“I had a lot of strings to my bow that ended with the stroke”, said Malcolm Hanson, a historian, writer and leader of ghost walks in Skipton.
The 69-year-old suffered a stroke in December 2018 that left him with very limited movement. The doctors and nurses at Airedale hospital, West Yorkshire were astonished with Malcolm’s steady recovery.
He said, “I honestly cannot wait to dress up and frighten the daylights out of people. I have spent the last few months talking to bus companies that I used to work with that I am available now. I used to entertain over 100 people on a ghost hunt before but can only do them in smaller numbers now.”
Malcolm began ghost walks and ghost hunting in his early 30s and has done over 100s of walks across Yorkshire. He was overwhelmed when he organised a ghost walk earlier this year and all the tickets were sold out within minutes.
He said, “I have a long way to go but from having only 10 minutes to live to being able to host a ghost walk again, this is a beautiful experience. This is a new phase of my life, and I am going to embrace it.”
He added, “I was one of the first ghost walkers in Malta but I will never be able to travel abroad again. I have accepted that I need to be here, and I am looking forward to entertaining big groups of people as I get better.”
Malcolm considers ghost walks to be the ultimate in outdoor entertainment. He spends a lot of time studying the history of the town and compiles it together into a show with all the for the crowd.
He was also involved in taking people around the sets of peaky blinders which was filmed in an old mill in Keighley, West Yorkshire. A huge fire ripped through the listed mill building earlier this year.
Malcolm said, “I am focusing on two main areas of my life right now, one is getting back to organising ghost walking around Yorkshire and also focusing on composing music online which I couldn’t with my friend in Portugal who has his own music studio.”
Check out Malcolm’s facebook page here to learn more about ghost walks and ghost hunting.