Doris Stokes - Whispering Voices

VOICES IN MY EAR MORE VOICES IN MY EAR INNOCENT VOICES WHISPERING VOICES

WITH

LINDA DEARSLEY

Voices in My Ear

Copyright Doris Fisher Stokes 1980

More Voices in My Ear

Copyright Doris Fisher Stokes 1981

Innocent Voices in My Ear

Copyright Doris Fisher Stokes 1983

Whispering Voices

Copyright Doris Fisher Stokes 1985

First published in Great Britain as individual volumes by Futura Publications, a Division of Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd

London & Sydney

Reprinted 1988 under the Black Cat imprint by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd London & Sydney

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd, 3rd Floor, Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW I 7QX

a member of Maxwell Pergamon Publishing Corporation plc ISBN 0-7481-0917-7

Whispering Voices ISBN 0356120805

Photoset in North Wales by

Derek Doyle & Associates, Mold, Clwyd

Printed in Hungary

Contents

Voices In My Ear5

More Voices In My Ear223

Innocent Voices433

Whispering Voices

Whispering

Voices

Do not stand at my grave and weep ...

I am not there I do not sleep,

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow,

I am the gentle rains that fall,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I did not die ...

Mary E. Frye

1932

It was a hot summer day the first time I saw the house.

'Come and look at this Doris,' said Laurie and I walked up the road, puffing a bit because the heat was bouncing off the paving stones and making the air go swimmy and what I really longed for was a shady chair to rest my back and a long cool drink.

But then I saw it and for a moment the heat melted away.

Set back from the road and on a slope so you looked down at it, the house was blue and white with tiny lattice windows that glinted in the sun and a strip of garden ablaze with roses. There were matching blue gates folded neatly across the sloping drive and a pretty cottage-style front door.

'Oh it's gorgeous!' I cried in delight, and then with a pang I realized that a house as lovely as this would be far too expensive for me. 'Oh Laurie,' I said, suddenly disappointed, 'I wish I hadn't seen it. I could never afford that.'

But Laurie's not one to give up easily. He just shrugged and grinned his unstoppable grin. 'Well let's go and see shall we ...'

It was a strange feeling, this house hunting for the first time at my age. In the past John and I had always been very grateful for whatever rented accommodation was offered to us. It might not look like something out of a glossy magazine but we filled it with our bits and pieces, put our pictures on the walls and made it home.

Now, suddenly to be given a choice was a bit bewildering. And this business of walking into someone's home and wandering about inspecting the decoration well I just couldn't get used to it. It always seemed so rude somehow to say no.

Yet it had to be done. It was the answer to a problem that had been worrying me for months. When John and I came to London we'd managed to get a flat in a block for disabled ex-servicemen because John is a disabled veteran of Arnhem. It wasn't a palace in fact some people said the blocks were ugly but it was comfortable and convenient and we soon had it looking cosy. We even made a miniature garden outside the front door with rows of plants in pots along the balcony and on summer evenings John and I could sit there in deck-chairs amongst our geraniums and busy-lizzies and pretend we were in the country.

In 1982 things got even better. As flats fell empty, the management began putting bathrooms into them. Until then we'd used a tin bath in the kitchen, but after a long wait, John, Terry and I were moved up the corridor to one of the converted flats. We paid a bit extra and had a shower installed as well and after a couple of weeks we couldn't imagine how we'd managed without it.

The improvement was so great that the blow that fell soon afterwards was doubly unexpected. The whole site was going to be completely redeveloped, the tenants were told. Our block was to be demolished to make room for a garden. The other blocks were to be modernized and in many cases two flats were going to be made into three.

We had a choice. We could live on a building site for the next five years while we waited for a flat in one of the other blocks to become available though they couldn't guarantee we'd get another two bedroomed place or we could find another home.

Now the spirit world has always told me not to worry just to trust and we shall be provided for.

But I couldn't help worrying. How could I do my sittings with the noise of building work going on all day? And how could we turn Terry out if at the end of five years we were only offered a one bedroom flat? The mobile home we'd bought as a country retreat might be a solution, but it was tucked away in a quiet little backwater near Ashford in Kent. Lovely for holidays but it would be very awkward to carry on my work from there.

I lay awake at night wondering what on earth we were going to do, and all Ramanov my spirit guide would say was 'Trust, child.' Which was all very well for him but for me it was easier said than done.

John, who's not a worrier like me seemed to be just as unconcerned. 'Don't worry yourself love,' he used to say soothingly. 'It'll work out. You'll see.'

But I didn't see. The months went by and nothing seemed to happen except that I developed a very bad back. London became very hot and dusty the way it always does in summer and John and I were very glad when our holiday came round and we were able to go down to the van for some fresh air.

And then when I least expected it, the spirit world stepped in. It was an overcast day and my back was playing me up badly so when John said he thought he might go out for a bike ride I told him to go because all I felt like doing was sitting about with a hot water bottle. Yet no sooner had John pedalled away than I was bored. I'd finished my book the day before and I'd got nothing else to read. There was no one around to talk to and nothing on TV.

Dejectedly, I fiddled around with the remote control buttons. Terry had got us linked up to the Oracle and he was always looking at it, but I'd never used it. I wonder if I can get Russell Grant's stars? I thought. I always enjoy horoscopes. I pressed a few buttons and sheets of information began flashing across the screen but half of it was double dutch to me and there was nothing that resembled a horoscope.

Impatiently I pressed more buttons and then suddenly one of the bright pages caught my eye. It was nothing to do with Capricorn. It was a list of properties for sale at a London estate agents, and one of the houses in South London had three bedrooms and was surprisingly cheap.