Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 77: I See Dead People

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.This is what happened! Produced by Tom RosenthalEdited by Rose De LarrabeitiMixed by Mike WoolleyTheme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton Incidental music by Maddie AshmanEnd song : 'Spirit Comes to the Homewares Store' by Benny ProfoundStream it here : https://ffm.to/spiritcomestothehomewaresstoreListen to all the end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist :https://ffm.to/soabendsongs————————————————————————————Instagram : @strangersonabench Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello. So it to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a bench where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes. Are you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? Do you have a favourite day of the week? Probably Friday. because Fridays I don't work and I don't tend to plan to do anything on a Friday evening other than have a cheat meal and watch a film or something, just chill on the sofa. It's my day to just do nothing, a little treat for myself.

Take me through it as much detail as you possibly can. Your kind of ideal Friday. I mean, we know about the evening now, the cheap meal and the chill time. What is a cheat meal? What is a cheat meal? A cheat meal is eating food that you wouldn't normally eat. Oh, do you say cheat or cheat? Cheat. Cheetah.

Yeah. So, you know, like I don't generally eat carbs and processed food and things like that. But then on a Friday I might have fish and chips or something. And a packet of pringles. No. I don't cheat that far. The stuff they put in the unnameable crisps is really quite bad. Really bad.

So. A day, a Friday day. Yeah, Friday. Let's go, you know, where are you waking up? What can you see when you wake up? Well, I mean, I'm quite lucky because outside my bedroom window, there's some trees, some mad squirrels, even a woodpecker once. So on a Friday morning, I wake up, get up, go to the gym. And then after that, a perfect Friday for me would be when it was a,

really sunny, no clouds in the sky, blue days. And then I would come in here to sunbathe. And I love being in nature and I love the sun. So I can lie in the sun for hours. And there are parts of this that are quite quiet and secluded. And my job is talking to people. so ideally on a Friday I won't talk to anybody if I can help it and I'll just spend the day on my own and the evening on my own

and then I'll probably socialise over the weekend and then it's back to work on Monday so Friday is my real no-talking just relaxing day what's it like to sunbathe around the dead

we don't name the exact place we are now but we are in a cemetery Yes, it is a cemetery. It's also a park. And ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with cemeteries. I was a big fan of the Adams family and that kind of more eccentric type of life. And for me, cemeteries generally are quite peaceful places. not just because they're full of dead people,

but because when people visit cemeteries, they tend to be more respectful and quieter. And I have a kind of spiritual practice and my spiritual belief that, you know, the dead don't hang around the graves. They just don't. Graves are what the living do to feel some kind of connection

with the people who have passed into spirit. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, if you go to a grave, side to connect with the spirit of somebody that's passed, that spirit will come to the grave because it knows you're there and it knows you're there because you want to talk to it. But the minute you leave, they're not just going to sit by the grave. You know, they've got better things to do. Invariably, if it's somebody you're close to in the spirit world, they're around you anyway.

So when you leave the grave and go home, they just follow you home, you know. Not in a weird way, but just in a kind of supportive way. Yeah. So people have this kind of real weird notion about cemeteries, but actually for me, it's a very peaceful place, but I'm also a big fan of honoring the dead, but more in a celebratory way. Who do you seek to honor most frequently of the dead? So I work as a psychotherapist, and I had the same supervisor for 22 years. from when I did my training right through all my practice. And sadly, she died of cancer last year.

And they did a big kind of memorial for her, honoring all the things that she'd done. She was so full of life, and she did so many things. She made films, and she wrote poetry, and she started women's groups, and she played the band. She was just an incredible person. And people sang, and people made music. made music from the various groups she was in.

They even set the place up like her living room and then people would go and talk to. I love that kind of celebrating who people are. I'm really not a big thing of the everyone wearing black and crying. It's like it's not going to bring them back. You know, I mean focus on the positive. Remember them for what they brought your life. Remember them for what they did for your life and celebrate that.

Yeah. Do you feel like in a sense where, Whereas your tissue feels like a kind of a moment of closure almost. This is like a moment, it sounds like what you're describing there as a kind of springboard where you kind of fly forward with something rather than go, that person's in the ground now. Totally, totally. In this event that I went to at the beginning of the year was like that.

There was book for people to put their email addresses in and for people to connect with each other. Because like I say, she in particular had so many different aspects to her life. And this day, all those people were in the room, and there was this thing of like get to know these people because these are other creative people and she would have loved that she would have loved bringing people together to go forward you know i mean i really love that idea as well that you can be buried underneath the tree yes and it's like the tree takes the nutrients from your body to grow i mean i never got the idea of like burying people

in lead boxes it's just the weirdest thing and even though i don't believe in in spirit's been in bodies, I still think I would not want, you know, my rotting corpse to be in a lead box forever. I'd rather go back to the land and create something good for me, you know. That makes perfect sense. You mentioned this inspirational friend of yours, you know, had lots of aspects to her life. Do that awaken any kind of potential strings in your life, as in as anything you've kind of, you've been keen to grow? The reason I had her as my supervisor for more than 20 years was our interests fed each other as well. I mean, like, she was always encouraging me to do more writing and to study.

And I think having her support allowed me to do a lot of created things. I mean, it's kind of serendipitous because things fell into my way anyway that I never dreamed I would end up doing. I mean, the other thing I should say, which is why I'm also talking about spirit. and that kind of stuff is I've always been a kind of psychic medium. So I see dead people. That's how I know they're not here. Because I would see the roof. Oops.

Plot twist. So we see dead people but we're, and so none of them are here. No. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So I wanted to ask you about, you said you've always been fascinated by cemeteries. Yeah. How did you kind of actualize that, you know? I don't know what initially drew me to them.

Because I'd always seen dead people. But you know, when I was very little, I thought everyone could see them. And then I kind of realized that not everyone could. And then I went through that thing which a lot of people go through of like, oh, I'll stop talking about granny sitting on the sofa over there when no one else can see her because it's freaking everyone out and they think I'm weird. But I always had that kind of connection. And then I went to a boarding school when I was 11.

It was a really interesting place, not necessarily in a good way, because it had been a borstal place for Wayward Boys before it had become a boarding school. And they still had, what would you call it, cells in the basement with bars where they used to lock them if they misbehaved. Oh, God. They were used? They had been used, yeah. And by the time we were there at the school, it was part of the laundry room. So it was a bit weird.

But there was a graveyard that was attached to the school. I think the school may have been made probably in the late 1800s. So the boys that had died while they were there were buried in this little cemetery. And the thing about being a psychic, you know, as well as seeing there'd be. dead people, we're very sensitive to energies. So I was very fascinated by these young men who had lived and died at the school

a long time before we were there. But I used to go there and try and connect him with their energy. No one else went in the cemetery. You know, all these boys that had died there and young men that died there, had probably been abandoned, runaways, whatever delinquents. So their families didn't care about them.

Their families didn't visit the graves. They were pretty much neglected graves of all these young boys' men who had just kind of been forgotten. And I remember once, they must have been still using it for something because there was an open grave. and I thought, I'll go and lie in the open grave and see if I can connect him with the energy there.

But not much happened, really. It was just a bit cold and damp. So you got on an open grave. You're really, really, you're stuck in. It's just a hole in the ground. All the rest is psychology, you know what I mean? But I thought maybe being inside the ground I'd be able to connect him with the energy of these bodies,

but it didn't work at the time. So in this particular school, it's getting it right, you saw the dead boys? No, I was trying to connect in with their energy by going to the cemetery, but I didn't come. You know, invariably, unless you do some kind of seance or intention, unless it actually has an energetic connection with you, it's not. going to come. So you were hanging out in this cemetery as a kid and other kids. They just thought I was pretty weird. Yeah, that didn't affect you in any way. No, no, no, I loved being weird all my life. You know what I mean? It was my thing. But hence big fan of the Adams family. You know, one of the things about the early black and white series, you know, I used to have run home from school to watch it,

was that as a family, they kind of flipped everything on their head. So everything they kind of liked were the things that wouldn't normally like. But as a family, there was this unconditional love and acceptance for their weirdness. Everyone's weirdness was great. So, you know, I was very much of that kind of thing. And I wasn't particularly worried about other people's opinions. But it did peak people's interests. And there's a strange story.

So they asked me, you know, the other boys, you know, if you can communicate with the dead. would you do a seance? And I was like, hmm, it's a bit dodgy. But they persuaded me in the end. I think I was probably about 13. But I didn't really understand how mediumship worked. I knew I had it.

I didn't know how to use it. But, you know, we'd all seen that thing about Ouija boards and seances and things like that. So we got Ouija board. But one of my friends was in the school choir. he was like an altar boy and he had a key to the church so I said I would only do it in the church so at least we'll have protection I don't know why I thought that

again I didn't really understand church is just a building at the end of the day so we went and did this seance there was about four or five of us and I called for a spirit to come and to be honest at that point I thought this probably isn't going to work

it just kind of happens in the movies or whatever and then I felt a presence trying to enter into my body. And I'd seen the exorcist. Well, I was like, that ain't happening. So I completely panicked, broke the circle. And they were all like, oh, my God, you know what have we done? And we brought some spirit through that's now going to haunt us or whatever. But bless him, the guy who was the ultra boy,

felt so bad he went and told the priest what he'd done and what happened and they actually had someone come in and perform an exorcism on the church there because then somebody said they saw some spirit running around on top of the church and that kind of thing which I don't think they did but they actually had an exorcism in the church what did you remember the sensation of this I mean what do you remember of this spirit that you say you were trying to enter you? Well, I mean, this is a thing. It did freak me out. So I put that

whole kind of mediumship stuff away for a very long time. And then in my kind of late teens, early 20s, it used to just come out randomly, usually when I was drunk. And it's not

the best party trick, really. No, it really isn't. But it would happen and it happened a few times. And one way I describe it to people, it's like a door opens somewhere and then spirit can come through. And I'd be at a pie. And some random person, suddenly this door would open. I would get all this information which would then just come out of my mouth, which I wouldn't

filter because I was drunk. And invariably, people would end up in tears. So why... So why... So why they end up in tears? Often when people get messages from the dead, it's upsetting. It reminds them that the person's died. One of the reasons why spirit come through is to reassure people

that actually death isn't the end and they are around them and that kind of stuff. But for a lot of people, it's not so good. But also, some of the messages weren't so great. What do you mean? We never loved you. No, no. I remember being at this party and there were two couples. but part of what came through

was that one part of a couple was actually in love with someone in the other couple Oh, oh Yeah, and I said it And that did not go down very well You know, because they were supposed to be just friends

So I got kicked out that part in an Uber And then another one Did we, it was accurate? Well, if it wasn't accurate, they wouldn't have kicked me out the part in the Nubber You know what I mean? And I didn't know these people. They were kind of random people.

Why would I... It wasn't just, oh, he's in love with that person. There was background to it. But you're claiming that someone is speaking through you doing that. So it's someone that knows who they are? Yeah, but you see, the thing is, if you do it intentionally and you're not drunk, you would check who the spirit is

and whether what they were going to say was a good thing for the person. to hear, or you could get a spirit that's mischievous. And I think on that particular evening, it was mischievous. It wanted to create chaos. And I didn't stop it. And chaos ensued. So going back to what you said before,

after a few years of this happening and me being like, oh, this is a bit tedious. I thought I should go and actually explore this whole mediumship thing and find out what it's about. I started going to the spiritualist church and doing workshops and stuff. One of the things they do in the spiritualist church, church, it's called platforming. You know where you get up on the stage at the front and the people sat in the church. And then you suddenly get a message for somebody sat in the pew and you go,

I've got a message for you. And then I was platforming and I was up on the platform and I felt someone come through for somebody but I suddenly felt their energy enter my body. and then I felt as if I was shorter than I actually am a bit dumpy and I could feel these two like heavy weights on my chest so I knew it was a woman. And then after that I did another one for someone else and then I felt this energy in me and I became really tall and quite rigid and the first one was somebody's auntie

and the other one was a guy who used to be in the military and that's when I realized that, you know, one of the abilities I have is that that spirit will enter into my energy to give me physical evidence. They were physically giving me information by putting their energy on me. And that's when I realized that that is probably what happened when I was a teenager and I was doing that. See.

That the spirit that I was calling him was just trying to give me information. But of course, I thought I was going to be possessed by some mad demon. or something like in the exorcist and just panicked. Yeah. So, you know, once I understood it, you know, by then I was in my 30s, I think, then I was like, oh, that's what it was. It wasn't that bad after all. How do you kind of live?

What I mean is this, you know, you've got so much going through you and does it not kind of dominate your existence? Is this something you can turn off and on? Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, even though I did all the training and everything, I still kind of decided I didn't want to be one of those people you see doing the platforms

or on the telly or charging people of readings because I actually find it a bit boring doesn't sound that boring what do you mean boring well it's not novelty to me because it's been there all my life invariably the dead come through

because they want to pass some kind of message of comfort onto somebody so I just become the vehicle to pass the comforting messaging on. There's not much in it for me. Yeah, the person's comforted, but it might be a random person and I'm like, so. Fair enough. And also, like I said, I work as a psychotherapist anyway, so my job is helping people.

So I was already doing that. And then about 13 years ago, one of my meeting friends was like, oh, have you ever thought about doing shamanism? And I was like, I don't mean know what that is. And then a couple of days later, another medium friend of mine said, oh, you should do shamanism. And I was like, I don't know what that is.

But the way that spirit works with me, if I get the same thing twice, especially within a short period of time, then I have to investigate it. It's a message. I see. So then I looked up shamanism. And as soon as I started reading about it, I was like, okay, this is a thing I've been looking for. So then I went trained in shamanism.

And so that's another thing I do. And when I was saying about my supervisor earlier, and as she was dying of cancer, she was in hospital and Hastings. So in a shamanic journey, we use tramps and meditation to go into the spirit realm. Yeah. And then in that, I would see the hospital room,

but I would not just see her in the hospital bed. I would see the spirits, like her dad and her sister had passed and people like that. Because when we're preparing to die, more of our spirits gather around us, to a welcoming community, we see all the people that have passed. So my thing with shamanism is that

I make a decision to go into trance and go and investigate things energetically or spiritually. And the thing that excited me about shamanism is that we don't just connect into the earth's vibrational feel, we can contact much higher, beings of light, beings from other dimensions, from other galaxies, you know, guides that are much more interesting and have much more knowledge than earth-bound energy. And that is what fascinates me. So I became a teacher and I teach people how to connect him with their own guides. Because we all

have a way we can connect him with our guides more directly, and which include the dead. Often people who've been in our life are part of our soul family and they become guides and helpers for us from the spirit world. How are your guides that have interest? So my mum occasionally,

she's a funny one. Why only occasionally? Because when my mum was alive she wasn't one for talking much. I mean she was Dutch and she didn't really learn English she was just very like do this don't do that and she's like that in spirit

and my mum was always very she loved fashion and she loved having a really nice house and having nice things so if there's anything I need to do with clothes or the house she will just come through but she won't say much I'll wake up she'll just be like you need to go to Zara home today

and I'm like I don't really want to go to Zahar home today. What a message to get from the dead. Beautiful. And then I went that actually happened. And what I know is that when I get there if I walk around the shop I will eventually see the thing which is

the reason I've had to get there. Random stuff like because the other thing people are not so conscious of and I forget is that every thought that we have is an intention and it's picked up by spirit. So I can say something. like, oh, I probably need a new duvet cover at some point.

And then my mum hears that, and then she goes off looking for a duvet. And then I go to Zara home and I'm walking around. And the other thing, my mom always loved a bargain. So, and there would be like a duvet, which is just the kind of thing I would like, and it would be in the sale. And I'd be like, okay. It sounds almost like the spirit equivalent of the algorithm. Yeah, absolutely.

But it's more difficult. But it's so weird. And then... Yeah, but it's so weird. of random. There's a bigger picture to that as well. Like, she did another one. Like, I remember thinking to myself, oh, I really wouldn't mind some quite colourful socks. It's good to have, I'm with, it's good to have colourful socks. Although you're not, today, you've never nailed it. I'd go through phases, but this was my phase of like, I want colourful socks. And then I forget about it. And then I was

on my way to meet some friends for lunch. And I was running a bit late, and I got off at Piccadilly and I was walking past, I think it's called St James's church. Yeah, another one. Yeah. And I'm walking to lunch and I'm rushing from late and suddenly my mum goes,

you need to go in the churchyard. And I'm like, I don't have time for this shit. I'm late for lunch already and she was like, you need to go in the churchyard. So anyway, I go into the churchyard and there's market stores so I was like, oh God, there must be something I need here and I just don't know what it is.

So I start going around the market in a rush and panicking some late. get all the way around the whole church I'm just about to leave again a stall selling all these really colourful socks and I was like oh those bloody socks I forgot I asked about them

and you know they had like a five for some cheap offer so my mum loves a bargain yeah so I was like okay that great but I am really late so I just grabbed five pairs of socks and then I rushed off to load And I was telling my friend, and I was like,

and a couple of them, I'm not sure I really liked. And she was like, oh, I need some new socks. Can I see them? So I get these five socks out. And the two that she liked were the two I didn't like. So even though I was late, she also got socks. And I got my socks. Absolutely perfect.

How weird is that? I'm very intrigued by, you know, you're on the way to go to lunch. And your mum's kind of interjecting and gone to go to St. James is, whatever. And you're like, oh, mum, I've got on my way to lunch. Do you kind of have arguments? My mom doesn't argue. I argue with my dad. My dad's past two.

You know, I'll say, shall I do this thing? And my dad will be like, no, that's not a good idea. And then I'll do it anyway. And then he'll be like, I did tell you, you know what I mean? So it's more like that. This is how kind of spirit works because they can see the future and a bigger picture and all this kind of stuff.

So who else on the guide team then? So for a very long time I had a partner that died young many years ago, 30 years ago. And I found it very difficult to get over that loss. How did he die? He died of AIDS back in the early 90s. And I wasn't able to really get my head around that. He was over my eye. Because I couldn't let go of him, he was energetically connected.

to me in spirit, even though he kind of wanted to move on, really. And then I held on to him so long. My soul family, like my mum and my dad, adopted him as part of their family because I wouldn't let him go. It took me a long time to realize that actually he wasn't in my soul family. Some people come into our lives for a reason and then they go and you just have to let them go. But I'd made him stay around for a long time.

And then more recently, my nephew, my nephew died in a rugby accident when he was 24. My brother's youngest son. And we come from a military family. My brother was in the military. You know, my dad was in the military. So he grew up in this somewhat restrictive environment. But there was always a kind of spiritual aspect to him when he was dying. Because unfortunately, he died of a bleed on the brain after a rugby accident,

and it took him three days to pass. So I did go to the hospital while he was in a coma, and I was able to connect him with him energetically and talk to him. But then once he passed into spirit, he's become fascinated with my life, and he just follows me everywhere now and just thinks it's really cool. So he's become a rather enthusiastic guide of mine, which is sweet. He's very much like that kind of energy of like, fuck it, just do it. And I guess because he died at 24, he's like, you have one life, just do it.

Don't be afraid of things. When he was in the hospital and in a coma, you know, close to death, did your family kind of ask you for any, you know, did you do that, if you're, if you're own back or would they say look can you step in and do something? How do they... At the time I didn't tell them because what was happening was there's a bit in between living and dying and he was in the in between. So his soul hadn't left his body that didn't happen to laugh to his...

They switched the machines off. But in that in between you can leave your body, you can like astral project. So he was in the room. He could see his mom and dad crying and his brother crying and everybody. So he was distressed to see the people he loved. Distressed. But at some point, I sat and held his hand.

And that's another thing. If I, because I'm Claire, send it, if I touch somebody, I connect into their energy field. So it was while I was holding his hand, that I was able to go into spirit and talk to him. and kind of calm him down and explain what was going to happen. Because a lot of people fear death because they don't know what's going to happen. But no, I didn't.

It was about him. It wasn't about his parents. They were upset enough already. You know what I mean? So they wouldn't have wanted to know that he was scared and distressed and didn't like seeing them upset. So, but then a weird thing happened later on. I wanted to talk to him because I could tell he was still around me.

And so I went to see another medium friend of mine. Because as much as I have the voices of spirit talking to me, I also have my own voice in my head. And my own voice can be influenced by my ego. So sometimes it's hard to tell if it's the spirit talking. or it's what I want them to say. I understand, yeah. So for clarity, I went to my medium friend

and my nephew came through. But he did this weird thing. He told me a lot of stuff about my brother and his wife and his childhood and growing up and this kind of stuff. But then he asked me not to tell my brother, not to tell his dad.

To be fair, and a lot of the stuff that he told me, me was not flattering. And I was like, you know, fine, I'm not really close to my brother. I get well with these kids, but I'm not close to my brother for various reasons. But then my medium friend, I had met him through my brother's wife. So she'd contacted him because she wanted to talk to her son. But her son wouldn't come through for her, which is obviously very upsetting for her.

But then my this bloody medium guy, idiot, said, oh, I don't know why he hasn't come through for you. He came through for me. So of course, straight away, they contacted me. And they were like, you know, what did he say? And I was like, oh God. What did you do? What did you do?

Did you say you couldn't say anything? Or what do you do? I just gave them a very, very edited version of what he said, really. And I just told them the stuff. stuff that I thought would be palatable to them. And there were things that he said, you absolutely not, you cannot tell my dad this. So there was no way I was going to tell them those things. So that was strange.

So we got, in the guide squad, we've got, mom, dad, nephew. Grandparents. Grandparents as well? Yeah, usually our grandparents are our guides. Your grandmothers and mothers when they pass. Often they work with the more kind of relationship kinds of things, emotional kinds of things, or in my mom's case, anything to do with vanity. But my grandmothers, they're terrible.

They are. They were very feisty women in real life. You know, we're going back a long, long way now. They must have been born in the late 18th century or whatever. And they were both like real no-nonsense kind of people. But my grandmothers, their main role as I understand it, is if anyone pisses me off or wrongs me, they go and do bad things to them. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

A bunch of heavies? Yeah. A heavys out there. What kind of stuff they do? So I had an interview, and there were two women doing it, and one of the women just didn't like me. and she was like really unnecessarily horrible to me in the interview, which was quite upsetting. And then when I saw my medium friend, the blabber mouth one,

he was laughing and I was like, well, he was just, apparently my grandmother went and gave her very explosive diarrhea for a couple of days. No. For what she did, yeah. They're like the mafia, my grandmothers. Were you always interested in death? Well, I was never scared of dying because I understood that it was a transition

back into spirit. This is just one thing that we do. And we reincarnate. You get other options, if you want to, come back and do it again. And we've probably done it, you know, I know I've reincarnate thousands of times. But the weird thing for me on the concept of death

was, When I was 10 years old, my parents weren't very responsible parents. And there was a swimming pool on the Army base we were living on. And it had been fenced off because it needed some repair work done. And my dad was a swimming teacher. My sister was very good at swimming. Me and my dad didn't get on. I couldn't swim. But my parents let us climb under the fence and go into this swimming pool, me and my sister,

while they went shopping. Right. So... I was 10. My sister was 14. And I was down in the shallow end. My sister was doing all the swimming things. And this was one of those old-fashioned pools that had the sloping side.

And it had a railing along the side on the inside of the pool. So because I was bored, I started with my feet on the slope, started going up using the railing till I was at the deep end to get nearer to my sister. And just at that point, I could see my parents. coming in the distance and I let go with the railings and waved to them. Okay, yeah. And I couldn't grab the railing again and I couldn't swim, so I just think. And because my sister was off swimming all over, she didn't realize,

but my parents had seen me go under, so screaming at my sister, at which time I was already at the bottom of the pool. But the weirdest thing happened at some point, this incredible calm just came over me and peace. and then I went into the light and I just went white and I had this incredible sensation of bliss absolute bliss

it's just the most lovely feeling in the world he's just feeling incredible and then the next thing I knew I was on the side of the pool and my lungs were on fire because my sister had got me from the bottom of the pool got me out the pool and was giving me mouth to mouth resuscitation

and I was furious that she brought me back because what I experienced on the other side was so amazing I didn't want to come back. Oh well, you wanted her to let you die? Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to come back. Are you happy that she saved your life now? Still not. It's a choice point, you know what I mean?

It's kind of like... I bet she never saved her no one again after that. Probably not. But the thing for me was, it was a weird kind of dilemma. Because, I mean, I had a very difficult childhood. Lots of people who come here who are older souls, have many lives. We choose difficult lives because we're gathering information. So we come here to learn about human emotions and human struggles,

so fear and pain and all this kind of stuff. So I was having a difficult childhood, and it was like, I could have just got off the roundabout and gone back to spirit and gone back to this lovely feeling of bliss because spirit don't have emotions. They're just in perpetual bliss. And my life continued to be difficult. So there was always this part of me that was like,

you know, you could just go back. You could just, you know, jump ship, just give it up. But we come here for a reason. And also, I very much understand. probably falsely at the time, that if you come here with a mission and you don't complete your mission, then you just have to come back and do it again and start at the beginning. And I was kind of like, well, you've kind of come this far. You may as well keep going.

How long do you want to live for? Well, I will live to my mid-80s. Oh, you know, really? Yeah, which was never my plan. I've interested who's told you this. Other mediums and my own... really live, is unanimously. Yeah, I even had my palmistry done, same thing.

Mid-80s. Mid-80s. Solid. Do you know how? You're going to die? No. In a blaze of glory. I hope so.

I mean, our human ego and what actually spirit wants us to do are two different things. So I don't know. If I had a choice over dying, I know how I want to die. So I was. recently in the Algarb and I was stood on this cliff and it was like a sheer drop

of like a couple of hundred feet onto these rocks and this like crashing waves and everything and I was like that's how I'd like to go I'd just like to launch myself off the cliff hit the rocks and be washed off into the sea

for all the sea animals to eat me and make use of my body So I mean, if I'm in the Ardgarve in 25 years' time, and I see an 85-year-old looking guy, hurling yourself off a cliff. It's me. I mean, obviously you must accept that, like, some people hear you talk and they just don't get it, you know, they just don't tune in with it at all. It's the story of my life, remember?

Is that kind of... Since I was a little, I thought I was weird. So what is the kind of typical backlash you receive? I mean, people, a lot of people just don't believe it, and it's kind of like, well, what do you want me to do? I know what I can see. Do you make what I was a bit confused about is your income based on your psychic abilities? No.

That's what I mean. That's what I mean. That kind of gives you more credit, I suppose. As in like, I mean, the obvious thing is to say, like, you know, if you're fusing it with the financial gain, then it's harder to trust, I suppose, from afar. And that's what Spirit wanted me to do with my mediumship all those years ago. And I was, I was like, I don't want to do that. So in your normal, you know, you said you were a second.

purpose? Yeah. So you're telling me that like you rock up with these clients and you just don't use anything of what you have? Occasionally if it's appropriate it will come through. But otherwise you're just listening to you at all. So it's all part of a system. So all my clients come to me via referrals and they think they come by human referrals but they actually come by spirit referrals. So it's often my grandparents that will talk to someone else's grandparents and they'll be like, you know my grandson's struggling and they were like oh you should send him to our grandson he'll help him and so there's always a spiritual connection when people arrive anyway yeah and sometimes it's obvious from the beginning and sometimes it's not but it's it's serendipitous people meet me because they need to

meet me and i think for me the thing about like the talking therapy i mean i'm not your traditional psychotherapist, but the talking therapist is that if your friend said, oh, I'm struggling, and you said, well, go and talk to a media, they'd be like, oh, now I'm not going to do that, that's bullshit. But if you say, go and talk to a therapist, and they'll be like, oh, you know, that, people do that. That seems like a normal thing to do. So people come and talk to me thinking they're talking to a therapist, and they are talking

to a therapist, but it will eventually, once they build trust and I eventually bring them around to, yeah, and there's a spiritual aspect of this. You know? I see, okay. Because it's kind of on my website as well that I do the shamanism and the ayahuasgarian stuff. And I've had a couple of people come to me and they'd be like, I just want therapy, don't want any of that kind of hocus pocus, pocus, bullshit. I don't believe in any of that.

And invariably, they end up being the people who become very spiritual. But because it's the unknown, it seems a bit scary. bit scary. You mentioned as a kid being weird and people look at you and not understand. Who was the first person that understood you? Not long after the Ouija board thing, where I was really kind of freaked out. A new nurse started at the medical center at the school. And straight away there was a kind of an energetic connection between. me and her and she felt it too. And when she was staying overnight in the medical centre, you know, overnight duty,

I would sneak out of my dormitory and I'd go around and she'd let me in the window and we'd sit talking. And she was somebody that described herself as a witch. She was a full-on witch. And that actually like recognising someone else, I'm like, my God, yeah, it's not just me. I also met her husband and her kids and everything. She was just, honestly, she is the coolest person I've ever met in my life to this day. She was incredible.

It's a huge figure in your life? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Without her, what do you think would have happened? The universe would have put someone in my path. It just happened to be her. What became of her? So, weird stories. So then they got a new matron, and she didn't.

like how close I was with the nurse. I ended up volunteering in the medical centre. To be close to the nurse. Yes. So one day the matron called me into her office and was questioning me about my relationship with the nurse. You know, they thought there was something inappropriate going on between us. You know, a 15-year-old boy and a married young nurse. She was in the 30s.

But I'd met a husband and a kid and that was not it. And I was gay anyway. But the matron, she said I couldn't work at the medical centre anymore. and I wasn't allowed to see the nurse and I went ballistic and caveats I regret saying this I said to her I hate you and I wish you were dead there's only me and her in the room and similarly the nurse was proper pissed off and then they got rid of her three months later the matron Found out she had breast cancer.

And six months later, she died. And I felt so bad. Because in my anger, I'd cursed her. And the nurse had too. So I felt so guilty. And I never told anybody. And years and years later, when I was in my late 20s,

when I first met this media, through my brother's wife he said well I got a message here and he was like well she was your matron at school and I was like the coloured rain from my face and I said oh my god and he said you had this argument with her

and you told her you wish she was dead then she died and you've been guilty about it ever since and I was just like how the fuck do you know that I never ever told anyone that in my life And I wouldn't tell anyone that in my life. And he was like, well, she's here to just tell you, it wasn't your fault.

You didn't kill her. Let it go. You don't have to feel guilty anymore. You know what I mean? But also, that goes back to this thing about good mediums will give you information that's irrefutable. There was no way he could ever, no one else knew that other than the dead matron.

You know, when people, say to me, oh, I don't believe in it. It's like, well, what can I say? I have so much personal evidence both from what I see and what other people see. It's just the thing. It's up to you if you believe in it or not, you know. I mean, you have to ask,

have you seen anything since we've been talking? No. Good, good. But it's, I mean, it is interesting. You know, I believe everything happens for a reason. And, you know, I said I wanted to sit on a sunny bench, and we've just had an amazing sunny day all day. sat on this bench of all the benches. And talking these things through have allowed me to

remind myself and to connect with things that were probably at the back of my mind. So that's been a gift for me. But also I think, you know, you were saying about how do people react to this kind of stuff? And in the context of your podcast, some people listen to it and they might go, well, that's a part of shit. A person's crazy. Or some, someone, might listen to it and say, oh, that makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe I'll go and see medium, or maybe I am a medium. And maybe that's that one person that needed to hear that. No, I like that thought.

I suppose that's what it's about. Yeah, exactly. There's a million different approaches and ways of living life. There's a million different abilities. There are going to be people that don't understand you. They're going to be people that do. And that's life, isn't it? And also, same with a religion you're not believing.

You know, there's always something that you can tap into and extract from that, which could be of worth. I mean, however you're doing, you're trying to find purpose and you're trying to explore as much as you can, like why we're here, what we're doing, where you're supposed to be, all this kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there's things in there, isn't there? There's lots. That's why it's important to meet different people all over the place. So thank you for sharing everybody.

Before the last question, there's always a last question. What I do is get up to close her eyes and then to go back to this is, if we can, let's keep this as an earthly memory. Yeah. Could be a room, it could be a space, it could be an open space, it could be outside, could be inside, whatever. And I want you to kind of take us back there and describe what you could see and what you could feel. Could you do that? Yeah, so where I went as you were talking was back to when I was about 10 or 11. I grew up in North Germany next to a big forest region.

And my father used to drive me and drop me off in the forest car park. And then I would just wander off into the forest on my own, meet my father back in the car park at lunchtime. And I can remember that... sunshine coming through the leaves of the trees, you know, there were big kind of pine trees. And I remember just seeing deer and rabbits and they even had eagles there as well. And I was so deep in the forest, it felt like there were no other humans. It was just me and nature and we were all one.

And I felt such peace and oddly freedom. It was almost like escape from the human world. And even as I'm remembering this now, you know, I can feel the sun on my face, I didn't feel that piece again until I went to the Amazon jungle to do my shamanic ayahuascarian training. As part of my training, I would be left in the jungle

for a long periods of times. on my own. And I felt that same peace and oneness with nature. Love the answer. Look at that sun. It's beautiful, was it? We've been lucky. You see, I don't even say that's a gift,

shining down on us for doing this. It's all serendipitous of all the people you could have talked to in the park. You caught me just as I was leaving. and I just happened to have the afternoon off. I'm working later. And also I'm supposed to be clearing my cupboards out and I really didn't want to do that. Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much to talk to me. It's been enlightening, for sure. Thanks for listening. Last question for you. Actually, we kind of just answered it in a way. What are you going to do next? I suppose it's cupboards. No, fuck that.

This was my get out of cupboard free cards. Yeah, it's good point. The cupboards can wait. You're out of cupboard free cards. I didn't want to do them anyway. So now that the sun's properly out, I'm probably going to stay here until I have to go to work. Fantastic. And the cupboards can wait for...

Rainsy day, because there's bound to be one of them at some point. Too right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Comes to the homeware store, but spirit don't feel pain. And the spirit speaks in my grandma's voice. Spirit moves in mysterious ways Spirit comes to me

Spirit everything welter weight around my chest Not just like to...