The Spirit Trap or why I wrote it…

This is my first attempt at writing a blog and as a dyslexic OAP I can’t imagine what I can be thinking of when people my age should be sitting back with a glass of wine enjoying a good book – written by someone who knows what they’re doing. So what prompted this folly?

It all began with a late night train journey disrupted by a gang of intimidating drunk football fans. It was several years ago and I was working at the College of Psychic Studies in London – as a sensitive/ medium – something I don’t shout about as people tend to recoil thinking you’re either weird or a witch. I am neither. I am an ordinary   housewife with four adult children living on the edge of Dartmoor surrounded by Highland cattle, sheep, cats, an eagle owl and mud. But back to the train. I was returning from London on the last train. There were quite a few people in the carriage, all quietly reading or working on their laptops, when a gang of young men burst in and started kicking an empty beer can up and down the aisle. This went on for a while with them shouting obscenities and trying to provoke trouble, until one of them started being unbelievably horrible to a black girl sitting across the aisle from me. That was it, and I stood up (intending to find the transport police who I’d seen board the train at Reading),when the leader snatched my book from me and started to pace up and down reading it out loud. He then stopped, turned to me and shouted,’you don’t believe this  F****crap do you?’ I asked him if he had any better ideas of what happened to you when you died. He then came and threw himself down in the seat next to me and we began to talk. It wasn’t long before the rest of his mates squeezed in too – six of us in seats for four – very cosy!The rest of was spent with them talking about friends who’d died in accidents, relatives or friends with terminal illnesses – they all had a story to tell, but none had ever given a thought to what happens next. At the end of their journey we all exchanged phone numbers and big hugs, and as the police were escorting the lads off the train one of them turned to me and said,’ I don’t know what you’ve got that I haven’t, but thanks for looking after the lads.’ To which I replied, I have a book. The book was Memories, Dreams and Refections by Carl Jung – it made them think, and it made me think too. Not only think, but to embark on writing stories about what might happen next.