In the 1950s, Mr Perrimand was an architect living in Glamorgan Wales with his wife Molly.

He had no interest or knowledge in spiritualism until he was

involved in a conversation about it at a dinner party one night. He was a rational, logical sort of man

who attended church regularly, so his initial opinion about the discussion was that the dead,

being able to communicate with the living, was the leg pull of the evening.

However, the following day, he and his wife couldn't stop thinking about the conversation,

and Perriman wondered how he could be so critical and scathing when it was a topic he'd not even

studied. He reasoned that he'd had to train and study for years to become an architect,

yet here he was, a complete layman in the topic of spirituality, but he was dismissing it without

looking into it, and he would later write in his book, Broadcasting from Beyond,

my training plus experience have made me an authority, but I had to go through years of routine

before I became conversant with the architect profession. I started by asking myself,

what right had I, to criticise when I was not competent to do so? And so it was that he and his

wife decided they would begin an investigation of their own and start to conduct

experiments at home to see if they could receive any signs from the spirit world.

For one hour, twice a week, they would sit at the dining table, hands placed on the table,

patiently awaiting the possibility of hearing a rap or a knock.

For over a decade, they sat there. Nothing happened.

Then in the 12th year, after surely all hope must have been lost,

a sudden, startling rap was heard on the table.

Finally, their effort had paid off.

And this spurred them on to delve deeper,

...