A short while after my parents deaths, my next door neighbour asked me if I would be interested in going down to the local Spiritual Centre, which was a bit of a shock as I didn't even know such a place existed so close to me.

She told me that it is actually the Community Centre where meetings are held every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month. The people are friendly she informed me and she had got a lot of comfort herself there when she lost her own Dad so, if I felt ready to go, then she would be more than happy to take me. Of course, I would go although I didn't have clue what to expect.  We arranged to go the next meeting.

Apart from watching the programme on TV about Doris Stokes some years ago, I had never seen actually anything like it, so I was slightly nervous, but at the same time somewhat excited, to be able to see this actually happening.

Mo was right, although the hall wasn't full, the people there were friendly and welcoming. We started with a hymn which was followed by a prayer and then the lady, who seemed to be in charge, read out names from a book she said are ill and in need of healing and we said a little prayer for them.

She then introduced the man who would be giving messages from those in spirit. I was sat absolutely hanging on every word he was saying in his opening talk. He then went on to give messages from those who were in spirit and I was stunned when he pointed at me and said 'You absolutely believe 100% in this don't you?'   I was struck dumb and just  stared blankly back at him so he repeated his question, I just nodded my head in agreement as I couldn't speak a word. 'Yes, I know you do' he replied.

He then said he had a lady with him and went on to describe Mum !   He said that Mum wanted to say she didn't want to leave me but I must know she had to go but she loves me very much and wanted to thank me for looking after her towards the end.

By now I had tears streaming down my face, he then said 'Don't worry, she is absolutely fine now, her legs are better now and is free from pain'  He then went on to say Mum was holding a small dog. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, what would she be doing with a small dog I thought ?  I had a complete blank but was still in a fluster about the fact that Mum had come and given me a message to say she was fine. (This was before I saw them myself in my dream / visit so it was wonderful to hear that from her).  I cannot begin to describe how I felt at that moment, it was like a huge weight had been lifted from me, just to know that Mum was OK, but where was Dad ? There were always together in life so why wasn't he here with her now?

The day after I phoned my friend Denise to tell her about what had happened and she reminded me about the little dog we used to have that Mum really loved. I can't believe that I forgotten about that, I think I must have been in a state of shock when I got that message as I just couldn't think of it at the time.  What I had heard that night was enough for me, I wanted to know much more about all things spiritual.

I visited the Centre on a regular basis after that, getting very good evidence that the messages were from my parents. On one particular occassion, the lady demonstrating asked me if I did spiritual healing as I had a lot of blue around me, I said no I didn’t and thought nothing more of it.  Then one evening another lady medium asked me why I had not done anything about becoming a registered healer, I shugged my shoulders and replied quietly 'I don't know' and felt a bit embarrassed as everyone had turned around to look at me.

As this had happened a number of times now, I decided to see if I could get hold of some books on the subject. I searched my library and the bookshops where I live but nothing was available and I really didn't have a clue where to start looking or even what t look for.  I was beginning to feel that I would never find anything that would help me understand what a healer is. For some strange reason, I didn't think to ask the people who give healing at the end of the service !! Maybe it wasn't meant to happen yet.

Then one night, sat listening to what the medium was saying in a message for a person in the hall, my ears pricked up. The message said something about him reading spiritual books but was having difficulty understanding what he was reading. Where was he getting these books from I wanted to know?  I hadn't been going to the Centre that long and although I had seen him I didn’t know him but I had no option but to ask.

After the service, we where having a cup of tea and I plucked up the courage to speak to him and ask where was he buying these books from. He said that he wasn’t reading spiritual books but Psychic News and it was some of the articles he found difficult to understand sometimes. I thought that maybe I should buy this newpaper as it could be a good place to start to find the books that would give me some answers to the hundreds of questions I had.  The man told me that it wasn't available to buy in a newsagents but I needed to order it direct from PN. He brought me the address where to order it to the next meeting for me so I duly sent off my cheque and waited, somewhat excitedly, for the PN to arrive through my letter box.

When it was delivered, wow, I was like a child in a huge sweetie shop. All these people doing such wonderful things, I found it all so fascinating although there was only little articles about spiritual healing, I still read every single column centimetre of that newspaper. I also found that the PN had it's own bookshop which I could order books on-line. I was very happy now as I was able to get the books that had, so far, been elusive. The first book I ordered was 'A Guide to the Understanding and Practice of Spritiual Healing' by Harry Edwards, how I wish I could have met that man, what a truly remarkable person he was.

I had been going to the Centre for around 2 years now, I had read Harry Edwards book and decided that yes, if I am a healer, I would like to be able to help people in this way, so I asked the healers there if could they tell me what I needed to do to become a registered healer. I was told that it is a 2 year training course and I'd have to study the Code of Conduct and Healers Manual, must know about the chakra centres and understand how they work. I decided that I would like to give this my full attention but as I was in a stressful job, I would not take this on until I was in a less stressful one.  So I set about finding myself another place to work !

Shortly afterwards I saw an advert in the PN for the Arthur Findley College. I had seen them every week and thought that I could never go to such a place but whilst looking at it this week and thinking how wonderful it would be to go, a voice came from somewhere (inside) but no idea where, and said ‘I HAVE to go there’ and so began my journey of discovery  .....................