He has three children and six grandchildren and is a wonderful public speaker available for conference, library and bookshop events. His home is in the middle of Boggart territory and his village has a boggart called The Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church. Believe it or not, the haunted house in The Spook's Apprentice is based on fact! As a child, Joseph lived in a similar house in Preston where he had a recurrent nightmare. In the dream he'd be sitting on a carpet in the front room whilst his mother was knitting. Then, everything would become cold and a shadow-thing would come up from the coal cellar, pick him up and carry him back towards the dark. What's even more spooky ... his brothers had the same nightmare!