ONE of Wales’s best-known priests – known as the “holy ghostbuster” – has died aged 99.

The Rev Joe Aelwyn Roberts, former Vicar of Llandegai and a Bangor Cathedral minor canon, died at Ysbyty Gwynedd on Thursday January 11 after a series of infections became untreatable. Three of his daughters were with him.

Mr Roberts, who was born in Blaenau Ffestiniog and came to Llandegai in 1952, is best known as the author of Holy Ghostbuster and other books, revealing his decades as the Church in Wales’s special responsibilities minister dealing with paranormal issues.

He frequently featured on BBC TV and S4C in programmes and documentaries and was guest on one of Sir David Frost’s hour-long TV shows investigating the paranormal.

Before the Samaritans were formed, in the late 1960s Mr Roberts created ‘The Listeners’ in Bangor.

Long before the Government, he established a drugs and alcohol counselling service in North Wales to act with police, probation and healthcare services. He was also head of the church’s adoption agency and more than 550 babies were placed to new parents.

Local authorities would assume responsibility for adoption and fostering but not before he had established an agency operating throughout North and Mid Wales.

Before REMPLOY, an organisation which helped disabled people with work, Mr Roberts also created workshops and employment chances for adults with learning difficulties in the Ogwen area.

In the 1960s he fought local political objections to create a travellers’ site in Llandegai and persuaded the Penrhyn family to donate the land.

His son, Mark Roberts, recalled: “Dad also used to represent the gypsy community when they appeared at magistrates’ court.

“At one hearing, the prosecuting solicitor surrendered his case against the accused when the chairman of the bench warned him ‘this man is being defended by the Reverend Roberts. You had better be prepared!’.”

For many years, he was a regular newspaper columnist and was widely quoted for his views by the national press but Other articles were published worldwide but according to his son, his greatest pride was in having a ‘learned paper’ approved by the editorial committee of the British Medical Journal – something unheard of by a non-medical contributor. “They even paid me!” he boasted later.

His broadcasting and TV production career was formidable. In the 1940s and ‘50s while a minor canon at Bangor Cathedral, he was one of the BBC Radio original actors in Will Cwac Cwac, a long-running popular series, and he moved on to script and produce thousands of radio children’s programme until the 1960s when he switched to television.

He had numerous TV series on ghosts, Welsh heritage and traditions and four based on his book Privies of Wales – a history of the outside loo.

In the late 1940s he rejected an offer to become BBC Wales head of children and religious broadcast services in Cardiff, despite its salary and perks.

His son said: “He did so on principle. The BBC had then overlooked another candidate who, being unmarried, had given birth to an illegitimate child in an era when out of wedlock was taboo.”

His international fame after writing ghost-busting books, was added to in 1998 when he was guest on the Christmas Day morning CNN American Morning show – rated among the highest listener audience shows in the USA.

Mr Roberts declined five requests of former Bishops of Bangor to accept higher office, preferring to remain a humble parish priest without constraint. He also declined a nomination for civil honours offered after his retirement as Vicar of Llandegai and director of social responsibility in the Bangor Diocese.

He was honoured by Rotarians International and Probus for his untiring work for Christian communities in Africa.

His last pleas to family were that could he please return “home”to Blaenau Ffestiniog, which he had always regarded as his birthplace.

His son said: “I think it is so beautiful in his confused and ailing mind – and perhaps God given – that shortly before his death he was transferred from the hectic, noisy and traumatic hospital emergency department to the peace and tranquillity of the hospital’s Prysor ward where he died.

“Prysor is that beautiful lake overlooking Blaenau which he called home. He got his wish.”

Mr Roberts was due to be cremated today (January 17) in a private funeral. An open thanksgiving service will be held at Llandegai Church on Saturday, January 27 at 11am .

He leaves six children, 20 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. His wife, Margaret, died last year, aged 93.

Donations in lieu of flowers to WaterAid c/o H O Davies Funeral Directors, High Street, Bangor.