Another message I had from Dad was very funny. We had a wonderful dog called Oscar, and my father really loved him. Every day whilst preparing Oscar’s food he would add grated carrot to the meal. During a visit to a medium, she told me, ‘I’m getting a message which makes no sense to me at all, but I must give it to you. Your father is telling you not to forget the carrots.’ What more proof does one need?
However, my husband Terry was very sceptical about mediums – even though his great-grandmother was a medium herself. His mother Eileen would often tell me stories about her.
When our best friend Bobby Keetch died suddenly, it was not only a great shock to us but to everyone who knew him. He was always so full of life, and was one of the nicest and funniest people we have ever known. On the day after his funeral, Terry and I were going on holiday, but before we left I arranged for Jan and Nicky (Bobby’s wife and daughter) to have a sitting with a medium. It was arranged for twelve noon on the following Tuesday.
During our holiday in Bali, I told Terry that I would ring Jan to find out how she had got on. I worked out when to call as there is a six-hour time difference. We had our usual siesta and I woke, feeling slightly disorientated, at about 6.00 p.m. I was amazed to find that not only did we not have a light in the room but the main supply was not working either – and yet on looking out of the window I could see that all the other villas had light. We rang reception, and they were as puzzled about the power cut as we were. Terry then asked me for the time. It was seven o’clock, and with the time difference was exactly when Jan and Nicky were due to visit the medium. I turned to Terry and said, ‘I bet that’s a sign from Bobby.’ Of course, Terry laughed.
Later that evening I rang Jan to find out how she had got on. Her sister-in-law answered the phone and explained that Jan still hadn’t returned. I told her about the lights. When Jan got home she told her sister-in-law that the medium had told her Bobby was saying, ‘I did the lights, it was me.’ But Jan hadn’t known what the medium was talking about. We were all amazed by this evidence. And when Bobby contacted Betty whilst she was having a telephone conversation with Anne McMenemy, we knew that he would always be with us.
Many years after the death of Terry’s mum, we arranged to have dinner with Betty, Jan and her daughter Nicolette. But whilst we were waiting to be seated at the table, Betty began to give Terry survival evidence that took him back to his childhood. Then she said, ‘This lady is cooking something for you. I don’t know what it is, but I’m being given a picture of something that is neither a cake or a pancake, it’s a “thing” and it’s about this big.’ Betty then made a size with her hands about four inches in diameter. We were amazed because it was something his mum would always cook with Terry’s bacon and eggs for breakfast. It was just flour and water mixed together and fried. There was no name for it, and it was always referred to as ‘one of those things’. The evidence went on for some time, and was so accurate that Terry changed his opinion about mediums.
One day, whilst I was talking to Betty over the phone, she told me that my dad wanted to speak with me. He gave me wonderful evidence of his survival, and even described the flooding that had taken place that very morning whilst I was using the washing machine.
I do not find mediumship weird or spooky, but comforting. I find the fact that our loved ones are still around and able to communicate with us a bonus, and one that I would miss if it were not available.
The important thing in this life is to have an open mind.
It is important to remember that even though you may not yet have had any evidence of survival, someone is always with you. Love is the greatest link that we have with those who have temporarily left us.
5 MIND TRAVELLING (#ulink_bf1e4626-da0f-528b-89f1-c1be3e8cc2f1)
TINKERING WITH THE MIND REALLY began for me thirty years ago when I lived in Spain. Looking out over the vineyards toward the sea from my vantage point high in the hills, I had time to think for what seemed like the first time in my life. Although the move from England had created many problems, I was able to forget them as I luxuriated in this freedom of thought. It was as though I had found the key that had been lost to me since childhood when, in my innocence, I had been able to open the doors of my mind with ease. However, bringing up a family and pursuing a singing career meant that the key had been mislaid, covered in etheric dust, neglected. Now that I had found it again I was determined to clear away the cobwebs, to polish it and make it work for me.
The sun, shining on the sea in the distance, also opened my heart chakra, allowing suppressed emotions to evaporate with floods of tears. The pain I had endured for seventeen years from a ruptured disc in my spine disappeared, never to be felt again. This alone gave me food for thought. Why had the pain disappeared? I still had the ruptured disc. Nothing had changed but my frame of mind.
Having practised yoga for many years, I had learnt the art of relaxation – or so I thought – so why hadn’t that released me from my straitjacket of pain? It was a mystery that I could not solve at that point, but it made me think and encouraged me to open not just one door but several, each taking me down avenues that were exciting, exhilarating – and sometimes frightening.
I remember the day I put myself into daydreaming mode and took the first ‘mind walk’ from my home to the nearest village. For the first time I saw things that I had never noticed during my physical walks. For instance, the ruts and potholes looked far more menacing than they did when I rode over them on my scooter. The wild herbs were more abundant, and there were tiny wild flowers shining like seed pearls that I had never seen before. They were hidden from the naked eye, and quite beautiful. I was exhilarated by this experience and used my mind to seek and find other things that had been hidden from normal sight.
Turning left, off the path and on to the main road that led to the village and the sea, the view looked strangely unfamiliar. I thought I knew this route like the back of my hand, yet I could see pylons, masts and other strange objects that looked completely out of place. I made a mental note of them to check out later.
When I finally reached the village, I saw three of my friends sitting at a table outside a café, drinking coffee. This was great! It meant that I could check with them later to make sure that my journey was real and not simply a fantasy.
I took off my shoes when I reached the beach, allowing the sand to trickle through my toes, and as I got to the sea I could feel the cold water lapping around my ankles – and this jolted me back into my body again. As I looked around, I could not believe that I was still sitting on the terrace looking out to sea instead of walking barefoot on the beach. It had been an incredible experience, and one that I could not wait to put into practice again.
The next day my friends confirmed my sighting, and asked why I hadn’t joined them. Not wishing to go into any detail, I told them I had been in a hurry to return home.
The next time I went into the village, I walked the scooter down the rutted path and carefully checked the tall grasses where I had seen the tiny flowers. At first I saw nothing, but then I saw them, hidden in the undergrowth like miniature glow-worms. They were exquisite. My excitement mounted as I investigated the abundance of wild herbs. How could I have missed them on my previous journeys? I could have understood it if I had always used motor transport, but I often walked the path and still had not seen them. I vowed to walk more often in the future and pay greater attention, so that I would not miss out on any other jewels of nature.
When I reached the main road I took to my scooter and made my way toward the village. I was very disappointed when I realised that I could not see many of the ugly pylons and masts that I’d noticed on my mind journey. How could this be? Feeling a little despondent, I turned down a side road so that I could survey the scene from a higher vantage point. And there they were! From the road they had been completely hidden behind the pine trees. I became very excited as I realised that my mind travelling had been on a higher level than my physical travelling and that something could leave my body and hover above the earth, leaving an impression on my mind. Unlike a dream, I remembered every detail.
My quest had begun. Every day I put aside some time for my mental travels, following them up with the physical journey and checking all the way. I sometimes found myself taking small paths that I would never have dreamt of exploring alone, experiencing for the first time a freedom and a sense that I belonged with the birds, gliding along on the shifting currents of air.
Every time I took a mind journey something else happened, too. I felt a tingling sensation sweeping through the whole of my body, which energised me for several days.
Those years spent practising the art of mind travelling were some of the most fascinating and happy times I have ever known. Strangely, I never thought that I was linking into something new, but felt only sadness that I had neglected the art for so long. Somewhere inside, I knew that I had done it all before.
Whether my experiments with mind travel had reached out into the Universe and touched other minds I do not know, but I was certainly not prepared for what happened next.
One beautiful moonlit night, my first husband Leslie was standing on the terrace of our villa when he called to my daughter Janet and me to join him. He sounded very excited as we hurried out, only for him to point out a small bright star in the night sky. Disappointed, I remarked that it was just a star. ‘Look closer,’ he said. ‘It’s moving around in circles.’
We stood quietly for a few minutes, observing the bright light, and it soon became clear that something unusual was happening. Not only was the star moving in ever increasing circles, but it was also increasing in size. Then suddenly it was upon us, hovering over the villa. I saw blue porthole windows, shining with an eerie light, but what frightened me most was its size. It was huge. I felt menaced by this shining object – but then anything unusual dropping out of the sky would give one the same feeling! Anyway, I was not going to hang around, and neither was Janet. We both rushed indoors and locked the doors, leaving my poor husband outside to meet his fate! Then the humming sound stopped, and I gathered enough courage to open the door and look out. The strange object had gone. I asked Leslie what had happened, and he told me that it had disappeared as soon as I had gone indoors.
When we discussed the experience later, it became clear to the three of us that we all had different perceptions of what we had seen. My description perhaps was far more detailed and of something much bigger than that of the others. Perhaps my mind went out to meet it, I will never know. For me the vision has never dimmed, for I have seen three UFOs since that first visit.
My life was never the same after that. I experienced recurring choking sensations and my body seemed to have gone completely out of sync. My mother, who had been dead for several years, materialised in my bedroom, as did other entities who seemed to appear out of nowhere. I realise now, of course, that the power from the UFO had opened up my psyche, but at the time it was very unsettling.
Following the UFO experience I also found that I could leave my body just by thinking about it. It was fantastic. Everyday I explored a different part of the coastline. I found that from a great height I could descend rapidly, like a bird, which meant that I could survey the houses and farmhouses in remote areas. I did not know at the time that this kind of phenomenon was called an Out-of-Body Experience. It is quite a different sensation to that of projecting the mind along a specific path. With OBEs, as they are called, there is a realisation that we have the ability to fly, not physically, but with the mind. Although at this stage in my life I had not even begun to think of the mind, as such, I just knew that there was something that could indeed leave the physical body and ‘fly’. I accepted this as if it were the most natural thing in life, perhaps because I had been so adept in my childhood.
At this time in Spain, many of my friends left their villas unattended when they made their frequent return visits to England. As I was a permanent resident, they asked me to look after their properties for them, and I was happy to do this – until eventually the requests mounted so that it was impossible to keep an eye on them all at once. So I resorted to mind projection. By using this technique I was able to visit the villas every day, and made a rota for my less frequent physical visits. There were times when I wondered whether I was putting too much faith in this gift – until one day, whilst mentally visiting one of the villas, I saw two men looking at the outside and another trying to force the front door. I immediately raced down the rough path from my villa on my scooter and notified a friend, who called the Guardia Civil. They apprehended two of the men, and after that I never doubted my mind pictures.
For the first time in my life, I had lots of time at my disposal so I looked at the building work that was being carried out in the surrounding hills. I was shocked not only by the way the villas were being built, but how the hills were being raped. Where there had once been beautiful foliage and wild flowers, there were now great gaping holes of red earth, piles of rubble, concrete blocks with which the villas were built, and old tractors and vehicles that could scarcely make their way up the hills. Using mind projection, I used to home in on the work that was being carried out, and was amazed to see workmen shoving tin cans into the gaps where they had misjudged the space between the concrete, and then pointing over it to make it look normal. Beer cans galore went into those buildings, plus any other rubbish that had been left behind, but when the workmen had finished, the villas looked beautiful. I wondered how many years the beer cans would last before everything collapsed. When I was building my own villa I made sure that I visited the site every day, and I don’t think any beer cans went into its construction. But who knows?
This detective work led to my looking at the structure of buildings in general, and when I became a medium I was able to use this gift to help those who were thinking of buying a property. I remember having a drink with a friend who was also my bank manager. He asked me to survey a house he was going to buy. I believe he was testing me, as he had already had it surveyed in the proper manner. When I told him how many slates were missing on the roof, and of a possible problem with the damp-proof course on the corner of the house, he was amazed. His survey had not mentioned these things. But on checking he found that what I had said was correct. I was also able to take him from room to room and described the house internally. I don’t think he ever got over the shock. I admit that I do have an added advantage in being able to survey the properties from an aerial view!
After the visit from the UFO it seemed that everything in my life had changed, and not for the better. Now, of course, I can see that it was part of a larger plan that I could not possibly have envisaged at that moment. If someone then had given me a clairvoyant vision of my future, I would have thought that they were stark staring mad.
The time came, however, when I had to sell my villa and return to England. I had no idea what I would do, or where I was going to live. My singing career was over, and although I have many interests I did not want to follow them up professionally. I also have a low boredom threshold, so I knew that I would have to find something pretty exciting to do. I had no idea that someone in the spiritual dimension had already earmarked a career for me, a career that would keep me on my toes until the day I die. Neither did I realise that the word ‘boredom’ would never be part of my vocabulary again.
There were several things I was going to miss: the time for mind travelling, the weather, the peace and isolation, the glorious views – and last but certainly not least my beloved pets. The kindest thing I could do was to have them put to sleep. They were so loved that they would never have survived quarantine, and the cruelty toward all animals in Spain made it impossible for me to hand them on to others. (This story is told in Mind to Mind.)
I also worried about the beautiful stray dogs that roamed the area. Every night I put out several large trays of rice for them, mixed with other bits and pieces of nourishing food. I tried to make their life happy while it lasted. They were all eventually shot. This was understandable in some ways, as rabies was a very real fear in Europe in those days. But with modern methods of treating wild animals the future looks brighter and, hopefully, rabies will soon be a thing of the past.
But my memories of Spain always retain that imprint of cruelty towards animals. I know that I could never live there again, unless the laws concerning animals were changed. There was a lot of pain in my heart when I left Spain for good.
Little did I know that I had inadvertently taken a path from which there would be no return. It is obvious to me in retrospect that, having once opened the mind and spent time perfecting the art of mind travelling and OBEs, there could be no turning back. Fortunately, because my paternal grandmother had been a medium and the talent was obviously passed on, I have been able to spend the last twenty-five years perfecting the art. It has been a privilege that I have never abused.
6 HOME AGAIN (#ulink_7d2313aa-53b3-5ffd-9e0c-0a63a16541b0)
WHEN I RETURNED TO ENGLAND I found it hard to settle down at first, and the weather did not help one bit! I had forgotten the grey skies that hung suffocatingly overhead.
I was also unnerved by the fact that the flat we rented for a short time was haunted.
For those of you who have not read the accounts in my previous books, I will give a few details of the strange things that happened in this apartment: heavy, old-fashioned wardrobe doors were thrown across the room like matchwood; taps would be mysteriously turned off; blue lights appeared and danced around the bedroom; whispering voices could be heard at night; and articles of clothing disappeared all the time.
I had never been involved in paranormal activities. In fact, other than my own experiences I had never given the occult world a single thought – my life had always seemed light years away from such things. Or so I thought. When we realised that these ‘happenings’ weren’t going to stop, we decided to leave.
We were later to find out that the vicar, from whom we had rented the flat, had previously had it exorcised. His method had obviously not worked.
Although I was happier in our new abode, my health was causing some concern. I had been suffering from a restriction in my throat which had not eased, and the medical profession were unable to give a diagnosis. Furthermore, my rail journey to work in London every day was becoming increasingly claustrophobic as I battled with the early morning rush.
Then one morning I noticed that someone had left a strange-looking magazine on the seat. I picked it up, and as I was idly leafing through it I realised that it was some kind of psychic journal. I thought of my paternal grandmother and of her psychic abilities, and this inspired me to look again at the classified ads. Mediums, healers, clairvoyants, tarot readers – there were so many names and telephone numbers, yet I wasn’t drawn to any of them as I toyed with the idea of visiting a medium. However, on the last page of the magazine there was a notice advertising a forthcoming psychic event which was to take place at the College of Psychic Studies in London, and I felt comfortable with the idea of contacting them to ask for the name of a reputable medium. They were very helpful, and made an appointment for me to meet Charles Horrey, whom they assured me was an excellent medium.
Much later, I came to realise that it was no coincidence that I picked up the magazine left on the train – when the spirit world wants to tell you something, it will find a way.
When the day of my appointment arrived I was extremely nervous, but the sitting changed the course of my life. Though this encounter is fully explained in my book Mind to Mind, it is appropriate for what comes later for me to give a brief recap of the visit.
Charles Horrey told me that my choking was a result of excessive energy, and that I would continue to be ill if I did not release this energy by healing others. At the time I was perturbed by this information – who wouldn’t be?
