Having moved out of our lovely cottage three years ago, we felt we should tell the tale of how haunted it really was, from excerpts in my diary.
        Tinker's cottage was built over 200 years ago and it was a problem since the day we moved in. When builders came to add an extension, things just got too much, and the workmen packed up halfway through and refused to come back. The problems in the cottage just seemed to get worse, no matter how many electricians came along; the lights would flicker and electrical things would play up, and water seemed to be coming in everywhere. No matter how high the heating, it was always so cold.
My sister came over and was scoffing about ghosts when we were all having a glass of wine, and in front of us her glass on the table just shattered.
         We are a down-to-earth, sensible, professional couple with two teen-age children, but things were coming to a head. We were driven out of our own bedroom to sleep in the kitchen of the beautiful cottage, with a landscaped garden, by the constant knocking in the small end bedroom. That’s when we realized we needed specialist help.
         Word got around and a TV company did a short piece on the cottage, then said, "Get professional help." We settled for an exorcist called T Stokes, one of the famous Stokes family of psychics who initially said he had been rather unwell and to see if we could find someone else. But he agreed to do a "remote," which is like absent healing, but with a building, where -- in their own home -- they will astral travel to the building and work on the spiritual level.
         In the morning he told us the front door is not the original one, which had been covered over, so we searched and there it was just as he said, "all covered over" many years back, no doubt. He also said that there was black water under the cottage, and we told him the underground stream had been rerouted some years back. He was aware of a man called Tom, who was still in the house from many years ago, and he had kept horses; the old stables are still at the back, but are now used for storage, etc.
         The exorcist chap had been ill, so an Internet search for another specialist was fruitless and one spiritualist church in Scotland said yes, they knew a man and would get back to us, and then an hour later gave us this very man, Stokes, whom we had been talking to. So we then got back to him, and he told us, "A spirit will often know when an exorcist is coming, and things have been going haywire in my home today, so I know I have to come to your cottage ASAP."
         This was correct as things in the cottage had been getting much worse with water pouring down the walls.
         Ever since the day we moved in, things had been difficult, but they were now reaching the point where we had to get out at every chance.
         The man came as he said, to do a spirit clearance. He studied the front of the house, then asked to walk round inside, where we had a cup of tea in the safety of the new kitchen extension. There he chatted gently to our teen-age children and also asked about which rooms the dog or cat would not go into. He seemed to know what to ask to find out exactly what he needed.
         The dog, a retired Greyhound, is very sensitive to people, but climbed onto the settee and lay against him, which we thought was a good sign.
         He then walked the house until he came to the new under-the-eaves toilet upstairs and said. "Whoa ... it's like a brick wall hit me!"
And he blurted out, "The spirit does not like this at all." We said we did not like it either, and it was a constant problem with things going wrong and the constant banging. He then came into our bedroom, where he made some signs in the air and splashed some holy water at the door and window, and then he told us that all the house apertures have been
psychicly sealed and protected, except the fireplace, which he left for last.
         So going there and walking up and down, he then stood back and told us a man wearing black surge type agricultural clothes and smoking a clay pipe would stand in front of the fire when he came in. He had come back injured from the Napoleonic war. This seemed to fit, as a man with a metal detector found some Napoleonic military buttons buried in the yard.
         He then sat down and -- breathing heavily -- carried on a conversation with Tom, the spirit, and said, "You are upsetting these people, and if you do not stop, I will send you away." Then he said to us, "The spirit is upset and says, 'There are intruders in my home.' "
         He then gently told Tom to look around for the light and to look carefully and see the faces of loved ones there, and hear their voices calling to him. He explained to Tom, "This light is the love of God. You will be welcome there. They have been waiting some considerable time for you."
         The windows rattled a bit, and then the room seemed brighter.
After this, he told us that an old woman, possibly his mother, was seen climbing the stairs by the fireplace and he thought she died of a chest condition like TB. We then explained that we could feel a heavy weight on our chest at times, like we had TB.
         He said once he explained to the spirit, it was then okay about things, and that he was not an evil spirit, just an unhappy one. And he had little education, but was superstitious and loved his family and his home. But now he had to let new people in. He had worked hard and was injured in a battle in the Napoleonic wars.
         Funny, since then the water now seems to be drying up and the cottage has gotten much warmer. The children will now sleep in their own rooms.
         I have the distinct feeling Tom is now much happier, and I know everyone is at Tinker's Cottage.

         T Stokes is a consultant palmist in the UK. His book, 50 Case Studies in Modern Palmistry, is available on Amazon as well as from Earth Star (for $20). The eBook is now available on Kindle for $9.95.

www.t-stokes.co.uk

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