Magickal Compendium – Hauntings – Personal Encounters – Would You Like A Spot of Tea?
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524 Lifetime Visits for This Realm, 2 Wizards Have Been Here Today
The thing is, this is kind of a secondhand story. My partner, Paula, her family…they describe themselves as “spooky.” You sometimes meet people who have paranormal stories, and they’ve got, like, one paranormal story, and then you get a person to whom this happens on a monthly basis. Her whole family is like that. I’m convinced that whatever experience a person sees is as much about him or her as it is about the experience.
Her family is willing to see whatever it is that exists as part of the “other world.” And I’m sure that whatever it is must be hereditary as well, because I meet so many people whose whole family has had these experiences—and my partner’s family, they’re into paranormal experiences. Paula’s mum’s experience is the most amazing I think I’ve ever heard. She often has small medical procedures, so she’s not particularly well; she goes into the National Health Service (NHS) every now and again. She lives in a place called Low Hill next to Liverpool, and she was in this NHS ward after an operation with lots of other people there.
They were all asleep, and she was up quite late, just not able to get to sleep. A nurse came around and talked to her for a few minutes and asked her if she was okay, and asked her if she wanted a cup of tea. And at this point she said yes, she wanted a cup of tea. There was something about this nurse that seemed quite odd, but she couldn’t put her finger on it at the time. The nurse went away, and she didn’t come back for ages; actually, I think it was about an hour before she came back with the cup of tea, and by then Paula’s mum realized what was strange: She had a kind of old-fashioned uniform on. Paula’s mum asked her, “What’s the deal with the old uniform?”
The nurse apparently just smiled at her and walked away. The next morning, Paula’s mum checked into the nurses that were on duty that night. There was only one nurse on duty that night, and it hadn’t been the one in the old-fashioned uniform. Paula’s mum became more and more convinced that she’d actually seen a ghost. These things happened to her quite a lot—spooky things. She sees psychics quite a lot, and this one particular psychic sees her. (I don’t really approve of psychics; in my experience they usually turn out to be charlatans.) She asked this guy about the experience. She described what happened and he did whatever psychics do, and he said that he was getting a name. It was Lily.
So the next time Paula’s mum went into this hospital for another small operation, she engaged one of the nurses in a conversation about, you know, goings-on in this hospital. She told the nurse that she felt that she’d had an experience in this hospital. And the nurse asked, “Oh, what was that?” Paula’s mum described it and which ward it was. The nurse went, “Oh, that would have been Lily.” It turns out she was the resident ghost. I think they had a bit of a discussion—but again, I’m getting this secondhand. People who worked at the hospital apparently had done some research because lots of people had seen this nurse.
She’d never frightened anybody; she’d gone around and sort of…just asked people if they needed any help, and if they wanted a cup of tea. Whether she’d made all these people cups of tea, I’m not quite sure. You know, we’ve all heard of a ghost talking to people, but never preparing food! I said to her, “You should have tried to push it as far as you could go; try to get a latte or something.” I’m 51 now, and, you know, nurses now wear these horrible blue sacks; they’re terrible. But when I was a kid the uniforms were quite sexy, with big skirts and little hats. I guess they have to wear these things, but it’s a loss!
