WHEN there's something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?... Stan Hulme and friends!

The group of spook sleuths, made up of a retired serviceman, an insurance clerk, and a photographer, is coming to a haunted house near you.

Comprising six amateur enthusiasts, Clitheroe Paranormal has been set up to record, and investigate, other-worldly activity in and around East Lancashire, where recent TV drama series Sea of Souls' has fuelled interest in the supernatural.

Armed with almost £1,000 worth of ghost-hunting equipment, including heat, motion and electromagnetic field testers, the group is now on the lookout for haunted venues to investigate.

They came together after founder member Alun James Day, 38, put an advert in a local newspaper asking for people to join a paranormal investigation team.

That team is retired RAF serviceman Stan Hulme and his wife, Ann, both 62; Alun; photographer Andrew Smith, 35, and his insurance clerk wife, Lynette; and Ray Parkinson, 59. Stan, who ran a pet shop in Preston, lives in Highfield Road, Clitheroe.

He said: "We don't want money, or publicity, we just want places to investigate.

"We are all very rational people, and I certainly bring a dose of healthy cynicism. We have already done a number of investigations in the North West and, when we have encountered something that can't be rationally explained, there has been no screaming or hysterics.

"It's not like on that Most Haunted' TV programme. We simply take base readings with our equipment and monitor anything that might change. Before we go into a place only one of the group might know its history, which stops the others using powers of suggestion to see things that aren't there.

"We split into three groups of two and record everything that happens and, if we ever pick up something which we think is pretty concrete, will pass it on to the parapsychology department of Liverpool University."

Stan said he became interested in the paranormal after he walked out of a car crash unscathed in the 1970s. Alun said: "Some people might think we're Ghostbusters, with their catchphrase Who You Gonna Call?', but we're nothing like them. We don't clear' places of spirits or do exorcisms. We simply catalogue what might, or might not, be there."