Tales of Uncle Fred and the mysteries of life and death...

Keith sees dead people. He sees them all the time, and they give him messages to pass on to loved ones left behind.

"I stand on stage and people who have passed on to a place I call heaven talk to me and I pass on messages to loved ones," he says.

Keith doesn't sound like you would expect a medium to. He never tries to convince me but talks about the mysteries of life and death as if he is stating the obvious.

"A lot of people are becoming more and more aware of spiritual and psychic matters," said Keith.

"It's becoming a big thing on TV, but I'm not saying these people are the best exponents of it.

"There is an interest and people come along to find out for themselves."

"I don't give people bad news. That's something I just don't do. I don't tell people when they are going to die. Like I wouldn't say to you, you are going to die on July 23, 2057."

Just to be on the safe side I make a note of the date.

"I look on the positive side. I tell people that Uncle Fred is still watching what they are doing with your life.

"I'm not going to tell people they are ill, but I might say Uncle Fred has told me there is a health issue that needed to be looked at.

"Whichever venue I go to there are three types of people. Those who believe, those who are not sure, and those who are dragged out by someone else.

"It is often those people who don't want to be there who get the messages."

On stage, Keith has no control over which spirits will contact him, it depends on which ones have a message they want to get through.

"It's like using a mobile phone - sometimes the signal fades or breaks down," he says.

"If they can, they will appear to me in physical form, and it is through that I will be able to get information.

"I don't generalise and say vague things like some so-called mediums who say things like 'I've got someone here called John or Jane'.

"If Uncle Fred appears in physical form and he has one leg then this is something I will say.

"Or if Uncle Fred worked on a pig farm I might smell a terrible stench. It's these kind of the things that I wouldn't otherwise have known that proves to and reassures people that there is life after death."

However, the ability to see the dead is something that Keith has had to develop.

"You have got to be able to switch it on an off," he said.

"If I go to a pub and there are 20 people at the bar I might see 40 ghosts behind them and I would end up buying a pretty big round - 60 pints please.

Keith's gift first manifested itself during a traumatic experience at an early age when his cousin drowned.

"The first time it happened I was about eight years old and I was at a pool. People were asking where my cousin was. Then I heard a voice telling me he was over there. And he was there lying on the bottom of the pool.

"When I was about 30 I went to a spiritualist church and I saw a medium who told me I could either become a medium myself or ignore it altogether."

For most of his adult life Keith has been a serving police officer guarding both 10 Downing Street and the Queen Mother.

But his gift did come in quite handy during his police days.

"I did cheat once or twice," he said

"There was fraud case we working on and we needed hard evidence. We were searching this house and I asked my spirit guides to show me where the evidence was and they said behind the fireplace.

"My colleagues said we had already looked there but I said we should look again. We pulled out the fire place and there was the evidence we needed behind it."

As well as performing on stage Keith has written a number of books answering a frequently asked question from is there sex in the afterlife to what ever happened to various famous missing people.

"I believe Lord Lucan never left this country and is dead and buried somewhere in Sussex," he said

Keith Charles, The Ultimate Psychic Experience, will be at Worcester's Huntingdon Hall on Thursday, March 27, at 8pm. Tickets are £8.50, concessions £7.50.