I eagerly filed copy on stories from New York on Madonna's hair loss - called in the paper, 'Madonna Loses Her Mane' and Howard’s Beach Racism from a cheap bedsit on my own with dry bread and salad cream to ease the hunger. Phil was astounded at how quickly I’d picked up his role and he put the stories in The People under his own by-line. He forgot to pay me and I was destitute and unable to pay rent on my room.
I quickly discovered that anyone could write a story; journalism was about getting others to talk to you and that was all about how appealing you looked and how much you could charm others.
I was good with people over short lengths of time and enjoyed meeting unusual people – they were often outsiders who made up the news – I knew it from the outcasts point of view and I was determined to help other outcasts and ease their front page life ruins.
Hurt by my desertion to New York, Phil took his old journalist girlfriend called Tina back to the Pont Du Gard and sent me a card from France to my bedsit in Brooklyn.
I miss you. I wish it were you here, not her.
Yet the fact he had taken his old flame to our place hurt me. I felt it – he wasn’t J for sure.
It was over, yet his glamourous world infatuated me, I still wanted to be part of this controlling beast called Mainstream Media.
I flew back to London and applied for employment as a rookie hack working for The News of The World, where Phil Hall worked as an editor, through Greg Miskiw his underling. Miskiw was a ruthless Ukrainian who worked alongside a Russian called Alex Marunchak - they were both known as 'the Rotweillers,' in Private Eye Magazine.
Greg was famous for saying, '...we ruin lives, it's what we do.'
Little did he know when he hired me that I was one of the victims.
Phil ignored me as I sat in the news room; he was afraid I would talk about our love story, he with the Devil’s Daughter, dressed in scarlet. To get in with the other reporters, I giggled in corners and I gossiped about him, lying that he had a small willy to make them laugh and become popular. I was all he feared and more; the Fatal Attraction, mad ex-girlfriend.
It shocked both Phil and I when my dizzying ascent in the newspaper industry materialised overnight.
The News of The World’s had a strong appetite for my style of intuitive spying I’d learned to hone with James. My extraordinary 'second sight' skill thrilled editors, even he. He watched me with incredulity as my earnings rose from a junior hack’s 25k salary to a giddy 100k. I began to branch out and work for other newspapers; The Sunday Mirror – The Daily Mail and The Times. I used my insight – my skills as an empath. I would know how to get inside a story by saying things to the subject of the story - and I somehow knew what to say to get them to tell me private things. I would know exactly when to make the call and my ability to look at a photo and read what was going on in their lives, touch their clothes and have visions of where they had been, really worked for me in that world.
I noted sadly that some of the other reporters disliked me – called me a blagger.
It was a slur, but they feared my unusual skill – they thought it made them bad reporters. Graham Johnson, a hack whom I had rejected at a party and was always left out of events because he was mean spirited, seemed to wholly resent my skill.
The one who always held journalist parties at her house was my good friend, editor, Fiona Whitty and at her parties I snogged Dave Dillon and danced till 3am with Dennis Rice and Matt Bell. I watched Graham’s resolve to one day get revenge on me for usurping him in the eyes of his peers and his editors. He was billed as investigative journalist and yet he saw me solve all the cases and attain all the accolades.
Because of the gift, newspaper editors like Paul Dacre invited me to champagne parties peopled by top cops and security service men. My skills grew, proving stories by garnering the correct information and proof. They called me Fleet Street’s secret weapon and Royal hack, Clive Goodman called it ‘The Christine Hart Magick.’ He thought I was a modern-day witch on Fleet Street.
Clive was clever; it was psychic skill, similar to CRV and Remote Viewing. I enjoyed this for fun. I exercised it on Fleet Street; gaining information from the minds of others. The reporters hated the rise of this dumb cluck blonde who once snogged a serial killer and hadn't been to journalism school.
I felt their eyes watching me, so I didn’t as much as turn an ex dir phone number knowing they’d grass me up to their cop contacts over a pint in The Old Rose
I would touch a person or an object and know where the owner had been. I could look at a photograph and see a way into their private lives. After sleeping I’d wake up and know just who to call and exactly what to say to extract information out of their minds; what to say to get them to open up to me. It wasn’t illegal – it was investigative journalism ‘Inception’ style and the results were great, so they rewarded me with money and arse licking which was what my tiny broken ego needed.
I reported what they were all up to back to the off shoots of 57 who were hiring me through Ciex Ltd. (Company X in French - a firm owned by ex MI6 officer, Michael Oatley) They were investigating Fleet Street esp News of the World’s use of the boys at Hereford – serving SAS to track politicians. Murdoch ruling the world and using our army for his own use. I disliked reporting back, but I felt I had no choice.
I was attending The Priory Clinic in Roehampton for weekly hypnotism to access my childhood. I could not access my childhood memories at all. I read that a man using therapy called EMDR that was a veritable time machine. Doctor Mark Collins saw only A-list; Robbie Williams, Kate Moss and Ruby Wax - so I felt honoured to be seen by him.
I went along for years and soon gossip spread and all my journalist peers I partied with knew I had access to the white castle of superstars.
Fleet Street editors ordered me while I was there to spy on all the personal bits and bobs of the political and Hollywood guests in the café and bathrooms. To report back on politicians and celebrities – their eating habits – who they spoke to in the gardens and what they were in there for. I was ordered to take pictures and write reports.
I despised the idea of wandering the corridors of The Priory in my nightdress – a freak spy for the tabloids, crying about my childhood and envious of powerful, successful people’s wealth and status. I thought I deserved fame like they had, I felt a loser, second rate and I felt afraid of them and angry I wasn’t one of them. I hung out with Ruby Wax and Marty Pello and enjoyed The Priory's West Wing and Centre Court and their fare of apple crumbles and private parties but I wondered why I wasn't famous like Catherine Zeta Jones and Kate Moss so I was bitter, but I still couldn’t spy on them and shit on Mark Collins. All of his female patients had one thing in common we were all madly in love with Dr. Collins; cult style we obeyed his every word and would not have acted in any way against him for scuzzy News International whom he loathed, as they once said he'd snorted cocaine and made love to a patient. All of that was untrue, we adored him but he wanted none of us in that way.
I decided to lie to the rude pig editors like Greg who asked me to shit on Mark. I’d say yes, this one is there or that one’s not there. Livid they were abusing me even by asking. Soon Fleet Street came to me about all and everything medical and it worried me. There were threats – ‘do this or we don’t give you the stuff we know you love.’ And so, I began to lie more. I had no choice – I had no intention of letting them take what I loved away from me or get me arrested. No one was going to take my journalistic career off of me. I worked hard at putting away paedophiles and exposing villains, sometimes I played the wife of Mazher Mahmood. I was proud off all I did, the outcast who protected others being hurt by the machine of Fleet Street who enjoyed ruining lives.
Another hater was crime editor, Peter Rose. I wondered why they just didn’t get on with their own work – was it because I was a girl? I knew it was the gift. It was like they wanted to somehow prove I was evil or useless or up to no good and then get off on taking me down.
Phil also felt afraid of me, but for other reasons. I was still waxing lyrical about his tiny willy – it was not true but I made all the reporters crack up and I held court every day in the staff canteen. A man called John Ross (JR) – ex Flying Squad Commander bought me out to dinner just to hear all about my French Romance and Phil’s bits. I was creating enemies; something I found I was really good at. I noticed I had something lacking – like common sense or some kind of basic sanity to know not to do stuff like that.
I grew as a reporter and soon I became responsible for 95 per cent of stories in the paper at The News of The World, The Sunday Mirror and The Daily Mail.
Phil knew a past that others hadn’t bothered to look into…. I was the Devil’s Daughter…and he feared my ‘gift’ came from something malevolent.
Obsessively jealous, journo-copper who was hated by everyone, Graham Johnson, found out I was the Devil’s Daughter and passed around old copies of The Sunday People to everyone. I was on the cover saying I was the Devil's Daughter dressed in scarlet.
Graham wanted me out of Fleet Street.
Charismatic Editor, Alex Marunchak found it hilarious about Ian Brady and mocked me over drinks in The Old Rose. ‘Chris, how’s your dear father, darling?’
I felt sick about it – I felt it meant I was a weirdo.
I was then left out of all the parties. I began to be isolated again. Graham ruined me.
He couldn't get me on my work though - I was still getting results. My favourite editor Chris Boffey left The Sunday Mirror. Tina Weaver arrived to take it over. Tina was the old flame Phil had taken to South of France and she kicked me off the paper for revenge.
Yet I survived this new slap. The Mail, The Times - Alison Boshoff, Rick Hewitt, Chris Boffey, Ian Cobain continued to use me. I still worked for The News of The World, but I preferred The Daily Mail and The Times and Chris Boffey bought me in at The Telegraph.
Before Tina kicked me out after a ten year job - I got a Sunday Mirror staff Press Pass off Dennis Rice and Matt Bell and it said Sunday Mirror Staff on it.
Once I had that little baby I was able to interview people and really use my 6th sense after meeting them to know their shit. A six-figure salary purchased me an open top sports car. I posed in the West End around Sloane Square in film star sun glasses and cool designer dresses through Knightsbridge after lunch at Harrods with Rebekah Brooks, Paul Dacre and Alex Maranchak buying me lobster for lunch at Daphne's. Greg took me to cheaper places as did Ian Cobain and Chris. Dennis Rice took me with him to interview George Harrison - then when ex Beatle, George came to the gate, he told us both to come back in a few days, Dennis returned without me. It was dog eat dog.
I was sent on jobs where we were watching celebrities and I stayed for a few days at Cliveden in Taplow and I hung out with Trevor Mc Donald at News At Ten's wrap party with Sean Hoare. Life felt as if I was part of something - something not good, but had shitloads of power. I was on a merry go-round - one I had been placed on - I had not come here off my own wiles - I just wasn't that bright.
I felt almost as if someone was 'running' me. I felt as if I was protected on high by something other worldy that guided me - and so I just let myself accept that guiding after all left to my own devices I'd have been still sweating in that homeless hostel.
I felt valued for the very first time in my entire life and it felt good, so what if I was being led by the nose from the devil himself, I was happy.
‘Hello its Peter Allen from the Daily Mail – please may we borrow your genius?’
‘My genius is fully at your disposal.’
Sometimes I felt a fraud; because it was an inner, separate part of me standing up stories. I wasn’t a genius - I didn’t have a clue. It was her. HER. This was what I called this weird inner part of myself because it seemed so different. I was a bit of a childish idiot who feared life.
SHE was different. yet she was still me - she just felt not like me.