JAMES PHELPS is an award-winning senior reporter for Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He began as an overnight police-rounds reporter before moving into sport, where he eventually became News Corp Australia’s Chief National Motorsports Writer.

As well as writing bestselling and critically acclaimed biographies of Dick Johnson and Johnathan Thurston, James established himself as Australia’s number-one true crime writer.

We caught up with the author on the eve of the release of his latest book, Australian Ghost Stories.

What was your first job?

I saw the sign in the window. ‘Wanted: Chemist Boy. Must have own bike and be at least 13. Apply with-in.’ I had no idea what a chemist boy was, but I had a bike. I was also 13.

‘Sorry, we already have a chemist boy,’ said the lady behind the counter.

I said, ‘But the sign says …’

‘Oh, that sign is always up there. We go through so many that we leave it there.’

She pulled out a dogeared and dirtied exercise book.

‘Put your name and number in there,’ she said.

So I did. There were four names above mine.

The phone rang two weeks later.

‘What about the other boys on the list,’ I said, not wanting to be a queue jumper.

‘Oh, they have already come and gone. The job is yours if you want it.’

I couldn’t believe four boys had gotten the job and then quit so suddenly, until I was given my first paycheck. Seven dollars and 80 cents. Which wouldn’t have been bad had it been for an afternoon’s work instead of a week. I worked between two and three hours each day after school, riding that damn bike all over the place to pick up scripts and then deliver them once they were filled, and earned just over a dollar a day. I’m unsure what it says about me, but I didn’t quit, unlike the other boys. I stayed there until I was old enough to get a job at McDonald’s.

‘Seven dollars 80 an hour,’ I said when the manager told me what my McPay would be. ‘You mean a week, right?’

‘No, an hour,’ he said. ‘And half-price meals before or after your shift.’

I thought it was the best job in the world. But then again, I thought the same thing about my next job – an ashtray cleaner at Peakhurst Hotel.

Was there a moment when you decided you wanted to be a journalist?

I wanted to be a sports journalist ever since I can remember, but I gave up on the dream when my high school English teacher told me that the only thing I would be qualified to do was to work on a garbage truck.

While I did well enough in school to study Commerce at University, I never thought I was a good enough writer to become a journalist after being stuck with the same teacher for the final two years of high school.

I had completely given up on chasing that dream until fate intervened.

My then girlfriend’s father worked as a compositor for News Limited, and he offered me a night shift job at ‘prepress’ while I was still attending university. It was a full-time job, but I decided I could study during the day and work at night. I had no idea what prepress was, but I took the job. It turns out the prepress department at News Limited was located right next to The Daily Telegraph sports department. Also turns out that Mrs Smith was wrong. I’m still not qualified to drive a garbage truck.

You were an overnight police rounds reporter for major Sydney newspapers. What did that entail? Any events from that time that still stick with you?

I’ll answer the first part of the question first. Dead bodies. Now, the second part. Dead bodies. I saw my first murder victim during my first week. I thought it was horrific until I learned what true horror was.

‘What are you doing?’ said the photographer as he pointed towards the outlaw motorcycle gang members standing behind the police tape looking at the murdered member.

‘Get over there and ask them what happened?’

Does writing true crime stories affect you? I have always said ‘No’ when asked this question. I’ve trotted out cliches like ‘I’m a professional. I have been trained to distance myself from bla bla bla.’ But a man called Paul Haigh made me realise I was kidding myself. I still have nightmares about our conversations. About him telling me how he murdered his victims. About him telling me he was not a psychopath because he had empathy.

‘I am very empathetic,’ he said. ‘I used to imagine being my victims and then imagine what would terrify them the most so I could then inflict that terror.’

What initially sparked the idea for Australian Ghost Stories?

The idea for Australian Ghost Stories came from my fascination with how true crime and the supernatural often intertwine in folklore. I wanted to explore the stories at the fringe of reality, where crime and the paranormal intersect, to see how they reflect cultural fears and societal beliefs. I am also a horror fiction fanatic, so writing about ghosts allowed me to pretend I was my hero, Stephen King.

Can you tell us what research you did for this book?

This book began with a trip to the Hydro Majestic Hotel and ended there. In between, I interviewed over a hundred people and visited almost every haunted house in Australia.

I decided early on that I did not want to recycle the same old stories that are already out there or speak to anyone who had something to gain by talking about the supernatural, which meant the amount of research that went into this book was staggering.

While I did have to hit the books to research details about crimes and property history, each story in the book directly results from a first-hand account told directly to me. And those first-hand accounts weren’t so easy to get. I had to knock on over a hundred doors in Gladesville to get the true story of the Gladesville Ghost house.

‘Hi, I’d like to talk to you about ghosts …’

You can imagine how many of those doors were slammed in my face.

After writing the book, how do you feel about supernatural and paranormal occurrences?

While I might not believe in the supernatural, I believe that the people who told me their stories do. It is impossible to ignore the on-the-record accounts of people who have more to lose than gain by telling their tale. •