quote:
Originally posted by WILDER X:
Doris Stokes was no fraud. I knew her personally. I could tell you one of her stories too and back it up with something someone told me, something that never appeared in any of her books.
Please tell.
Oh Wilder! This will be really very difficult for me as I have bad short term memory loss.
But perhaps I can remember some of the details as it happened over 26 years ago.
OK, I will have to be ever so careful not to give away anything that may give a clue to the people involved other than what has been printed in one of her books.
This story dates back to the Falklands War. There was this family I knew very well. They had a wee physically disabled child. I knew the child and his family from the local Riding for the Disabled Group where I was a volunteer and committee member.
His brother was a soldier in the Army and was at the time currently serving in the Falklands. The boy proudly showed me a large watch he was wearing on his wrist. He told me it belonged to his soldier brother who gave him it and asked him to take care of it and to keep it safe until he returned safely back from the war. The child had been very upset when he heard what his brother was leaving the country for but the watch helped him to come to terms with it and he truly believed that if he kept the watch safe then his brother would be kept safe.
Well his brother was later reported as missing in action.
After the war was over and his brother's body had never been found, the family visited Doris Stokes and asked her if she could contact him.
She tried but ended up very confused. The family saw that something was not right and pressed her to be honest with them. She said she didn't know how to say this but she then said he is not dead!
The family couldn't believe what she was saying and they kept on pressing her for more details, could she somehow prove to them that she was indeed in contact with their son?
Doris then went on to mention a watch and a child. She hadn't a clue what it meant but she said she was getting messages saying tell him I will want my watch back.
That proved to the family that their son was alive somewhere. They then contacted the Army and told them about this. Now my memory becomes very hazy. I think Doris had asked the person she had contacted where he was and he said he was lost but he gave her very vague discriptions of his surroundings. I may be wrong about this.
The army found hin with those details I think. He had been living rough in a cave in the war zone and was in a pretty bad way. They think he had been concussed or shell-shocked during the heavy fighting, knocked unconcious and when he came to he was alone and had no memory of what had happened.
Thats all I can remember. It's a true story. Some of it appears in one of her books, but not all of it. Apologies to any of you who either read the story in the book and think I may have got some of the facts wrong, or to anyone else who knows this particular family. I have left a lot out because I can't trust that my memory may play tricks and add in things that may not be factual.
Doris was shocked. She didn't know how it came to happen that she ended up communicating with someone who was still alive.
As I said in an earlier post, Doris Stokes was not a charlaton. Before she became famous she went through hell with her gift and ended up being treated by a psychiatrist for a long time. She only became relaxed and comfortable with her gift after joining the local Spiritualist Church and getting support and guidance from the mediums there.
but once in my bedroom late at night when I was trying to sleep I smelt perfume that did remind me of her.
was that during Divas " Late Nighters " 
