirits in this theatre than there were malicious. We were roused from our quiet mood by the sound of a bell being rung in the theatre lobby. I went out with a colleague to investigate, wondering if maybe somebody had walked past outside and rung the doorbell, but we found no bell and all the doors were securely fastened. It was also long past pub closing time and any late-night stragglers would not be likely to have been passing the theatre.

So it was a very active and exciting night in the Lancaster Grand Theatre. Here I experienced various forms of spirit and ghost activity, one of which was new to me, so it was a very rewarding investigation.

This was a very strange place to visit. As soon as I walked through the large front door I felt unwelcome and that its inhabitants did not want our presence. The spirits wanted to be left alone but we couldn’t help but interfere with all good intentions.

Our Medium channelled a Lady in one of the bedrooms. It was very strange watching him take on a female persona and I could almost see her superimposed over his body like a shadow. She was not happy that we were in her room and she took a particular dislike to one of the men in our group. She was generally very hostile. In the same room we contacted a slave boy named Charles using glass divination. He was afraid of the Lady and didn’t speak to us for very long.

In another room the glass we were using starting twisting under our fingertips and we spoke to the mother of one of the men in our group. It was very strong. We then asked if my friend’s deceased sister was present with us. The glass seemed to hesitate and then moved very weakly as though the spirit was struggling to gain enough strength to move it.

Later in the hallway we decided to attempt table tipping and the table was pushed about a foot across the floor. During the whole of this investigation I felt very unwelcome and could almost feel the spirits pushing us out of the house. I actually would not want to revisit this venue because I know that they just want to be left in peace and I do not want to disturb them again.

*** I actually visited this venue for a Mind, Body and Spirit event in 2012, and the atmosphere was totally different. It was light, friendly and welcoming, although I feel this was because the living visitors purposely avoided communicating with the dead. I simply gave my regards, and moved about respectfully as I enjoyed the day.

*Walton Hall Gardens image courtesy of Cheshire Now

This location has to be the most active place I have personally visited. It is here that I experienced my first physical ghost manifestations and the memories are still vividly etched in my mind! It is interesting to note that the building itself isn’t very old, dating back to the 1930s I believe. It was a theatre in its first existence, and over time it morphed into Rileys Snooker Hall with Butterflies Nightclub in the basement. Situated on the end of one of Oldham’s central shopping streets it seems an unlikely venue for a ghost hunt but inside it is full of surprises!

We began our investigations in the abandoned nightclub in the basement. The previous landlords had done a moonlight flit about 6 years previously we were told, and we were surprised to find crates of Schweppes Orange Juice bottles that had just been abandoned along with odd glasses, cocktail sticks, and all the tables and chairs. When we first walked around the large room me and two other people saw the figure of a man standing in a doorway behind the bar. He seemed so solid that we ran around to investigate, expecting to find a caretaker or stray ghost hunter but there was no one there! When we switched the lights off there were odd flashes from the fake torches on the walls, as though someone were flicking the switches on and off, but we knew this was not possible as we were locked in from the inside and had switched the lights off ourselves.

There were twelve people in our group and we decided to sit in a circle on stools on the dance floor. We felt surrounded by people yet we were the only ones there. It felt like there was a big party happening all around us, almost like an echo of previous big nights out for local revellers. Suddenly my heart leaped as I saw the disembodied face of a young man just above a speaker that was suspended from the ceiling. It was totally unexpected yet I was suddenly really excited! He seemed to be in his twenties and had spiky blond hair and a cheeky grin on his face. I had certainly never expected to see an actual floating apparition especially so soon in the night! I saw his image for only a few seconds but he knew I had seen him.

After a while we moved around the room and I sat on a bench against the wall near to the bar area. As I looked across to the balcony leading to the entrance I saw the same man but this time he was leaning casually on the railing as though watching people on the dance floor. When he saw me looking he grinned again and then proceeded to lean further over the balcony and pull faces at me almost as if he were drunk and having fun with me! I was intrigued! He seemed quite handsome and not in the least scary or intimidating. I did start to get a little nervous when he moved from behind the railing and I sensed him walking around the bar towards me. Then some plastic carrier bags rustled near me and I lost my nerve and moved closer to someone else in my group.

During a break my friend and me went into the Ladies’ toilets near the club entrance but the atmosphere was so uncomfortable we barely stepped through the door. The trigger object that had been placed in that room earlier had moved and the whole entrance and toilets/cloakroom area felt very oppressive. During the next vigil a few of us decided to sit in this vestibule area. I sat in the spot where I had seen the young man earlier. It felt to us as though the spirits had moved to the other side of the room and were watching us from across the dance floor. It was almost as if they didn’t want us intruding on their party. As we decided to move again we heard a tap running in the Ladies’ toilet and then a toilet flushed in the Gents’. On investigation we found there was no water plumbed into either room as it had been disconnected when the building closed down.

Later we spent some time in the derelict rooms in the upper floors of the building, adjacent to the snooker hall. I was amazed at how much disused space there was and it seemed such a waste. Perhaps there was a supernatural reason as to why it had not been developed for public use…? Using glass divination we made contact with a woman named Isabella who was murdered. She used to work at the nightclub and had been having an affair. After we spoke to her a male spirit came through but he was reluctant to tell us about himself. We believe he was the gentleman that Isabella had the affair with and that they were both murdered when the truth was discovered.

We moved into another abandoned room, which used to be the main theatre, and as we stood in a circle in the dark I saw a Harlequin clown stood in the middle holding his belly and laughing. He reminded me of ‘The Laughing Man’ at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and I wasn’t in the least afraid of him! I could then see him on a unicycle going round the circle and juggling and when I told everyone the Medium started laughing and said he had dropped a ball! After that we explored the old kitchen area and encountered a very territorial chef who told us all to leave. We did as we were told!

Another unique experience I was lucky enough to enjoy was to climb up onto the roof of the building and see the view across Oldham and Greater Manchester all lit up on a Saturday night. We had some fun watching drunken people on the streets below and we couldn’t resist making a few ghostly noises to confuse them! I thoroughly enjoyed this event not least because it made a change to your average haunted house.

*Rileys Snooker Hall image found via Google Images

My very first overnight ghost hunt! I arrived at the site very excited and a little nervous, not least because I didn’t know anyone else there. I soon felt at ease with North West Spirit Seekers and was chatting with a couple of other first-time ghost hunters over a cup of hot coffee in the base room. We were all very impressed with the beauty of the Tudor building and couldn’t wait to explore.

Our investigation began in the kitchen. This is laid out in the medieval style, as it would have been back in the day. There is a huge fireplace with large pots and cauldrons, a tiled floor, and an enormous scrubbed table in the centre. Looking around you could almost smell the smoke from the fire and see the kitchen maids and cooks rolling pastry and carving meat to serve to the Lords and Ladies. Our group sensed movement in the inner chamber leading from the large room and we noticed that the herb rack hanging from the ceiling was swinging even though there was no breeze. Once we sat in a circle on the floor the rack became still as though someone was waiting for us to say something… The Medium could see a man and two children in the room with us but they seemed reluctant to communicate.

We then moved into the Tudor Room. Here we used glass divination and spoke to a man who claimed to be Sir John Radcliffe, his daughter Elizabeth and a maid named Jane. Sir John told us he died in battle at Crecy, his children died of illness when they were nine (Elizabeth) and eleven (his son). He told us that his wife committed suicide while consumed with grief and depression. The maid, Jane, knew the children as she was a carer during their lives and she appeared to be a kind, friendly woman. Sir John would only answer our questions when we addressed him correctly which we found quite amusing! Elizabeth seemed quite playful and jolly. Two members of our group had sensations of their hair being pulled and movement around them, which was very interesting. We also sensed a terrier running around us, possibly a former playmate for the children. Generally the atmosphere was happy and welcoming, a nice family home environment.

Next was the Great Hall where there was a boy hiding behind the suit of armour near the large fireplace. He was afraid of a man in the house. He made contact with us via the glass but only for five minutes and he was very weak because of his fear. There was a spotlight on one wall, which flashed on and off, but we couldn’t get any information from the boy. He soon disappeared.

Our next room was the Star Chamber, which is a beautiful medieval bedroom with an original four-poster bed in the middle. It was named because of the lead stars set into the ceiling, which are very impressive to look at. We all sat on the floor, and suddenly we started giggling uncontrollably, almost like group hysteria! It wasn’t something I have experienced before but was quite funny! Then the atmosphere changed and became oppressive. We sensed an intimidating presence. The Medium told us it was a man near one of the doors and he was purposefully upsetting the women because we weren’t supposed to be in there. We found ourselves moving closer together so we were almost sitting on each other before our nerves failed and we all scarpered!

We retreated upstairs into the Main Chamber. I liked the atmosphere here even less and everyone else agreed with me. Two people in our group felt physically sick and the Medium heard a man telling us to ‘f**k off’. He was a very grumpy man who did not like intruders in his house. A few braver people in our group attempted table tipping but I didn’t want to take part, as I was afraid of what would happen. I really did not feel comfortable in this part of the house.

I decided to return to the Star Chamber but positioned myself away from the door where we had sensed the nasty man before. I had my jacket zipped close around my neck and kept my back to the wall but I was determined to stick it out to the end! The Medium sensed a Lady Margaret trying to show herself in the darkened room and throughout the next hour we saw tiny twinkling lights around the room, shadows as it grew lighter and darker (even though the heavy curtains were drawn completely across the window) and we felt fluctuations in the temperature. At one point we sensed a hooded figure in front of us and I saw someone stood by the fireplace, possibly a man but all I could see was a silhouette. The terrier and the children from earlier came in and out at intervals and lightened the mood.

I left Ordsall Hall with a promise to myself that I would return one day (still waiting!) and the knowledge that ghost hunting is what I was born to do. It really is a beautiful and active building and I am really happy that its history still lives on even after so many centuries have passed.

*Ordsall Hall image courtesy of BBC News Manchester