As each goal was scored the audience went into a frenzy of laughter and applause. The atmosphere was alight with excitement and there were a few minor scuffles between the opposing fans. Once such scene involved David. A ball once more went out of play just at the point where David was standing. As he darted forward to retrieve it, one of the female inmates also swooped down to pick it up. Mayhem followed as the two of them fought and pushed one another in an effort to take possession of the ball. It became so bad that they had to be separated and calmed down.
At the end of the game the players would be taken to a part of the building where there were over a dozen baths in a line in the longest bathroom you could ever imagine. David knew the routine and would hang around waiting to speak to the players, even though he should have joined the other inmates as they were taken back to their quarters. Nevertheless, he would wait to chat to us as we came out after our bath and would walk with us towards the coach waiting to take us back home.
I felt very sorry for David. He seemed to be an intelligent lad and although he was a few years older than me, I felt a certain empathy with him and used to make a point of having a chat about what had happened in the game and about Liverpool Football Club’s premier team’s progress in general.
On this particular day I had completed my bath quite quickly and was making my way down the corridor to the room where we were given tea and sandwiches when I heard a voice call my name. It was David.
‘Hi, Derek, mate,’ he said. ‘Can I share your sandwiches with you? I’m starving. They don’t feed me enough here. I’m a growing lad and I need my vitamins.’
We both laughed at this comment, because it was obvious from David’s size and stature that he was far from underfed. He accompanied me to the tearoom door and I went in, got myself a plate of sandwiches and a cup of tea and brought them out to him. I have never seen food disappear so quickly in all my life!
When the sandwiches were finished David told me in a confidential manner that he really should not be in that part of the building but should in fact be in the adjoining part where he had his own room. He told me that he had been a resident at the institution for nearly three years.
I asked him why he was there, because apart from appearing to be a little slow, he seemed perfectly normal to me. He informed me that the doctors had told his family that he was mad because he could see and hear people that no one else could. He said he hated the fact that the doctors gave him medicine in an effort to stop him from seeing what they referred to as ‘imaginary people’. In order to stay on the right side of the medical staff he even told them that he no longer saw or heard those people. Then he laughed and winked at me and said, ‘But I still do!’
As David related this tale to me I felt myself grow cold. The experiences he was describing were exactly the type of thing that I myself experienced and, according to my grandmother, would in later years play a huge part in my life.
From the age of six I had seen and heard people in the world of spirit. Although at that time it did not play a major part in my life, this ability was always with me. I thanked my lucky stars that my grandmother, a medium herself, had recognized what was happening to me. If I had been born into a different family I could quite easily have ended up in a situation similar to the one that David had found himself in and would not have been able to fulfil my dream of playing football professionally for Liverpool Football Club.
My heart went out to David. Just being in his company and close to his aura told me that a grave error had been made – something that was more commonplace in those days. The young man was neither mentally deranged nor schizophrenic. Quite simply David had the gift of spirit communication.
David continued speaking. ‘Since I’ve been here I’ve seen and spoken to lots of people who used to live here but have now died. Sometimes at night before I go to sleep they come and again in the morning when I wake up. It’s real, Derek, honest it is!’
I asked David whether he knew of anybody in his family who had had similar experiences. He told me that his father’s grandmother had been taken away because she was crazy and had been locked up somewhere, never to be seen again by their family. I doubted very much that the poor old lady had been ‘crazy’. It was obvious to me that she had passed her gifts down through the family to her great-grandson.
‘Do you have to go straightaway, Derek?’ David asked me. ‘I’d like to show you my room. I can sneak you in there without being seen.’
I hesitated momentarily then said, ‘OK, come on then! Let’s go!’
David led me down various corridors until we came to what appeared to be a communal sitting room. Through another door we went and then into another short corridor with a number of doors. David stopped outside one of the doors and opened it. ‘This is my room,’ he told me proudly.
It was a very plain room with a single bed and a bedside locker. There was a small wardrobe and a couple of shelves. A number of Liverpool Football Club posters adorned the walls. I could only imagine David’s loneliness in spending much of his life in this solitary room.
As I approached the window to look out of it I heard a loud bang. I looked down to the floor and saw a box that had moments earlier been sitting on one of the shelves.
‘Did you see that, Derek?’ David asked me excitedly. ‘Did you see the box move? That was Jim! You can’t see him, but he’s standing right there.’ He pointed to a spot just next to the shelves. ‘That was naughty, Jim,’ he said. ‘That was bad!’
I looked towards the place at which David was pointing. I felt a sharp pain in my back and then noticed a man in spirit, small in stature and aged I would say in his early fifties.
‘Can you see him, Derek?’ David asked me excitedly.
‘Yes, I can, David,’ I replied and described the spirit man who had joined us in the room.
‘Yes, that’s him! You can actually see him?’ David questioned, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘He lived here with us, but he died just over a year ago.’
‘And he suffered with a very painful back, didn’t he?’ I said, ruefully rubbing the area where I had experienced the sharp pain.
‘Yes, he did!’ David agreed.
David was almost jumping up and down on the spot in his excitement at me being able to see the spirit person who had been his constant visitor for almost 12 months.
There was a small rustling noise in the corner. ‘Milly’s here too,’ said David. ‘I liked Milly. She was like a mother to me.’
Poor David. In the three years he had been in this place he had lost two of the people he had grown close to.
I felt a cool breeze play around my body and then suddenly there she was. Milly was a rather stout-looking lady of around 65 to 70 years with white hair and a lovely warm but mischievous smile.
I stood in David’s room watching Jim and Milly display their obvious affection towards David. Suddenly I became aware of a feeling that was totally different from the warmth emanating from these two spirit people. I asked David what was in the adjoining room.
David seemed to shrink with fear. ‘I don’t want to go in there, Derek,’ he said. ‘There’s a nasty man in there and I keep well away from him.’
I asked whether I could go into the room for a moment.
‘You can go, but I’m not,’ said David hesitantly. ‘Please don’t ask me to go in there with you.’
I know now that what I was about to do was foolhardy in the extreme. Although I was aware of the spiritual system of things in that I knew of my spirit guide Sam, at that time he had not drawn close to me and