A spirit story today received via an email. My thanks to the author who wishes to remain anonymous.
"I'm not sure if you will believe this story as I hardly do myself.
My mother died unexpectedly last month, and this was a very sad time. I have a 23 month old daughter, Lucy, who was very close to my mum and they saw each other most days.
Lucy is a forward girl and loves to talk, though we don't always understand what she is saying. My husband and I weren't sure how to tell her that she wouldn't be seeing her Nanny, as she called her, any more.
For the funeral we left Lucy with a friend and afterwards picked her up in our car. We strapped her into her seat in the back and off we drove towards our house.
Lucy started talking and talking non stop, most of it we couldn't understand. I asked her who she was talking to and she said, "Nanny."
I was shocked and asked her where Nanny was and she pointed to the seat next to her and then she said, "Nanny says she is happy and likes Heaven."
The really peculiar thing is that we hadn't been able to bring ourselves to tell Lucy about my mother's death.
My husband thinks Lucy must have heard someone talking about her Nanny, but that's not how I feel. I like to think that this was a message from my mother to say she is alright. Or am I just fooling myself?"
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We do seem to have many skewed ideas as to what success really is nowadays. For me it's to look at my son holding his son - just four hours after he was born - and to know that he is a good man, as will be his son. All of the material stuff then just fades into insignificance by comparison.
It's strange how life sometimes takes a complete circle. It certainly did for Helen Scott.
Helen turned 90 at the end of last month and remembers her childhood with fondness, especially playing games in the garden with her brother, Hedley - happy days. The house was a vicarage as her father was the local priest.
As with most of us she left home, moved away, and got married in 1955 to Tom Godman, her brother's friend. She then became Helen Godman.
Cotswold House is where she lived as a child and the very spot in the garden - where she once played so happily with her brother - is now where her bedroom is positioned.
It looks a little different now, since the house was transformed and developed into a Care Home, but Mrs Godman has returned full circle to her childhood roots.
The WWII hero, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, was the lead pilot in the Dambuster's mission in 1943. They set off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and his dog, Nigger, who was chocolate-black in colour, was killed just before they set flight. The dog's name was acceptable in England back in the 1940s. How times have changed.
The photo above shows the dog with the Wing Commander who is on the right stroking him.
The Labrador's ghost is said to still be seen guarding his master's old quarters at RAF Scampton. Wing Commander Gibson left instructions, before setting out to bomb the German dams, that his faithful dog should be buried outside of his office.
There have been lots of reported sightings of the dog but a recent, not very clear, photo - see below - shows the dog near a Dambuster's memorial. The photographer claims the dog simply appeared and then disappeared as soon as the picture was taken. Obviously skeptics will say it is simply another black Labrador.
But this got the ghost busters involved to find the ghostly dog - and they believe they have located him. They actually claim to have gone one step beyond and also say they have made contact with Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who died on active service in 1944.
Lead investigator, Paul Drake, insists there is paranormal activity at the RAF base. He is quoted as saying, "One of our investigators felt a cold spot and when we measured it, it was eighteen inches, which is about the height of a dog.
The curator of the museum has told us that he has felt for years that he has had a presence following him and he definitely feels that it is that of a dog."
In the classic 1955 film The Dam Busters the name of the dog was censored when the film was shown on UK television. In the US I believe they dubbed the dog's name to become Trigger.
And a small coincidence: The Dambuster raids took place in 1943, which was also the year the Wing Commander's dog was killed. The Dam Busters film mentioned was voted the 43rd best ever British film.
In his book Ghost Stations Bruce Barrymore Halfpenny writes that the ghost of Nigger has been seen on numerous occasions around RAF Scampton and also around the Dambusters Memorial at Woodhall Spa.
If you live in the UK your house is worth more if it has an odd number on the door. So, if you own a house with an even number - as I do - the property is said to be worth less than the house either side with odd numbers!
For some reason the property website Zoopla did a study of all of the house prices in the UK. It must have been a slow day or something. They found that the average odd numbered home was valued at £207,202 ($317,784). The even numbered average house, however, clocked in at £538 less: £206,664 ($316,195).
So why is this? Erm, well nobody knows. Maybe it's the magic of numbers or ... goodness knows. There's no logical answer.
There was one exception to the odd rule and that is with houses with the number 13 - these are actually valued at £3,300 less than the average. This is no doubt because of the supposed bad luck attributed to 13 - which puts off perspective buyers.
Some will say that you can prove anything with statistics but, as we all know, 72.45% of all statistics are made up.
P.S. I've just come up with a solution. Pythagoras regarded even numbers as being feminine and passive whereas odd numbers are masculine and active. So, of course, odd numbers will therefore be worth ... aaaagh! Seems like my wife doesn't agree with this theory! Oh well, back to the drawing board.
I have been reading a little about the Druids recently and, from what I understand, there appears to be four main tenets to their beliefs:
(1) We all have eternal lives. We all have an eternal soul (anan) which travels through an eternal cycle of lives. Between breaks in these lives our soul resides or rests in the Land of the Living.
The hard part I have with this is that we seemingly do not remember our lives on earth, which may be in any form, including inanimate - and these are not necessarily in a sequential order. 'Death' erases our memories of the life lived here, but we do retain the wisdom we have learned from our experience as a ... human, animal, mineral or whatever.
I've always thought of reincarnation as being sequential with gradual steps along an evolutionary track - each, hopefully a little improved from the previous one.
(2) There is a spirit in all things. Everything is alive whether that be rocks, rivers, water or the wind. The land and all things are to be revered as they have their own spirits and often gods and goddesses as well. We, living now, are simply part of this community of life.
I guess this means we should have a respect for all of nature - after all we may possibly incarnate as a rock or part of the landscape.
(3) There are multiple worlds. There are other worlds which exist alongside those we all accept. I mentioned the Land of the Living in (1). There is also, for example, the Realm of Sidhe where fairies and similar entities exist.
These other worlds interpenetrate each other, and our own, so it is possible to travel between them in the right circumstances. Perhaps this is how some people will occasionally see fairies and the like or relatives who have died.
The hub of all of the various worlds is the Land of the Living where the soul is said not to be constrained by death, time or birth.
(4) Respect for our ancestors. We should revere our ancestors as we are part of a lineage or group, sometimes associated with an area or maybe a clan.
This lineage or clan is made up of the dead as well as the living and has its own mythology linked to divine ancestral beings.
I don't profess to be an expert on the Druids, so some of what I have written may be slightly off track. There are, however, dozens of books about the Druids should you wish to take the subject further. Try Amazon USA or Amazon UK.
Much of ancient Druid history is unrecorded and appears to have first been mentioned in about 200BC. One of the first texts is by Julius Caesar and in this he writes of the Druid philosophy:
"With regard to their (the Druids) actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on astronomy, on the extent and geographical distribution of the globe, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion"
In the 18th century there was a revival of Druidism in England and it was then that they became linked to ancient monuments such as Stonehenge.
I must admit I don't feel adverse to the Druid's philosophy. Maybe this is why I chose to live in Cornwall, one of the Celtic regions of Britain.
Like something from the movie The Exorcist the rough voice of a man erupts from an eleven year old girl's mouth, "Just before I died, I went blind, and then had a hemorrhage and I fell asleep and died in the chair in the corner downstairs."
These words came from the lips of Janet Hodgson then of 284 Green Street, Enfield, England in one of the most famous, though controversial, cases of poltergeist behaviour. It has since become known as the Enfield Poltergeist.
Janet, then eleven, lived with her mother Margaret (known as Peggy) and two siblings Johnny ten and Billy seven. The problems began in August of 1977 after the children admit to having used an Ouija board.
After hearing a noise Peggy went up to see her children, who were in bed, and witnessed a chest of drawers move by itself. Janet has told of what her mother saw:
"It started in a back bedroom, the chest of drawers moved, and you could hear shuffling. Mum said, 'I want you to pack it in.' We told her what was going on, and she came and saw it for herself. She saw the chest moving. When she tried to push it back, she couldn't."
In the days following there were noises, bangs on the walls, levitation, graffiti, flying objects and other happenings of poltergeist activity.
But before we write this all off as a hoax, it has never been disproved, so much so the Enfield Poltergeist is now being made into a film to be released on next Halloween's Day.
Here is some of the 'proof' for the Enfield Poltergeist.
(1) A policewoman, WPC Carolyn Heeps, sent to the scene has signed an affidavit saying she had seen a large 4ft armchair move unassisted across the floor. She afterwards examined the furniture to make sure there were no wires etc. to pull the chair. To the policewomen it seemed genuine.
(2) Regarding the 'rough man's voice' I mentioned at the beginning of this post he later said his name was Bill Wilkins. Bill's son came forward to confirm how and where his father had died.
(3) The next door neighbour, Vic Nottingham, was called in by Margaret, when the poltergeist activity first started. He said of this, "I went in there and I couldn't make out these noises - there was a knocking on the wall, in the bedroom, on the ceiling. I was beginning to get a bit frightened."
(4) The Daily Mirror visited the scene and photographer, Graham Morris says, "It was chaos, things started flying around, people were screaming."
(5) Investigators from the Society of Psychical Research were sourced. These came in the form of Martin Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfiar. Grosse has since died but at the time said, "As soon as I got there I realised that the case was real. Everybody was in chaos.
When I first got there, nothing happened for a while. Then I experienced Lego pieces flying across the room, and marbles, and the extraordinary thing was, when you picked them up they were hot."
....oOo....
All the while the activity seems to have been centred on eleven year old Janet. She is now 45 and told Channel 4 television:
"I felt used by a force that nobody understands. I really don't like to think about it too much, I'm not sure the poltergeist was evil. It was almost as if he wanted to be part of our family."
Janet told the Daily Mail, when asked about what she experienced:
"I knew when the voices were happening, of course, it felt like something was behind me all of the time. They did all sorts of tests, filling my mouth with water and so on, but the voices still came out.
The levitation was scary, because you don't know where you were going to land. I remember a curtain being wound around my neck, I was screaming and I thought I was going to die."
Janet had a short spell in the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital but all of her tests found that she was normal.
The mystery of the Enfield Poltergeist will continue, especially as it is being resurrected by a movie to be released in October 2012.
"I'm not sure if you will believe this story as I hardly do myself.
the name of the dog was censored when the film was shown on UK television. In the US I believe they dubbed the dog's name to become Trigger.
Bruce Barrymore Halfpenny writes that the ghost of Nigger has been seen on numerous occasions around RAF Scampton and also around the Dambusters Memorial at Woodhall Spa.
or 
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