A True Story
When I was a young woman working as a secretary for a large newspaper company, my office was in a building in London’s renowned Fleet Street. I felt very lucky to have a job that I enjoyed so much. My best friend there was named Dorothy. We liked each other’s company and therefore often met for lunch to eat our sandwiches and talk for a while. Our favorite spot was in the gardens which surrounded St. Paul’s Cathedral, just a short walk up Ludgate Hill from our offices. We both worked under pressure and the lunch time break was ideal to chat about such things as clothes, hair-do’s, film stars, etc., and the kinds of interests that girls of our age liked to do.
There was a lot about Dorothy that I admired. She and her younger brother lived and cared for their elderly, widowed mother. Dorothy had two older sisters who were married and lived away. She was a tall, thin young woman with the most gorgeous hair I had ever seen. It was so blonde that it almost looked to be silver. I had met her younger brother just once and he, too, had the same coloring. Dorothy had a fine dusting of the same shade of hair on her face and arms. This never seemed to bother her and I found it rather fascinating. Like me, she attended Evening Classes to widen her education. Her home was north of London and mine was in east London.
During one of our many chats together I had told her of my life-time fears of anything ghostly, spiritual, or spooky. As a child I was very much afraid of the dark and my mother always left a small light on in my bedroom before she went to bed. This did help a bit but I often could not sleep and kept looking for anything creepy in the room. Eventually, I did grow out of that fear, but could never watch a movie or even read a story about anything that had a ghostly theme to it.
After WWII a large number of British people turned to visiting clairvoyants in the hope they could find more details about the death of their loved ones. Dorothy had told me many times of her worry regarding her mother’s health and I often thought it might have something to do with the death of her oldest son, Dorothy’s brother, in Burma. However, on this occasion she admitted that her mother believed that her son was visiting her at night, begging her to accept the fact that he was dead and that he wanted her to leave him in peace and let him rest.
I wondered why she had told me more about her family’s concern and was not too surprised when she said “Mary, I have a favor to ask of you.” She then said that she had heard of a famous clairvoyant named Sammy Cohen and that he had helped a lot of people who were in distress. I held my breath as she looked at me and asked if I would accompany her if she managed to get an appointment with him. She then told me that he lived in a place called “Limehouse.”
“Dorothy,” I said, “Limehouse is an area which was once a large Chinatown. This is where the notorious Opium Dens were. It is not an area where anyone gets off the bus to look around. There are many hair-raising stories about Chinatown and people keep away from it!”
To my deep concern my friend looked as if she was going to cry, so I asked, “Well, where exactly does he live?” She answered, “In a disused Monastery in the center of Limehouse”. My heart plopped and I started to shake and shiver.
After a while, I said “Would I have to go inside with you?” Her answer was positive. “No, and I am sure there will be a waiting room. He is a very busy man and much sought after. There is the chance that he could help us save my mother’s sanity.” I could understand Dorothy’s angst as I had lost my own mother previously and still missed her dearly.
After much thought, I agreed to accompany her on her mission. Shortly afterwards, Dorothy managed to get an appointment with Mr. Cohen for 6.30 p.m. in two weeks time. I told my fiancé of Dorothy’s plans and he said that his mother had been to meetings where Mr. Cohen had spoken to huge audiences. She had been very impressed with him and insisted that he was not a fake. This made me feel less nervous of our upcoming mission.
Finally, the day of the appointment arrived and we left our offices promptly, walked to the bus-stop, and started our journey to Limehouse. We didn’t try to talk on the way, as I guess we were both feeling somewhat uptight.
Walking towards Mr. Cohen’s address, we found the roads still had bomb damage and a lot of buildings were missing. It was obvious that the old Chinatown no longer existed. We arrived in good time, thus giving us the opportunity to have a serious look at the Monastery. It was very old and carried many scars from the war. Dorothy knocked on an old-fashioned door and it was quickly opened by a man of medium height, with dark curly hair, a swarthy skin and bright inquisitive eyes. He immediately invited us in. His welcome was warm and kind. Dorothy quickly followed him in. I cautiously joined her, peering around for – what? I didn’t know.
To my surprise the waiting room was very large, with an extremely high ceiling and an imposing number of mismatched chairs all around the gray stone walls. I quickly picked a chair that was as close to the exit as I could find. I had the feeling that my friend had told Mr. Cohen that I would not be going with her for the interview because he immediately waved her towards a door to another room.
I sat on the edge of my chair with my heart in my mouth. I wasn’t sure what scared me and there were no unexpected noises, not even the tick of a clock. I looked around and noted on the wooden floor there was a very large carpet that obviously had once been extremely expensive, but now it was well worn and in some places almost thread-bare. On one wall there were two water color paintings, both of small ships and, perhaps, tugs. One corner held a dried up potted fern on a small table. After about 15 minutes had passed, I finally sat further back into the chair, relaxing a little. I could hear my heart beating and I swallowed to relieve the dryness of my mouth. Another 10 minutes went by, then Dorothy and Mr. Cohen walked towards me. Much to my relief I noted they were both smiling. I leapt to my feet and hurried towards the main door but before my hand could grab the knob, Mr. Cohen said “Mary?” I froze, turning to look daggers at Dorothy. She shook her head firmly and I knew she had kept her word of not talking about me.
Sammy Cohen then said to me “I have a message for you from your mother.” I stood rooted to the spot and he continued saying, “She asks me to tell you that she is fine and so happy to be with little Georgie again.” Georgie was my mother’s first born child. He died at the age of five, many years before I was born.
Some weeks later, my friend Dorothy told me that her mother had finally accepted the fact that her son had died with many other thousands of soldiers whilst working on building roads in Burma under the Japanese rule.
Photo Credits
Clairvoyant Man – possibly taken by William Hope around 1920 – National Media Museum
Brown Lady Ghost photo – Wikipedia – Fair Use
Guest Author Bio
Mary Piggott
Mary was born in London, England, the youngest of four children. Her Mother was widowed when Mary was only one year old. This led to her Mother working long, hard hours at whatever she had the opportunity to do. A lifetime of “making do” and scraping was the only life the family knew and this also resulted in each child having to leave school early to find work. Mary always had the ambition to travel and has visited over fifty countries. In 1967 Mary and her husband Colin emigrated to Canada with their little daughter. Mary is a talented artist who enjoys painting, writing and the challenge of crossword puzzles.
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