Former fireman Steve Howell doesn’t look like most people’s idea of an angel.
But the burly 5ft 6in martial arts fan, who also plays football and rugby, is convinced that’s what he is: an ‘earth angel’ sent from Heaven to make the world a better place.
He even believes that, while no one else may be able to see them, he sports a glorious pair of wings as a sign of his mission — and he is convinced his late wife, Joanne, visits him daily to ensure he maintains his angelic role.
His new wife might object to this, were she not equally convinced Steve is an angel.
Burly former fireman Steve Howell, pictured, is convinced that he is an ‘Earth angel’ who has angel wings
‘Both Jo and Tracey keep me on my toes,’ says Steve, 55, who lives in Melksham, Wiltshire, with Tracey, 54, manager of a chiropractic practice. ‘Jo talks to Tracey too,’ he adds.
Tracey, who has two children from a previous marriage, says: ‘I admire Steve’s work, so I’ll do all I can to support him.’
Call them fanciful or deluded, but Steve is one of a growing band of men who fervently believe the only way to explain their uncanny powers of spiritual intuition is that they are angels.
‘I know many people — including, sadly, some of my own family — think I’m mad. I never told my mates on the fire team because they’d have thought I’d lost it,’ admits Steve. ‘But there is no other way to explain my powers. I am in touch with spirits and I have acute intuition.
‘Only last week I congratulated the lady behind me in the supermarket queue on her pregnancy. She was stunned. She hadn’t even told her husband.’
Like other so-called earth angels, Steve — one of eight children — always felt different growing up. His parents attributed his vivid dreams of flying to a youthful imagination.
He even believes that he sports a glorious pair of wings as a sign of his mission, even though no one else can see them
It was only when he joined the Fire Service aged 20, and was regularly called to fatal car crashes (a total of 111 in his career), that he started seeing ghosts— or spirits, as he prefers to call them.
‘I knew instantly if someone had died because I would see their spirit outside the car,’ he says. ‘It was so clear, I was stunned no one else saw it.
‘The first few times I even asked the other guys if they had noticed anything. They looked at me so oddly, I quickly shut up.
‘But I felt I needed to learn how to communicate with the spirits, particularly after a young man who had deliberately killed himself by driving into a wall kept appearing to me, desperate to explain how sorry he was.’
Through reading spiritual books, meditating and visiting healers, and supported by Joanne, Steve gradually perfected his powers. His calling has led him to help people as a firefighter for 18 years and, more recently, by giving spiritual readings.
But being an earth angel has also helped Steve deal with his own problems.
In June 2011, Joanne, then aged 41, had a heart attack and died in his arms. ‘I couldn’t save her,’ Steve says. ‘But up above I saw my mum — who had died exactly 19 years earlier — waiting to embrace her. It was the most beautiful moment.’
Steve’s strong sense of Joanne’s presence has been a great comfort. He is convinced she engineered his marriage to Tracey. ‘I arrived late at a spiritual meeting and took the only spare seat next to Tracey,’ says Steve. ‘I’m sure that was Joanne’s doing. She rescued me from my grief.’
Another ‘angel’, teacher Neil Hague (pictured), has believed in heavenly influences since he was just 11 years old
The angels helped Steve through another tragedy, too, when Joanne’s son Dean was killed in July 2016.
Dean, 22, died in Syria while fighting IS alongside local militia forces. ‘You may ask why Joanne’s spirit didn’t stop him going,’ says Steve. ‘But people have to follow their hearts, and I believe she knew that.
‘In the hours before Dean died, I kept seeing angels. I knew something was happening. Although I was devastated when the police rang with the news, I am convinced he is safe with his mum.’
Belief in heavenly influence has been deeply important to teacher Neil Hague ever since he was 11. Sitting with his family, the young boy saw their labrador walk into the room, six days after the beloved pet had died.
‘He snuggled up beside me as I watched TV,’ recalls Neil, 49, from Newbury. ‘It was very comforting. Mum believed me immediately. My dad, a Yorkshire coalminer, dismissed the whole thing. But I became fascinated by the spiritual.
‘While my friends were playing football, I’d be in the school library reading books on the supernatural. Although I felt different, I was never teased about it. My self-belief gave me inner strength.’
As he hit his teens, Neil tried to ignore his calling and later started a career in graphic design. But, he says, uncanny things kept happening. In his mid 20s, travelling around France, he camped one night near a ruined castle.
Mr Hague says: ‘While my friends were playing football, I’d be in the school library reading books on the supernatural’
‘I found it almost impossible to sleep,’ he recalls. ‘There was a constant sound of hooves. It was like sleeping in a field of horses.’
In the local museum, Neil found a medieval map which showed the spot where he pitched his tent had once been the stables, housing horses that were used in the Crusades. ‘I was hearing their spirits as they prepared for battle,’ he says.
Convinced he couldn’t dismiss his powers any more, Neil began to work on them.
‘I believe I’ve been sent as a messenger to help awaken people to the spiritual world,’ he says. ‘There are more earth angels around than most people realise, but many are yet to be awakened and realise their potential.’
Neil points to the many coincidences he experiences as proof of his calling. ‘I will arrange to meet someone at a set time, then something will lead me to get there early — only to discover they’ve done the same,’ he says.
‘If I see an old lady struggling with her shopping, I will help her and send a silent prayer asking for healing. But most of my work is through teaching — I teach art to sixth-form students and also paint a lot myself.’
Jo Clarkson, 43 (pictured), also believes that he has a vital role to fulfill as an ‘Earth angel’
So committed is Neil that, unlike Steve, he believes his angelic calling precludes a relationship. ‘I’ve never married and my last relationship ended 15 years ago,’ he says. ‘I need to devote my life to my mission.’
Along with Neil and Steve, 43-year-old Jo Clarkson believes he has a vital role to fulfil as an earth angel. As well as mentoring young people, he runs a successful business consultancy, Meta, based near his home in Worcester. His clients include Virgin Media, Vodafone and Cancer Research, as well as a Formula One racing team.
‘I don’t tell clients I’m an earth angel — they would think I was nuts,’ says Jo, who lives with his fiancee Katie Speed, 39, and has a 12-year-old daughter, Amber, from a former marriage. ‘But I know I’m on this earth with a clear mission to bring out the best — or ‘angel selves’ — in everyone I deal with.
‘It may sound odd for an earth angel to be involved in business. But I am convinced that by changing the way people work, I can make the world a better place.’ An only child, Jo was raised by his teacher mum, Di, now 68. His curiosity about angels was sparked when, at the age of 16, he joined her on a spiritual retreat.
‘I always felt like an outsider, looking in on the world from a different level,’ he says. ‘But it was only when I heard about angels on the retreat that it all made sense. I realised I was an earth angel.
His first marriage broke down and he said: ‘One of the reasons our marriage failed was because we had a different perspective’
‘I’d lived many lives, and my role this time was to awaken other sleeping earth angels and help them find their wings. However, when I went to university, in Nottingham, I started to lose my way, drinking too much. While I’m not proud of that time, I think it was all part of the plan — to ensure I always had empathy for others.’
Katie shares his beliefs, but his ex-wife was more sceptical.
‘One of the reasons our marriage failed was because we had a different perspective,’ he says. ‘However, we produced our beautiful daughter, who I am totally convinced is an angel, too.’
Life as a fully fledged earth angel isn’t always easy, however, and according to Adrian Incledon-Webber, it can come at huge personal and financial cost.
These days Adrian, 61, leads a simple life at his home near Ripon, North Yorkshire, writing books and teaching. It’s a far cry from his former life running his own estate agency business in Godalming, Surrey. He owned a £1.3 million home complete with tennis court, drove a Jaguar Xkss, enjoyed lavish foreign holidays and sent his two sons to a fee-paying school.
But he abandoned it all — and his first marriage — 13 years ago. ‘Although I had a very ethical, caring business, I knew I had to lead a simpler life,’ he says. ‘My ex-wife thought I was completely bonkers. We had been together for almost ten years. When I said we had to get rid of everything so I could get on the right spiritual path, it broke up the marriage.
Adrian Incledon-Webber (pictured) , another ‘earth angel’, says the job can come at huge personal and financial cost
‘I don’t blame her and we are friends now. I can see it was tough for her. And, of course, I feel guilty. Should an earth angel go around hurting people? I just knew I had to be true to myself.
‘It’s very hard being an angel because people have huge expectations. But angels aren’t born perfect. We have to gain our wings over the years.’
Although it took Adrian, now married to Allyson, 48, time to find his angelic mission, he insists he always knew he was different.
‘I was a sensitive child,’ he says. ‘I picked up on emotional energies. I would come home from school and know instantly if my parents had been arguing, even if they weren’t in the house.
‘I had vivid dreams that I was flying and I had an imaginary friend — my guardian angel. Dad, who was a pilot, was very sceptical but my dear mum would even lay a place for him at dinner. He is with me to this day, and I believe we have been together in many lifetimes.’
When he was in his 30s, Adrian began to read books about spirituality and realised he was an earth angel.
Adrian began to read books about spirituality and realised he was an earth angel when he was in his 30s
‘It all clicked into place and I realised my role was as a teacher and healer, not an estate agent,’ he says. ‘But with my sons at public school I couldn’t throw it all in immediately.’
However, now that he is able to concentrate on his mission, Adrian says he is buoyed by constant signs and messages.
‘I get great support from upstairs,’ he says. ‘White feathers regularly appear in my office out of nowhere.
‘Just last week I brushed against some heather on my walk. Then Allyson gave me a little bag of heather. A few hours later, a stranger rang needing help. Her name? Heather.’
Since Allyson and Adrian met seven years ago, she has abandoned her role as a personal assistant in London to help him.
The story follows another about a group of women who also believe they are angels sent to Earth
‘Adrian told me soon after we met that he’s an earth angel,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t surprised. I’m very open to the spiritual world and really admire him. Being an earth angel doesn’t make him perfect. He’s also very human. He rides a motorbike, loves a pint and is horribly messy.’
What is perhaps more surprising is that Adrian’s sons Alistair, 32, a tree surgeon, and Charles, 29, a recruitment consultant, are also very accepting. ‘They were a bit embarrassed as teenagers and lived in dread of me talking about spiritual matters to their friends,’ admits Adrian.
But while he has been through difficult times with family and sacrificed worldly possessions to fulfil his mission, he has no regrets. ‘I still love nice things,’ he says. ‘But now I collect beautiful crystals that barely cost a bean.’