PSYCHIC OR PHYSCO?  (part 1).

Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror,
Won't leave me alone.
The first time in my life,
I keep the lights on
To ease my soul. 

I've been strictly chronological so far but today I want to break from that and fast forward through various events which honestly happened throughout my life. Coming from a Celtic background superstition and the supernatural was a constant cultural theme.


From the age of about 7, I started having out of body experiences.  Asleep in bed I would suddenly find myself floating above my sleeping self.  Sometimes just hovering above the bed but at other times drifting through the window and always viewing my sleeping self from above.  Then suddenly plummeting back into my body and waking with a jolt.  I could actually feel myself hitting my own body and the sensation would cause me to sit upright, stunned and remembering the whole experience.  This was not a one off occurrence but a repeated one which continued well into my teens.

A few years later and I began to have premonitions.  I can remember 3 distinctly occurring as repeated images, like a film stuck on rewind and others were just feelings.



My parents were having a party one weekend in our newly built downstairs rumpus room.  People were inside, outside on the lawn and a group of people were upstairs on our front verandah.  I was standing at the foot of the stairs and a young child, no more than 3 or 4 years started climbing up the stairs.  By the second step I was seeing an image of the child reaching the top and crawling across the verandah and falling off.  This image kept flashing through my mind over and over until, too late I screamed out and saw the child slipping under the verandah rail and falling, thankfully onto our lawn.

Another time my father and I were coming back from a camping trip (another one of his attempts to make 'a man out of me'.....We were stopping to visit friends in a rural town and driving along a long dirt road.  I had a feeling we had taken the wrong road and even told my dad so.  His response was to tell me to shut up as he knew the way!

Up and up we climbed along this winding road.  Again visions repeating in my head.  Clear images of our car hurtling over a steep cliff.  The same image over and over and over.  This time I was aware enough to heed the message and at the top of my voice screamed 'STOP!'.  I must have sounded convincing enough because my dad slammed the breaks on and we came to a skidding halt. Inches away from the edge of the road which ended without warning at the top of a hill.  No stop sign, no barriers, just a sheer drop of a few hundred metres straight down.



Then there was my high school friend's sister.  I often used to visit his house with another friend after school.  His sister was best friends with my older sister.  They were both really cool guys and I was secretely in love with Lex.  The other boy Robert I would later meet in a gay night bar years later.  A beautiful looking women who confused me for ages telling me all about my past high school days before revealing his former identity.

Anyway, the three of us were at Lex's house one Friday afternoon, smoking and watching TV.  His sister was planning a weekend trip with her boyfriend and leaving that night.  When it was home time I went out to his sister and told her to have a fun trip or something like that.  She was obviously touched and gave me a long hug.  Again pictures in my head.  She was there, she wasn't there, she was there, she wasn't there...... I left feeling upset and trying to piece together the message of my visions.

On Monday Lex wasn't at school. Monday evening my sister told me that Lex's parents had been to her school and the police as his sister had not returned as planned on Sunday evening.  A few days later and their disappearance was on the news.  A few weeks later their abandoned Combi Van was found, with all their personal possessions still inside, in a bushland area miles from their planned route.  To this day they or their bodies have never been found.

1976 and my mother and I were on holidays in England.  My first time on a plane, my first time since I was a baby that I had been to England and one of the greatest experiences of my life (the impact and repercussions of this trip I will detail later).

I was only going because my mother's cousin had sent air fare for one of the children to go with my mum.  My older sister was already working and my second sister was in her 4th year of high school with approaching School Certificate exams.  So I was the lucky one.

My mum's family all lived in the same village and had done for over 300 years so we had relations in every second house in the village.  Sadly my Great Uncle died the day we flew from Sydney.  We spent a week in London with my mums' sister before driving down to our ancestral village and arrived a day after my Great Uncle's funeral.

My Uncle was really looking forward to our visit and had spent weeks repairing and cleaning his daughters old bicycle for me to use during our stay. Their house was the quintessential English cottage.  Over 200 years old, hand built from cob (mud.straw, animal hair and dung) and set in a beautiful garden on a hill overlooking the wooded valley towards the sea.



I loved visiting and spent lots of time with my Great Aunt, often staying overnight.  One day I decided to ride my bicycle to our family cemetery located in the next tiny village.  Not only are most of the family graves there but inside the old church are commemorative plaques to various members of my mothers family.  I took flowers and after being given a tour of the church by the rector I was taken to my Uncles grave.

I had slept in their house before this and given their bedroom, sleeping on the bed where his body had been laid after he passed away.  My Great Aunt, naturally, did not want to sleep in the room.  A few nights after my cemetery visit I again spent the night there.

I awoke sometime during the night to the sounds of extremely heavy breathing.  Loud and constant.  Thinking it was my Aunt I ventured outside onto the hallway and towards her room.  Everything was silent the minute I left my room.  I crept right up to my Aunt's bedroom door but could hear nothing.



Returning to my room I was immediately aware of the sound again.  I stepped outside, silence, I stepped back inside and the same loud breathing sound again.  The more I sat, the louder the noise got.  To the point where the room itself felt like it was breathing and I could almost imagine the walls slowly rising in and out.  I wasn't scared.  The noise was comforting and reassuring and often thinking back I imagine it to be something similar to the sound of being in a womb....I was convinced this was my Uncle's way of making contact with me.

Eventually I fell asleep, peacefully and without being scared.  This was to happen each time I slept there.