park visit I remember very clearly. I was about six at the time. I can see myself now playing happily with my brother on the seesaw while my mother read a book on a bench nearby. It was a lovely day, the first of the school summer holidays. Suddenly, I started to feel very sick. I got off the seesaw and the sickness passed but when I got back on the seesaw I started to feel sick again. I loved the seesaw and hadn’t felt sick like this when I was on it before. Stubbornly I tried to stay on. The feeling got worse. I could almost feel the vomit in my throat and taste it in my mouth. I had to admit defeat and decided to get off and play on the swings instead.
A little girl and her older sister squealed with delight when my brother and I got off. I watched them enviously from the swing as they went up and down. I swung higher and higher on my swing, trying to convince myself that I was having more fun. I wasn’t. I didn’t feel sick any more and toyed with the idea of demanding the seesaw back. It was my favourite thing to do in the playground.
I stopped swinging so hard so that I could easily jump off, but as I did I realized that the younger girl on the seesaw wasn’t laughing anymore, she was crying. Her sister hadn’t noticed and was bouncing higher and higher. The more the little girl cried, the harder her sister bounced. She only stopped when her little sister started to vomit. The father of the two girls ran over to comfort his vomiting daughter but now she was choking on her vomit. He screamed for help and his wife or girlfriend ran to a phone box. (This was in the days before mobile phones, remember.) The girl had passed out by the time the ambulance arrived and she was rushed to hospital.
Later we found out that the little girl made a full recovery. I was thrilled not just for her but, rather selfishly, also for me. I hadn’t told my mum or my brother about my feelings of sickness on the seesaw. If something terrible had happened to her I was worried they would really be angry with me for not warning the little girl in time.
Warning or advising people was something my mother was highly skilled at. She had inherited the gift of psychic awareness and was an uncannily accurate astrologer/psychic counsellor. She’d give readings for people and wasn’t afraid to give them advice, even advice they didn’t want to hear. Once she told a bride-to-be that it might be a good idea to postpone her wedding. When the woman asked why my mum wasn’t able to give her specifics but she was convinced that it would be a bad move. The woman was furious and said she never wanted to see my mother again for a reading. The wedding went ahead as planned. Sadly, the wedding was revealed as a sham four months later when the bride found out that her husband already had a wife!
I longed to be able to know and say clever things like my mother. I wanted to be able to help or warn people like she did. There was the odd difficult situation, like that of the unfortunate bride mentioned above, but most people who came to my mum for a reading were extremely grateful for her guidance and insight. Trying to copy my mum, I read every book I could lay my hands on from Dion Fortune to Colin Wilson. By the age of 14 I was something of an expert in the psychic arts. Tarot cards and numerology were my specialist areas. I got so good at on-the-spot readings with just a person’s name for reference and a pack of tarot cards that my mum arranged for me to read at a local psychic fair. I read for over 20 people that day but afterwards I felt unworthy. I refused to accept the money I had earned. What I had was a good memory and knowledge from books. The readings I had given that day were based on my intimate knowledge of the theory of numerology and tarot card spreads. I hadn’t had any blinding insights of my own. I hadn’t inherited the gift. I wasn’t psychic … yet!
I talked to my mother about my concerns and she was happy for me to stop reading professionally. She told me that I needed time to grow and find my true talents. I felt keenly that I had disappointed her and let her down because I wasn’t really psychic and couldn’t see spirits and my brother could. I was determined to change that.
I signed up for a number of psychic development courses. Soon I was a walking expert on techniques to nurture your intuition and exercises to develop your psychic powers. My mum repeatedly offered to help me but I told her that this was something I had to do by myself. I made progress but not as much as I would have liked. My tutor at the College of Psychic Studies once told me that he thought I was trying too hard. What I needed to do was relax. I didn’t agree with him. I’d always been told by my grandmother that anything was possible if you worked hard enough and wanted something enough. Besides, I was a tense and stubborn teenager; relaxing was one thing I really couldn’t do.
I wanted to see, hear or feel angels so desperately, but after a couple of years it was like bashing my head against a brick wall. I was getting nowhere. Frustrated at my lack of progress and disillusioned with myself, I decided that it might perhaps be time to focus my energies elsewhere. It was time to get real, get some qualifications and a career.
I was 17 by now. Going back to sixth form was out of the question as my O level results had been dismal, so I enrolled on a home correspondence course to do my A levels. For the next two years I studied by myself at home. A lot of people, in particular my old school teachers and headmistress, thought it was a crazy idea. But what they hadn’t accounted for was my discipline and will power. I was going to prove them all wrong. And prove them wrong I did.
People always say that school is the best time of your life but it certainly wasn’t for me. I hated school. It wasn’t until I began to study alone, free from the distraction of register taking, playground politics and a one-size-fits-all approach to education that I actually got a passion for learning. I wouldn’t recommend this approach to everyone, but for me it was perfect.
To contribute to the household bills while I was studying the only job I could find was as an evening and weekend part-time care assistant at a local old people’s home. You might think it’s an odd place for a teenager to choose to work, but I didn’t mind at all. Many young people feel nervous or bored around the elderly but it was the opposite for me. I felt very comfortable. I loved their wisdom and their experience. However ill, frail, confused or infirm they were, I always saw light in their eyes. In my mind’s eye I could see the children they once were, full of energy and laughter.
Anyone who has ever worked in an old people’s home will know that death is part of the routine. I wasn’t unsettled by it. The first time I saw a dead body I felt a deep sense of peace. I also felt strangely detached from the body as it was clear from looking at it that the spirit had long gone. The body left behind reminded me of clothes that weren’t going to be worn anymore. I also found that I could usually tell which resident was close to passing. It wasn’t anything to do with their physical health. A day or so before they died the light in their eyes started to fade. The child that I imagined them to be in my mind was waving goodbye.
Seeing people so close to the end of their lives encouraged me to make the most of mine. I studied hard and surprised everyone, including myself, when I ended up with a place at Cambridge University reading English and Theology. I think the university liked the fact that I had not followed the same well-trodden path as everyone else. (Oh, the delight in writing to my old school and proving all the doubters wrong!) What I hadn’t anticipated when I finally arrived was how hard it was to fit in at a place of such tradition and learning if you come from a low-income family – and an alternative family at that.
Two weeks into my first term I had my bags packed all ready to go home. I was going to tell my family that I wouldn’t be going back. I didn’t think I was up to it. I just didn’t fit in. I was out of my league. I didn’t have the clothes, the confidence or the money. In those days I was fortunate enough to be given a full grant but even the financial relief wasn’t enough to make me want to stay. It was during this period in my life that my dreams first began to speak to me loud and clear. The night before heading home I had a dream in which I heard a choir of angels singing. Their voices and the song they sang was so piercing and enchanting that it stayed with me as I woke up the next morning. I could still hear every clear note of it in my head.
After breakfast I went to my pigeonhole and collected
