Author Joe Robinson did not believe in ghosts and thought the stories were just the result of an overactive imagination. But then he decided to satisfy his own curiosity and spent several years researching for his book Oxfordshire Ghosts. Joe talks to George Frew and says he is now certain there is something out there . . .

This is it. The night of the phantoms, the eve of the demons, the time when we celebrate the supernatural. Like Christmas, Easter and just about any other annual event you care to mention, Hallowe'en has become commercialised to the point of parody, writes George Frew.

Still, what better night of the year to take a look at local author Joe Robinson's latest work, Oxfordshire Ghosts, described as "The first factual book to detail the original and very real events behind the present day legends of west Oxfordshire".

Out in Witney and round Minster Lovell, down by Ducklington and in the environs of Long Hanborough, something wicked this way comes or something spooky, at least.

For according to 70-year-old grandfather of four Joe, west Oxfordshire is one of the most heavily-haunted places in the county, populated by the shades of headless horsemen, murder victims entombed inside brick walls, child-brides who perished in linen chests and the spirits left behind when the legions returned to Rome and the Dark Ages came rushing in. "My mother came from Leafield and I remember her coming out with all these tales," smiles Joe, who has also published Wychwood, The Secret Forest, a slim volume of elegant verse containing a rich mixture of folklore, legend and social commentary.

"Before I wrote Oxfordshire Ghosts, I was a total sceptic," he admits. "But what impressed me was that the people who were telling me these tales didn't actually care whether I believed them or not. But although I've never seen a ghost myself, I've still seen and heard too much to remain sceptical."

The tales Joe Robinson heard at his mother's knee were to eventually lead to the poems featured in Wychwood, but it was by talking to the people of west Oxfordshire that he came to write his latest book.

A former commercial manager prior to his retirement, Joe's love of words is perfectly conveyed in his accounts of the supernatural. "My favourite story concerns Mary, of Long Hanborough, who was married to a farm labourer and whose husband was said to have died in the plague hospital and whose life savings of 200 were stolen. She is said to haunt the place, looking for her money.

"But the whole area is rich in haunted detail and history, from the Roman skeletons found at Ducklington to Dragon Hill at Uffington, where St George is said to have slain the dragon of legend."

Joe's book is a collection of tales featuring missing coffins, spectral monks, wizened crones and devil-worshippers. The haunted sites in question range through Witney, Minster Lovell, Finstock, Long Hanborough, Charlbury, and Shipton-under-Wychwood and walks which the reader can undertake are detailed.

Fifty per cent of Joe's royalties will be donated to the Sobell House Hospice Raising The Roof Appeal, along with five per cent of the publisher's royalties.

One of the most tragic tales in the book concerns Genevieve, the so-called White Lady of Minster Lovell, who, sometime in the early 18th century, died on her wedding day, aged just 16. At the wedding party after the ceremony, the guests were playing hide and seek and poor Genevieve died after becoming trapped in a linen chest.

"I don't think I'd be frightened if I ever saw a ghost," says Joe. "Well, maybe at first but it would be an experience.

And what better time to have that experience than tonight Hallowe'en...