sweat as I sat in front of my client.
I knew I couldn’t go on. Something dreadful was happening. I could hear screams, and terror was building up inside me. The entire scenario in front of me was one I’ll never forget. The only word to describe it was horrifying, quite, quite horrifying.
It was then that I began to hear a voice, ‘Peter … is … in … a … safe … place!’ The voice was, in my mind, very staggered and difficult to understand, but I realized this was due to the other noises I was hearing. It wasn’t that the spirit was speaking oddly, more that I was hearing so many other things at the same time.
I was so taken up with what was going on that I never noticed the tears pouring down my client’s face. I was talking quickly, my fear evident. The whole scene vanished very suddenly, despite appearing in a much more progressive manner.
‘Peter is in a safe place,’ I told my client. I asked her if she knew what I was talking about. The poor girl cried harder at that point. Clearly she was devastated over something.
As it transpired, Peter was my client’s husband. She was widowed some two years earlier when her husband was one of the many victims on board the Piper Alpha platform. Peter’s body was never found (to my knowledge it still hasn’t been found), and my client’s biggest fear, she told me, was that if her husband’s body hadn’t been found, would that mean he wasn’t at peace – wasn’t in heaven?
I was able to reassure her (and myself) that Peter must surely be in heaven. The spirit clearly gave me Peter’s name and the message that he was in a safe place.
And the locket? The locket contained a photograph of my client and Peter on their wedding day.
The Brooch
Is it possible for items to attract a spiritual presence? I’d say it was, given the amount of stories that come my way about messages being passed on through them. I can even think of one where someone picked up a violin and proceeded, out the blue, to play the owner’s favourite tune – the deceased owner that is! But the following story is quite unusual in that the item concerned had such a strong presence attached to it.
Mrs Gair came to me for a reading. I could instantly see she was a very sad lady. Her husband had been working overseas, in Germany, and she had been expecting him home. But he didn’t come. Instead, the day before he was due to return home, he suffered a fatal heart attack in the street. This happened outside a jeweller’s shop. Earlier he had gone on a shopping trip, hoping to buy something for his wife – a special present to make up for having been away so long.
Almost as soon as Mrs Gair came into the room, I could sense there was a powerful male presence with her. There was no doubt from the way I described him to her that this was her husband, and she was pleased – as pleased as she could be under the circumstances. She seemed comforted to know he was with her still, and in many ways was still seeing to her welfare. But an even stronger feeling enveloped me as I began to see a brooch.
To see spirits is one thing, but the ‘ghost’ of a brooch didn’t seem quite right. It was, however, a beautiful piece of jewellery, quite highly detailed, in an unusual shape and set with a variety of stones. To be honest, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before, and I told her so. I sensed Mrs Gair had been given the brooch quite recently. Her husband was showing it to me very clearly and it was obvious he was the one who had given her the brooch. What I couldn’t understand was how she was in possession of the brooch and yet her husband was able to show it to me. So I asked her.
The answer to this was simple. Mr Gair had bought the brooch especially for her. He had gone shopping with a colleague but they had split up. Mr Gair went into the jeweller’s and his colleague went into an adjacent shop. When his colleague came out of the shop, he was shocked to see Mr Gair lying on the ground. He was alive, but only just. He died minutes later.
At the hospital, the staff gave Mr Gair’s colleague the brooch, along with his other possessions. And upon his arrival home, explaining what had happened, he gave the brooch to Mrs Gair. It was a gift from her husband but he, of course, was unable to give it to her himself.
Mrs Gair had not felt able to wear the brooch. Numb with shock, she had put it in a drawer. After leaving my office, having received the message from her husband and realizing how near he was to her, she went home, took the brooch out of its box, unhooked the clasp and pinned it on.
The Wheelchair
A client came to see me for a reading and had only stepped in the door when it became obvious to me that she had brought along a friend’. It was a spirit who in turn was dragging an empty wheelchair. This seemed quite unusual – ridiculous in fact – even for my line of work. So I asked her, ‘Who’s the person with the wheelchair?’ She didn’t know. She couldn’t think of anyone – family member or friend – who even pushed a wheelchair, let alone sat in one.
The only connection she could make with my outrageous remark was that her mother used a wheelchair but she was very much alive. Not in the best of health, it was true, but alive and in a nursing home.
‘Well, that’s very strange,’ I said. ‘This person is quite impatient. They’re obviously waiting for someone.’
This still wasn’t much help to the client, so we moved on. We talked about a number of things to do with her life, and as we did the spirit vanished. I no longer had the sense of anyone there with the chair or otherwise, which was a bit of a relief. I didn’t want spirits cluttering up the place with wheelchairs!
The consultation itself was a productive one and my client left feeling fairly certain where her life was heading. I couldn’t, however, shake this overwhelming feeling of terrible sadness. My client knew this but as neither of us could explain it, I guess we pushed it to the side. I said goodbye to the client, presuming that the emotions I continued to feel would leave me before long.
In the meantime, the client went home. She’d been home only a few minutes when the phone rang. It was the nursing home. As I’ve already said, her mother wasn’t in the best of health, but when the client last saw her, she was fine. Now the nurse in charge was ringing to say there was bad news. Her mother had taken a turn for the worse. Could my client just pop round?
When she arrived, it turned out that the charge nurse had wanted to spare her. Her mother had, in fact, died earlier, before the phone call was made. It was all very sudden but the old lady had gone peacefully, sitting up tranquilly and almost happily, in the chair she had asked to be wheeled to the bed.
The Hero Ghost
Are people who commit suicide allowed to meet with their loved ones? I used to believe this wasn’t the case, that these poor, tormented souls were to stay in outer darkness, being denied this vital joy. I don’t know where I got that belief from – it stems back many years. However, I no longer hold that view. I have had too much evidence that the spirit can communicate and be reunited with loved ones, no matter what the cause of death – natural, after great ill health or suicide. I am certain, too, that one particular spirit didn’t want his beloved wife to join him until the time was absolutely right. Selflessly, he realized that the time wasn’t right for them to be together and that he would have to wait.
Mrs Greville had been devastated by the death of her husband. He had died suddenly at the age of 60, having been perfectly fit and healthy. When she first visited me, she was in a state of deep shock. How could this have happened? How could he have been fine one moment and gone the next? Sadly, these were questions I felt ill-equipped to answer. His death was so recent – only six weeks had passed – it was no wonder she was in such a state. So much so, I found it impossible to tune in to her. I was being blocked by the sheer, overwhelming grief she was suffering. I suggested she come back to see me in a few months, allowing time for both spirit and bereaved to come to terms with their separation.
Mrs Greville did come back. Only by that time she was even more distressed. Nothing in her life had any meaning. Her thoughts were consumed with what she had lost. The only difference between now and six months previously and a very worrying difference it was too – was