EVERY town has its ghosts, but not always a raconteur for the spooky stories.

Alan Lauder of Coronation Way, Kidderminster, is a latecomer to the art of story-telling but his talent does not surprise his wife Julie.

He met her through a joint interest in chatting on Citizens Band. She says ''he has always had the gift of the gab.''

It is only recently however that Mr Lauder has used his gift to launch himself into a new career.

An ex-telephone engineer, former lorry driver and now driving fork-lift trucks for a living, 48-year-old Mr Lauder is the creator of Kidderminster's ghost walk tours.

The one-and-a-half-hour evening excursions around the town's haunted spots run every Saturday from Ye Olde Seven Stars pub in Coventry Street with Mr Lauder as guide.

Mr Lauder will not reveal whether he believes in ghosts himself, though he cannot believe there is not an after-life.''I would never dabble in things like voodoo and black magic,'' he insists.

He says there is a genuine basis to all the stories he tells but does not mind admitting he often embellishes them to make them entertaining.

Not a man with natural academic leanings, he nevertheless spent two-and-a-half years on research and talking to people with information.

He starts at the Seven Stars, he says, because it has a 200 year old history and a ''grey lady'' named Maggie Morgan whom nobody can describe but who sometimes startles the dog and makes her presence ''felt''.

The itinerary takes in areas around St George's, St Mary's and All Saints churches and even the Swan Centre. He draws from about 30 to 40 stories he has collected.

Mr Lauder is an improbable ghost guide. A man with a jolly manner and ready laugh, he lives in a semi-detached on a housing estate with his wife and 15-year-old daughter, Lisa.

The only clue to his nightlife is the family saloon outside with a ''Ghost Walks'' advertising banner across the back.

It all started with a family holiday in York eight years ago when the couple thought Lisa would enjoy the guided city ghost-walk.

Mr Lauder was so impressed he has been, as it were, haunted ever since by the idea of making a successful enterprise of it himself.

His ambitions were interrupted by surgery for heart problems in 1997 but he was back on trail last August.

After a winter break he is hoping for a busy new season dressed in Victorian costume and ''thoroughly enjoying passing on local history.''