Death doesn’t have to come between friends.

A former telephone systems engineer at Bell Canada, Westbrook was in the business of helping people communicate in this world for 40 years, but now he’s communicating with those ‘on the other side’ – the dead – and he’s written a book about it.

Westbrook’s self-published book Visits to the Other Side details his knowledge and experiences of the paranormal since his first contact with the world beyond in 1998.

His journey into the world of the paranormal, he says, began at his friend’s behest with a pact made over 30 years ago with best friend and co-worker Bill Mitchell. The pair agreed “that the first one to (die) would try and get a message back to the one that remained.” However, then a skeptic, Westbrook remained so for 15 years after Mitchell’s death until a fateful day in 1998 when the two friends finally reconnected.

“I was an unbeliever,” explains Mitchell. “Finally, Bill was gone for 15 years and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it, but I finally went to a psychic fair. I came to a table where there was this woman who was a psychic. She said she would give me a reading which she did.

The first person she described which she saw over there was Bill... She described Bill right down to a T, as if he were there waiting for me and wondering what kept me. That is what convinced me that it is possible to have a reading and pass information back and forth with someone on the other side.”

Since making contact with his best friend, through the help of local psychics and mediums, the 85-year-old first-time author says he has gone on to reach numerous loved ones including his parents, friends, and even his late cocker spaniel Buddy, who graciously apologized for giving Westbrook’s family a hard time while still on earth.

Beyond reaching friends and family, Westbrook says he has peered into past lives and even the future to discover he is destined to write another book and live to the ripe old age of 100.

Not fearing his own fateful day, with still 15 years to go in his current incarnation, the cheery man with a gentle voice says he looks forward to finding out exactly what it’s like “over there.”

Well aware that many may think he’s a bit crazy, Westbrook confesses he was once an “eye roller” himself, only asking that everyone keep an open mind.

“A lot of my friends are still very skeptical – I call them ‘eye rollers,’” he says. “They roll their eyes and look at the ceiling and change the subject to something else. I’m pretty well convinced. I wouldn’t say that I am certain, but there are just so many things that point to it.”

If you’d like to share your own experiences, ask a few questions or roll your eyes in person Bill Westbrook will be signing copies of his book Sept. 13 at 1 p.m. at Coles in Place d’Orléans.

-- By David May