I’VE been thinking a lot about something my maw told me when I was about to leave school and head out into the world of work.

She said she had went to a “psychic night” in my granny’s house when I was four or five.

This alleged spiritual medium turned up to her flat in Garthamlock, commandeered the bedroom and said those wanting a reading were to come in and see her one at a time. “You have a son,” the woman said to my maw who nodded to affirm she was correct.

“When he grows up, he’s going to be... an undertaker.” My maw said she was surprised but pleased to hear this, having always fancied going into that line of work herself.

“Like the wrestler?” I asked when my maw relayed this story to me. “Naw,” she said. “It means you’ll work in the funeral business.”

I was surprised at this and thought that what the psychic had told my maw was 100% true. I pictured myself in a top hat and tails, leading the men carrying the coffin down towards the plinth in the crematorium.

I then pictured myself suddenly being struck by the urge to laugh and having to go through a whole funeral service with my mouth twitching as I tried to suppress a fit of wildly inappropriate giggles.

I often wonder how people would react to me organising the funeral of a loved one. Tall and gaunt and all dressed in black, I’d look like death himself.

It must be very easy to be a convincing psychic these days. Let’s say you set up a Facebook page and take your bookings through that.

A quick scroll down someone’s profile would give you loads of information you could dress up and present to them as if you can see into their past and future. ‘You’ve just done your living room up, but you don’t like the paint you used,’ you could say to some hapless soul who’s just handed you fifty quid for a reading. Maybe they’d be hoping for something a bit more insightful.

“Your neighbour hates you,” you could fling in to really spice things up then watch their Facebook page to see if it leads to any drama. I really like the shows psychics do live in a big room full of people. “I’m getting a Mary coming through, does anyone know Mary?” they say, in a room full of older Glaswegians, about 75% of whom will almost definitely have a sister, auntie or maw who’s passed away called Mary.

“You,” they sometimes say, to an old woman in the front row, hands clasped together, her knuckles and fingers all swollen. “I can tell from your aura that you have sore hands. Arthritis, I believe it is, you should get it seen to.”

The woman says, “Aye, they’re killing me!” The room goes wild. How could the psychic have possibly known this?

I’ve always been quite keen on psychics and ghosts and all that kind of thing. Amongst all the nonsense and charlatans and scammers, there are some genuinely interesting and weird stories to be found. Between me and my maw, we’ve had maybe half a dozen or so experiences that have been quite strange.

One summer, I was kicking a ball about out the back with my wee brother when he stopped and pointed up at my bedroom window. “Who’s that?” he asked me. I turned to look and couldn’t see anyone there. “There’s naebody there?” I said.

“Aye there is. That guy there with his hood up.” My first thought was that we were being burgled. I ran in to investigate – what I would have done to an actual intruder at 14 and built like the side of a fiver is a mystery but I was feeling brave.

There was no-one in my room and the front door was locked. I got very creeped out and told my maw. She took me and my wee brother seriously and Googled how to rid a room of a ghost. She read aloud some spell in Latin she found and lit a few candles.

My wee brother said that the mysterious figure told him “Thank you” during the night and hasn’t been seen since. I swear I’ve also had a couple of wee visits from my dead dug, Henry, jumping on my bed at night, and sometimes hear him charging about down the stair.

It could be that I’m dreaming or it’s simply noisy pipes in the house or something, but I like to think it’s him.

That’s the thing with knocking this kind of stuff, for all the frauds and cowboys out there exploiting folk to make a few quid, there are people who take a great deal of comfort and solace from psychics and mediums and believing in the supernatural.

If anything else though, it’s a good laugh. When lockdown eases I’m definitely going to try and hunt down the psychic who told my maw I was going to be an undertaker, leaving her devastated when I started writing daft stories for a living instead.