Despite her parents’ disapproval, Helen Parry Jones has spent a lifetime using her spiritual gifts. Kirstie McCrum talks to her about her life as a healer and the importance of her spirit guide Sam

Helen Parry Jones can remember clearly the first time she ever saw a spirit. It was when she was visiting her grandparents Joseph and Ada at their house.

“My earliest recollection was when I was about four. It could have been happening right from birth but it was then that I was able to differentiate between what was real and what other people couldn’t see,” she explains.

On her visit, Helen enjoyed playing with two cats – one black and white, the other ginger – but when she asked her grandmother about them, she was told they had died years ago.

“I just assumed up until that point that everything I was seeing, other people were seeing.

“It was very difficult for it to dawn on me that that wasn’t the case,” she recalls.

Harnessing her skills means Helen has become a clairvoyant, medium and spiritual healer, filling auditoriums and giving thousands of people advice and guidance.

She has worked with famous faces and members of the public, as well as aiding the police with murder enquiries – details of which are planned for her second book.

Growing up in North Wales – “my whole life has been lived in a 30-mile radius from my current home between Rhos-on-Sea and Colwyn Bay” – seeing spirits might sound like an interesting world for a young girl.

But Helen soon discovered that her healing “gift” was considered more of a curse than a blessing by her parents, who refused to discuss it.

“Some of my earlier recollections are that I healed animals. It was very difficult in those early years as a child to try and explain to my parents what it was that I could do and in fact my mother dragged me down to the doctor.

“My mother became my biggest fan two years prior to her death, but my father was completely against anything spiritual and didn’t accept spirituality until his death bed,” she adds.

Turning 53 this year, Helen, who has four grown up children, has decided to share her story, and her book Hands Of An Angel is an unflinching account of her struggle for acceptance from her parents.

Already a bestseller in Ireland, the book for Random House details the early part of her life, a humble story that later gave way to success and adoration from thousands of fans.

It was thanks to her spirit guide Sam that Helen was able to grasp why she was different.

“From the age of about four I was aware of this huge black man hanging around who was quite young.

“Sam was a slave and he was only in his 20s when he died. I used to call him the Bogeyman because he used to frighten me.

“I said to my mum there was a man standing near me and she said, ‘Don’t be so ridiculous’.

“One day I went to stay with my Auntie Joan, who was my mother’s sister.

“As I came out of their outside loo, there Sam was sitting on the step and he introduced himself and explained everything.

“He was actually juggling oranges at the time, which I thought was hilarious.”

Because of her parents’ reaction, at school Helen was unsure of who to talk to, and wasn’t open about her gift.

“But gradually over the years I learned how to discern who to speak to and who not to speak to but until I was about 16 there were moments, with neighbours and people that I came into contact with, when the overwhelming urge to say something or heal them (by laying on hands) took over and I couldn’t help it.

“It was instinctive, like when my friend fell off the monkey bars at school and I noticed that he had a really bad injury and I ran over and that was one of the first healings I did at school.

“I was only seven and there I was healing my friend on the floor.

“He saw my spiritual aura, he saw my guide standing near me, he could see it all.”

From there, Helen’s skills progressed, and she’s lived life as a healer, clairvoyant and clairaudient with Sam by her side as her guardian guide.

“Spirituality is around me every day, and I choose now to block off as much as I can, but the minute that I look up and tune in and really concentrate, I can see it all very clearly.”

Although Helen acknowledges her work has its critics, she says that she can’t do anything but continue with it.

“This isn’t a lifestyle choice for me. I don’t know if it’s a gift or a curse, but this ability has always been there and I have no option but to live with it as best I can.

“I’m trying to do something which will help people, and it does seem to help thousands of people.

“I’m just one person, but now that I’m opening up my story, it’ll be interesting how people react, because I am unique.

“There are people out there who can see, and people out there who can heal, but there’s nobody out there who can see, heal, feel, all these things in one go and have the results I have.”

Hands Of An Angel by Helen Parry Jones is published by Arrow, £11.99