The Leslie F​lint​ Tr​ust

Read the full transcript below as you listen...

Present:

Leslie Flint, Burt Billinghurst, Eva Dittmann,

Ted Booker, Bob Kennedy, Jim Ellis and friends.

Communicator:

Mickey.

Billinghurst:

Seriously - what are you wearing today?

Mickey:

What d'you mean 'what am I wearing?'

Billinghurst:

Yeah, come on - what are you wearing?

Dittmann:

He's in his birthday suit!

Billinghurst:

No - what are you wearing? Please.

[Cough]

Billinghurst:

Serious question. Jokes apart.

Mickey:

Well why do you want to know that?

Billinghurst:

I wanna know.

Mickey:

I...you see, what you don't seem to realise is...

Billinghurst:

Now come on...I do realise.

Mickey:

...it's what one thinks. As you think, so you are.

Billinghurst:

Yeah, well what are you thinking...

Mickey:

If I think I want to wear whatever it is...

Billinghurst:

Now come on...what is it?

Mickey:

...you know, a jersey and all that, I could wear a jersey. But it has no solidity...it's not...it's not exactly like your lot. It's [a] mental thing. You see, you dress according to your mood or what you think.

Billinghurst:

You're only telling us things we know.

Mickey:

Well what do you expect me to tell you. You obviously...

Billinghurst:

What – are – you – wearing?

Mickey:

[Shouting] I TOLD YOU ! A JERSEY.

Billinghurst:

Okay.

Flint:

Oh dear!

Dittmann:

You got a red one on haven't you?

Mickey:

You a funny bloke you are. You take for instance a lady; and she comes over here and she gets sorted out, you know, 'rehabilitated' as you call it, and she becomes, sort of, part of a new experience in life over here. And she may have had a very strong desire to have a...say, a blue dress or whatever, you know, and as she thinks it, so she creates it. But it's only a temporary thing. While you hold on to the thought of it, you retain it.

Billinghurst:

Yeah okay. Now you remember Rose the flower girl?

Mickey:

What's all this about...?

Billinghurst:

Now Rose the flower girl...

Mickey:

What about her?

Billinghurst:

Now she cut her hair once and said, 'I didn't half get told off.'

Mickey:

She did what?

Billinghurst:

She cut her hair. In spirit. She cut her hair...and she was told off.

Mickey:

Yeah, but that's just...

Billinghurst:

Well how did she...why was she told off?

Mickey:

Well probably there was a reason, I don't know what the reason could have been. But, um, you see, if only you could realise that; as you think, so you are. You create your environment and no one can escape from themselves, no one can save you. All this religious business about being saved, and all the rest of it, it’s something within their innermost mind, but it’s a thought creation which, temporarily, may exist for them.

That’s why you get some people who go into, sort of, an environment - or groups of people, because of their thought-forces in regards to their religiously strong inclination - and they temporarily, for a, what you call time (although it doesn’t exist in the same way as your time does) and then they live together as a community.

And you’ve even got groups of people who really believe they’re going to be resurrected, you know, and they’re coming back on Earth in a physical body. And while they hold on to that past idea, then they will retain that thought and they will live in their own community, very happy.

I mean, there’s another thing, it’s…it’s…what your happiness consists of, is according to your outlook and your thought. Over here all life is creative. It is in your world to an extent. Why do you have wars? Man creates them. People always say, ‘why does God permit this?’ He let’s you get on with it.

You see, God’s got nothing to do with it. Man creates his own happiness or unhappiness and it may be the unhappiness that comes into your life is created by people around and about you and that it’s not necessarily of your doing.

But everyone is an individual and the vibrations that they bring into being, sometimes can be destructive. You suffer from yourselves, because of your attitudes and your way of thinking. You create all the unhappiness and the misery that enters into your world - even disease.

They think that, uh, you know, I mean, I could go into depth on that. I mean, all the terrible things that happen in your world, in some shape or form, invariably are brought about by man.

Of course, there are natural things, I mean, like earthquakes and things, uh, which are not man’s creation, but then again he goes on disturbing nature. Look at all the rubbish you’re putting up in the heavens in the sky and in the ground and in the sea. Of course man’s going to reap from all that a very unhappy future.

I don’t understand why people don’t see this; that they are themselves the ones who create the havoc and the unhappiness and the miseries. Also of course, they can create happiness and joy if they go about things in the right way. Man makes his own heaven and hell.

Anyway, what was it you was on about?

Billinghurst:

Well that's right. You're right.

Mickey:

What about you? I suppose you think when you come here, you'll have a beautiful robe with a crown...

Billinghurst:

[Unintelligible]

Mickey:

He won't you know!

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

You'll be as you are...yourself.

Billinghurst:

I know...I know that.

Mickey:

And you'll be a much better off person than a lot them people who've got wads of money in the bank, and all the rest of it. Because your heart's in the right place and you try to do the best you can under, sometimes, difficult circumstances. I could give you a good sheet - and I'll put me signature to it!

Flint:

[Laughing]

Billinghurst:

Thank you, bless you for that.

Mickey:

Your heart's in the right place mate. You may not have much in the bank, but you're a damn sight better than a lot of those who've got millions. It was worth coming today for you wasn't it!

Flint:

[Laughing]

Billinghurst:

Thank you for coming and making the breakthrough...

Mickey:

You're a case you are - Bertie Bassett...you and your allsorts!

Billinghurst:

You'll take care of Leslie and Bram when they come over won't you?

Mickey:

Oh yeah...well I'm gonna have a rest.

Billinghurst:

You're gonna...

Mickey:

[Laughing loudly] I'll go and see them from time to time, of course. Well, later on, if he starts...you know, I'll try and help. But, I don't suppose I'll get much chance now will I?

Billinghurst:

Yes you will.

Flint:

Well in next Spring maybe Mickey...

Mickey:

Anyway, you've had a mouthful today. What's up with you? Misery guts!

Group:

[Laughter]

Flint:

I'm not miserable. No I...was very naughty, I know...

Mickey:

There's a lot of very kind, sincere, warm people trying to do the work. And they get disheartened and disillusioned and it's not altogether their fault. Sometimes everything seems against them...it's the way the world is and the conditions. It's not the easiest thing you know. You have to make allowances. No one's perfect. Look at you...!

Group:

[Laughter]

Flint:

I don't profess to be perfect.

Mickey:

Well you're not bad for....well...[Laughing loudly] I could have done better for myself, but I'm happy with you.

Flint:

[Laughing] Oh dear, oh dear!

Billinghurst:

Mickey, whereabouts is that explorer fella? Do you remember?

Mickey:

Which one?

Billinghurst:

Your first rescue. You know?

Mickey:

Cor, bloody hell! That's years ago mate.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Fancy you coming up with that. That must be half a century ago, your time.

Billinghurst:

It is yeah, fifty years ago.

Mickey:

Oh he's gone ahead.

Billinghurst:

Yes.

Mickey:

Gone a long way ahead.

Billinghurst:

No, I just thought of it...

Mickey:

You see you don't stand...you see what people don't realise is, that there’s nothing static. Everything has change, everything has movement. No one stays mentally or spiritually - or physically, for that matter, when on Earth - the same. Life is all change - it has to be. There's no such thing as being static. You see, all life is continuous.

You’re not…you see, your body, for instance, when on Earth, is changing every second, in a way. And if you...if only if you could realise that, th-th-th-th- that life is movement and...and excitement and change and thrills. I mean - oh I wish I could explain it.

Like when I first came here [laughing], I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. [Laughing] I couldn’t really [laughing]. I thought, ‘well that’s bloody funny’ you know.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

I thought, ‘who’s that dude down there?’ And it was me, you see! I didn’t realise what had happened, ‘cause it hit me. And I suddenly thought, ‘well, that’s funny.’

You know, it is ever so odd sometimes, for some people, when they see themselves for the first time outside the body.

And then I realised. 'Course, people are making a lot of fuss, you know. And then of course, my Mum and Dad went round the bend, you know - my Mum did. She always put on a good show! [Laughing] You know really, you gotta laugh when you look back on it.

You know, being dead’s the most wonderful, exciting business you know. From the moment you start, you know, and you realise, you know - and people come and help you look after you and encourage you.

And of course occasionally you’ll get someone who comes over who really, quite frankly, they are so bewildered. And they sometimes think they’re in a dream and they’re gonna wake up, see? They don’t even realise they’ve ‘kicked the bucket’.

Oh it's ever so good, no one need fear it you know, it’s something to look forward to. No one need worry about dying. It’s a lovely, lovely thing. Of course the experience of being in an hospital and all that and operations, is nasty. People dread that part of it, obviously, but once you’re out of the body...oh, boy oh boy, you’re as light as a feather and you can go here, you go there. You can watch people, see what they’re up to - you’ll have a few shocks of course!

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

But you know, people you thought were such nice people on the surface, you realise they’re bloody awful - underneath, you know. [Laughing] You gotta laugh.

You know, when I used to go outside the pub when Mum and Dad were boozing, you know, and I used to...[laughing]...I used to go from one door to the other, “Maaam!” I’d call out and she’d say, “What do you want?”, you know.

And I got a bottle of pop and I got one of them bloody arrowroot biscuits, you know, like a cartwheel...[laughter]...and when I’d had that I went to the other side where my Dad was - 'cause they’d had a row you see - and I got another bottle of pop and I got another arrowroot, see?

[Laughter] And it was real marvelous really, looking back on it. But you know, I always did well if they'd had a row.

Group:

[Laughter]

Cor, it's a laugh 'innit now? And I see them from time to time, but you see they’re not together. 'Cause I mean, they made the best of a bad job I suppose really. 'Cause they weren’t right for each other and I felt sorry for them, you know, in a way.

[Laughing] Then I sold them there papers and then made a bob [or two]. [Laughing] And I used to up the 'Old Bedford'.

Up those high stairs to the gallery, you know. Used to dive down the front, to get in the front row, you know. And I saw Marie Lloyd and all them there people you know.

I always had a sort of idea if I’d have gone on stage, but I don’t suppose I ever would. But you gotta laugh...how things have changed. I mean, I could tell you a few bits, oh but I better not. Hold on.

Group:

Oh, go on...

Mickey:

Oh, you don’t want to listen to me all day.

Group:

Oh, go on... go on...go on. Do your thing today.

Billinghurst:

What about that sugar bowl, ay? That was a nasty...

Mickey:

Do what?

Billinghurst:

That sugar bowl. That was a bit of a dirty thing to do.

Mickey:

Oh come off it...

Billinghurst:

No. Yes it was. Frightening those poor ignorant people.

Mickey:

No, you shouldn't say that.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

You've got to realise...

Billinghurst:

Oh dear! I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding.

Mickey:

Well I don’t care whether you are or whether you are not kidding.

But you see, anyone who's deeply interested in the things of spirit and they’ve lost someone, physically that is, that they worship and they love and who meant life itself to them and they think, 'oh dear I wish I could really believe' you know, that there is life after death and that I will meet my dear 'so and so' you know.

And perhaps they're sitting rather morbid and alone and depressed, then all of a sudden the bloody [laughing] fish bowl floats up the air and the fish are going mad you see.

And that makes them think, 'ooh, what’s that?', you know. Then it must be psychic you see. It gives them some, sort of, um, well...it gives them some strength don't it? 'There must be something for that to happen', you know.

You see, we do try and do silly things. I mean, you’d be surprised. I mean, we do all sorts of odd bits and pieces. We move objects on shelves sometimes or take flowers out of vases to give you an idea that we’ve been there. If its possible to do anything simple like that, we do it.

And a lot depends on circumstances, but you see, everybody’s searching. They’re not necessarily all searching in the same way. They’re all wanting something. Invariably they want conviction, invariably they want comfort, they want upliftment.

They want to know that death is not the end and that eventually they're going to be with their loved one again. And that to most people is the most important thing of the lot. And it’s not until you’ve lost someone, on your side, that you really begin to fully appreciate them. 

That's another strange thing about people ain't it?

You take each other for granted. You love them just the same and you appreciate everything they say and do, but sometimes you have a bit of a tiff or a misunderstanding, then you have regrets...but looking back, people must realise that...that there’s so much they might have done that they didn’t do.

And there are so many things when you first come here; you think, 'oh dear, I might have said so-and-so' or 'I might have done so-and-so' or 'why did I do that' - and people have regrets...

And you see, if only you could realise it’s not the easiest thing to be nice and kind, and considerate and helpful and uplifting to people, while you’ve got them...and you make use of them, in a way [laughing] you can't help laughing in a way, because human nature is a funny thing altogether.

Often the one you love most, you hurt most. You never would do it intentionally, obviously. And when you come here you look back and it’s as if your whole life, in a way, goes before you. That’s what they say about people who are drowning; that they have this, sort of vision, if you like of what, uh, you know...what their life was.

Well, I am not saying it’s exactly like that, but the thing is, here you have a golden opportunity while you’re still in your world - to do the things of the spirit while yet in the flesh and indeed you can become a much warmer, kinder, understanding person than you actually are or have been.

You’ve got a golden opportunity. I mean, if you believe, as we hope you believe the things we tell you about and try to help you with, if it doesn’t make you a nicer, kinder, warmer person and a more considerate person, then we haven’t done our job.

But you see 90% of the people, I shouldn’t say this, but it’s true - old Leslie's right really - I mean a lot of the people that go to the 

spiritualist churches...I mean, I’m not saying they haven’t become convinced of life after death, but they're not very changed in themselves, uh, they’re still bitchy.

I mean, you go to any spiritualist church - and I've been in a few, believe me - I’ve been

there waving my hands, trying to attract the medium’s attention, being completely ignored and I think, 'well, I dunno. She says she’s clairvoyant, she can’t see bugger all', you know...

Group:

[Laughter]

...and I get fed up. But the point is that, you get all this in the church, you know. You get people who have a go at each other and you have committees and 'gawd'...and you know. I know I shouldn’t say it, but it’s true.

We are all in this work together, doing the work of God, doing the work of the spirit and we should all be trying desperately to be kinder and warmer and more considerate. It’s not the easiest thing. Sometimes somebody irritates or annoys you and you feel, 'oh gawd', you know.

But the point is, that you’ve got to put yourself behind you. You know a lot of people can’t do that and they want to be the 'king pin' or they want to be on the platform and they're saying to themselves, 'oh I can do better than she’s doing'. They probably could anyway...

But the point is, that you’ve got to make allowances, no one’s perfect and we’re all striving for something and we don’t quite know what it is we are striving for. In any case, everyone would be uncomfortable in a perfect world. I’m not in a perfect world. I’ve never met anyone over here who would say they’re in a perfect world.

We’re in different states of being according to our evolution and our development and we’re happy in that environment, because that’s the environment to which we’ve achieved over a period of what you call time - although we don’t see time, as you understand it.

Everything is a matter of state of mind and...oh I don’t know. Sometimes I can't get...when I look into your world and I think, 'I don't know!' We do our best as best we can. We try to help people. We try to comfort them. We try to give them an insight into the things that really matter. And a lot of those people...well, they do the best they can, perhaps I shouldn’t say it, but they could do a lot better.

You know it's funny, I could say but I better not... but you know, you’ve got a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful truth and it worries me that sometimes you don’t appreciate it or some people don’t. They just take it for granted.

I mean they go along and they get a message and it cheers them up, gives them a bit of comfort for a day or two and then something goes wrong somewhere; perhaps the bloody roller blind flap collapses or something, you know and they get fed up with it all. 

[Laughing] You can’t help laughing though! Human nature is a pun really, with all its weaknesses, all it’s stupidities and all the things that go on.

There’s a lot that, really you know...I get a giggle sometimes when I come down here and I see what’s going on, through people I know and I visit people from time to time. And they get all worked up and all tense and sometimes it’s so silly. I know they can’t help it, probably, but if only they realised that, although the things that they're worrying or concerned about are important, 'cause they're still in the material world and they have to be considered, it’s not the be all and the end all.

Its when you come here and you look back and you see yourself as you really were and all the stupidities and all the things that went on that caused irritation and frustration - and sometimes that's led you to behave very badly to someone you love.

It’s all very sad in that respect, but everyone has a sort of...well, I don't know. If only you could see it the way we see it. If each day you try to become a little better, try to do things better than you did the previous day and with a little more con - concern about other people, rather than yourself.

You see, a lot of people are in love with themselves and that’s a terrible thing. One should be anxious to better yourself and to improve; in a material and a spiritual and psychic sense, yes. But if you are going to be in love with yourself, and a lot of people are - they'd never admit it, they don’t perhaps even realise it, but their main concern is, 'what’s in it for me?' and 'what am I going to get out of it? Is it going to be worth my while?'

Now that’s not the right attitude to have in life. It’s what you can do, what you can achieve - not just for self, but for others and to give yourself in loving service to others and forget yourself. That’s when you begin to grow mentally and spiritually. Hear endeth!

Flint:

[Laughing] Dear, oh dear!

Booker:

Mickey, is the Old Bedford you mentioned earlier...was it a Music Hall?

Mickey:

Oh yeah! In Camden Town.

Booker:

Does it still exist?

Mickey:

Don't know. Does it?

Booker:

Well I don’t know, I was asking you. You don’t...

Billinghurst:

I don’t think so Ted.

Booker:

No.

Billinghurst:

No.

Mickey:

No. It was a good place it was. They used to get all the top-liners there, [unintelligible], the One-Eyed Kaffir* - you wouldn’t remember him, before your time.

Booker:

[Unintelligible]

Mickey:

Well I mean, you're only about what, sixty something ain't you? No, you’d have to be older than that to remember some of them. Anyway...[laughing]...you can’t help laughing...talking about mediumship and mediums. Well, well, hope we do our best to help them, but...Oh well. I don't know what we're gonna do...when old Les 'kicks the bucket' and I've finished me job!

Dittmann:

Oh don't say that...

Female sitter:

Don't say that Mickey...

Mickey:

Oh well he can't go on forever. Even if he is living in that posh place...

Dittmann:

You'll still come and see us?

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

[Laughing] You can't help laughing. Isn't it funny?

Dittmann:

You can come through John...

Mickey:

You know, you can live in the tiniest little cottage and you have everything and you can live in a mansion and have nothing.

Female sitter:

But Leslie's not going to be like that, he's...

Mickey:

I didn't mean him.

Female sitter:

Oh I'm glad. [Laughing]

Mickey:

Ah, but I’ve found more love, more harmony, more beauty, more comfort with some people who live in a little, tiny miserable place. It shines from within themselves.

And I've been to places where...ooh blimey, cost millions and they’re as miserable as I don’t know what - and they’re not nice people either. Lot to learn.

Billinghurst:

Haven't we all?

Mickey:

You should say that...

Billinghurst:

Yeah, well...

Mickey:

You're alright cock. As I've told you, your heart's in the right place...I'm not sure about your head !

Group:

[Laughter]

Dittmann:

What about his leaking roof ?

[Coughing]

Billinghurst:

Oh don't tell him about that for Christ's sake.

Mickey:

His leaking roof ?

Group:

[Unintelligible chatter]

Billinghurst:

How's Myoko these days?

Mickey:

Do what?

Billinghurst:

How's Myoko? She hasn't spoken for...must be for a couple of years. I haven't heard.

Mickey:

What's he say?

Billinghurst:

Myoko. Is she about?

Mickey:

Oh...you know, she is a lovely little thing. And she's warm and kind and loving and she's around him constantly – and I think he knows and feels it very strongly at times.

Billinghurst:

And he still can't cook.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Well...[Laughing]...well he can't cook? Well it's not for me to say whether he can cook or not, but he 'cooked his goose' a long time ago !

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

You don't know the meaning of that term, I bet?

Kennedy:

I have a question Mickey. Has Myoko met Gladys Hayter?

Mickey:

Oh yes, she's met a lot of people over here - people that you knew. You know, the point is that your Mrs., uh, she hasn't really changed very much. She's changed in the sense that she's more aware and more conscious of the things of the spirit, yes. Because she's here among the things of the spirit, but she's still rather quiet and retiring. She's not a 'push in' person.

That's why you get, sometimes in a sitting, you know, you'll get some of them come bursting through and no hesitation. They just go like a 'bull in a china shop' some of them. And then you'll get someone like your Mrs.. She's very quiet, she doesn't push.

You know, I've said to her, 'oh come one, get on with it' you know, 'he's looking forward to you coming' - and she tries. But I think she is the sort of person, if I may say so, uh, that she'd do much better if you were sitting with a medium alone, than with other people.

I think she's the sort of person, like some people that are over here, who don't like to show too much, um...well, t-t-to people that they don't know. I mean, I should imagine she was very quiet when on your side and didn't mix too well. She'd be very pleasant, but she wouldn't be animated like some people and take over.

She's the kind who would sit quietly in the corner, she'd just say 'yes' and 'no', but she's not a pusher and she's never changed.

Kennedy:

Yes Mickey, this is true and for anyone who wouldn't have too much belief in this subject I can say that this would be very good evidence. This is a very, very evidential point for myself. Because she is exactly the same over there on your side, as the way she was over on our side.

Mickey:

Yeah.

Kennedy:

And she has not changed and this is excellent...

Mickey:

I think...I think if you had guests in your home and she was the lady of the house, she'd wait on them 'hand and foot' and almost curtsey or bow, in a sense. And she'd be very retiring, she wouldn't be pushy. You would be the man of the house and it would be you that she would look up to and it would be your duty to take over, in a sense.

You know, I think that she was a wonderful person and she was obviously dead right for you mate, because you revelled in it, in a way, and of course you'd miss it all the more now you ain't got her there, you see. But, you see, she was the person who would do anything to make things easy and as pleasant as possible, for you or any guests or friends. And she'd be there - she wouldn't say a lot, but she'd be noting everything that's going on. And she'd be mentally thinking, 'ah, I'd better get up and go and do so-and so' and then she'd come back and...

You see, she was a person who, well...it was by her nature of course, to a great extent...because she was very much in love with you of course, but it was more than that, it was something inbred...it was something that goes back, not only in her own life, but in the life of generations of people of her own nationality or background.

You see, she was a girl - a woman - who really was a very strong character underneath all that. You see, outwardly you would sort of say, 'oh she's very sweet and very quiet. Very pleasant and very amiable. She would do this and do that and she would wait on you hand and foot', and all that.

But behind all that there would be a much stronger character and much more of a person who, if they could assert or did on rare occasions assert themselves, could really come out with something which might even surprise some people, because they've got so accustomed to her as she appears and how she acts - but she was strong inside.

You know, some people might have thought she was rather a weak character, exterior, in a sense, because of her pushing herself into the background, but she wasn't really, deep down, like that at all. She was very efficient and she was very strong and she had opinions, which she may not always have ventured to discuss, but she was a much stronger person.

Actually, she was a much better balanced person than a lot of people who are all flamboyant and all on the surface and have a lot to say for themselves. She said a lot by being who she was and what she was, and in the way she acted and the way she behaved and in the way, perhaps, she didn't say a great deal. But she thought a great deal and she was a much more evolved sort of person, inside.

I wish I knew how to put this, but you were very lucky because you had an exceptional woman in your life mate.

Kennedy:

Yes I know that Mickey and I would say, for everyone who heard this, that this is an excellent character description. I mean, it was just perfect - a hundred percent perfect I would say.

Mickey:

Yeah she was, um...you see...[laughing] I don't know how to put this. She's all sweetness, but behind the sweetness was a much stronger character than some people realised, you know.

Kennedy:

That's very true Mickey, that's very...

Mickey:

You know, she was a very thoughtful person and she planned things - uh, perhaps sometimes without you even knowing it - well ahead. And she...in an emergency she'd come to the surface...and you know, she was quite an extraordinary dual personality in a strange kind of way. [Loud interference] I think she was right for you.

Kennedy:

Yes Mickey that's true, that's very true.

Mickey:

That was your fault Burt.

Billinghurst:

Yeah, sorry.

Mickey:

You and your whatsit !

Kennedy:

Thank you very, very much...

Billinghurst:

Didn't worry you that much did it?

Mickey:

Don't make no odds to me, but you'll have his lordship...

Billinghurst:

Scared you huh? Scared you?

Mickey:

[Laughing] You can't help laughing. People have got funny ideas about dead people anyway.

Billinghurst:

Oh, alright...

Mickey:

They think we're all running round playing harps, singing hymns. They don’t realise we are real people.

[Break in recording]

Mickey:

...and I've grown up over here. When I come back to you lot, I revert mentally - well I hope I don’t - but I revert back to me old self, more or less as you would see me, if you could see me.

Billinghurst:

You saying you're mental then!

Mickey:

But I’ve learned a great deal. I may talk common, but I can talk posh too...

Billinghurst:

We know that. We know that.

Mickey:

...by concentrating, but I feel that it's best to be as I am and how you expect me. You know, people got no idea. They think, oh well, you get to the other side you suddenly become 'holier than thou' and you run around with a harp and praying and all the rest of it, singing hymns. Who’d want eternal life singing hymns and playing harps?

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Rather...rather be dead and know nothing.

Dittmann:

I like hymns.

Mickey:

Do what?

Dittmann:

I said, I like hymns.

Mickey:

Well good luck to you mate....If they help you and they mean something to you...

Dittmann:

There's some nice ones.

Mickey:

...and if you believe in what you're singing, yes.

Dittmann:

I can't sing...

Mickey:

But a lot of rubbish too, isn't there? I mean some of the words in some of those hymns give me the pip*...

“Stand up, stand up” and all that business, you know.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

You know, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus,” and all that. Well...uh...oh I dunno. It gives me the pip some of it.

Group:

[Laughter]

Billinghurst:

Alright. Okay...

Mickey:

All about a 'mighty army' and all the rest of it. Why do they have to bring all that in?

Billinghurst:

Well, a bit of patriotism and God knows what. I don't know...it's a load of rot.

Mickey:

Do what?

Billinghurst:

A load of rot. I agree with you.

Mickey:

No, it's all crazy. Actually when you analyse it, all these different religions, different beliefs, you know...[laughing]...and yet fundamentally the same truth is there. Because you can’t eradicate, as you call it, what is a reality. But man has created all this, sort of, religious aspect of things, which has got little or nothing whatever to do with the truth.

Billinghurst:

Yes.

Mickey:

I mean if there’s no life after death what’s the point of religion? And then you get those barmy people, you know, who really are narrow-minded, aren’t they? And they think that everybody is...well...going to hell, don’t they? And they are the only ones that are going to be saved, they're all going be carried up in a cloud or whatever it is...

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Oh, stone the crows!

Billinghurst:

You sound like Mike Fearon.

Mickey:

Who? Oh him.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Oh no...his mother's with him. You know, she was a bit of a case she was. But anyway, of course they're together. Oh you remember old Mike?

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Oh no...his mother's with him. You know, she was a bit of a case she was. But anyway, of course they're together. Oh you remember old Mike?

Billinghurst:

Yes, yes.

Mickey:

Well he did a stint, you know. He was a good fellow, he did a lot of good work, I tell you.

Billinghurst:

Yes. Smashing lad. A smashing bloke Mike, yeah...

Mickey:

And he used to give a lot of help to people and his Mum. 'Course, she was a bit autocratic wasn’t she? She was a bit of a pain in the whatsit !

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Although she was alright in her heart, but you know she really...[laughing]...she used to make me laugh. I suppose I shouldn’t...

And I think her son, bless his heart...of course, it was his Mum and he was fond of her...but he found her a bit complicated and difficult, you know. 'Course, she's toned down a lot now.

Billinghurst:

Has she?

Mickey:

She's become much nicer.

Group:

[Laughter]

Flint:

Oh dear!

Billinghurst:

What about the Cook sister, that Gladys? [Ida Cook]

Mickey:

Oh well...

Billinghurst:

How's she?

Mickey:

She's in a very happy state, but she's worried about her sister on Earth. But she's very happy because she's meeting all the various people she loved; her Mum and Dad and her brother. And also, she's been meeting a lot of these musicians and people she had a great regard for.

Billinghurst:

Yeah.

Mickey:

Oh she's alright, she's revelling. And she looks about twenty-five or thirty you know...she looks quite different. Old age is a thing that’s purely material. You know, when you get rid of the old, um, chrysalis, the butterfly comes out, you know.

Billinghurst:

Yeah.

Mickey:

I mean, you’d be surprised. You see some of these poor old things on your side, looking like I don’t know what, you know...

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

...being wheeled around, poor old things you know; aches and pains and moaning and groaning. And they’re scared stiff of kicking the bucket, they're holding on, you know, onto anybody they can hold on to...

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

...pushing them like mad, but won’t let themselves be released, in some cases. If only they realised how much better off it would be. I mean, I can understand there are some people be scared stiff of dying. I think it is all those horror films you have and that. Gives people the wrong idea.

Billinghurst:

Yeah. It does, yeah.

Mickey:

You remember old Edgar Wallace?

Billinghurst:

Yes. Yes.

Mickey:

Cor, stone the crows! I met him over here.

Billinghurst:

How is he these days, old Ed?

Mickey:

Oh he's alright. 'Course, he don't...[laughing]...have his bleeding cigarette [no more].

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

You know he was a case he was. Clever man though.

Billinghurst:

Yeah.

Mickey:

Oh I've met all sorts of people. I don't have to stay on one level you know.

Billinghurst:

What about Swaff ?

Mickey:

Yeah I met him.

Billinghurst:

Oh smashing bloke...

Mickey:

Yeah, he was another one. Dirty filthy old sausage.

Group:

[Laughter]

Billinghurst:

Always smoking wasn't he? Always smoking.

Mickey:

With cigarette dirt all down him, you know.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Of course, he'd got a brilliant mind.

Billinghurst:

Yeah, used to call him the Pope of Fleet Street. Smashing fella, smashing.

Mickey:

Anybody less like a pope...

Billinghurst:

Well they used to call him that didn't they?

Mickey:

Yeah, but there are pope's that are over here...[laughing]. You can't help laughing.

But really...if it wasn't tragic, sometimes it's funny.

You see some of these people who really were somebody on your side, as the world sees it. And they were full of themselves, how important they were - indeed, some of them thought the world wouldn’t go on without them. Bloody hell, you should see ‘em over ‘ere. Coo! They've had to learn to change I tell you.

You know people can make me laugh. People go to spook meetings, Spiritualist meetings and all that, you know, and they think 'we're going to be very religious', you know...and they sing their hymns and they try to outdo each other by singing higher or lower...whatever, you know. And they think that at a meeting...oh, you can’t help laughing...they think that it should all be on a high 

spiritual level.

No one's saying it shouldn’t be, but what they don’t realise is, uh, that if you want to do the work of spirit then you do that work as best you can, under the prevailing circumstances and conditions...uh, which are presented by the people who are there. They are the ones that supply the atmosphere, they are the ones that supply the conditions and, to some extent, supply the power.

But, you see, you mustn’t get this idea that our world consists of people who are very highly mentally and spiritually evolved. Of course there are, on the higher levels and the higher planes and you don’t have to be necessarily on a very low plane, uh, to be normal, as the world understands it, or to act and react and be as you were when on Earth.

I mean, as we come down into your environment, so, to some extent, do we take on, temporarily, your conditions and your aspect of things. And in consequence, sometimes - and sometimes it's done for evidential reasons - we revert to the old self.

And I've heard people say, 'ooh, he doesn’t half use bad language at times' - but what’s wrong with that? You read the Bible, there’s more filth in the Bible than any other book ever written.

Female sitter:

You're right...

Mickey:

I mean, alright, 'bleeding', alright you cut yourself, you bleed. But somebody once said, 'ooh, that boy', you know. He said, 'he uses bad words, like bleeding'. What’s wrong with that?

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

The time to worry is when you don’t bleed.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Then you’ll be over here and you’ll be better off. [Laughing] You can’t help laughing.

Billinghurst:

Old Daisy used...Daisy Judge used to pick you up with that didn't she?

Mickey:

Well, you see she had...

Billinghurst:

Is she alright, is she alright?

Mickey:

Yeah, but you see you get some of these people - lets face it, they’re well-meaning and they’re kind and all the rest of it, and they think that the Spirit World should be very, very holy. And we should all be talking to each other in a very spiritual language and we should all be, every now and again, bursting out with song. You know, singing, 'Stand up, Stand up' or whatever...

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

I mean, it would be boring.

Female sitter:

Boring...

Mickey:

We are all people on different levels and we all are searching for a greater realisation and aspiration and we enter into different environments, according to our evol-evolution or development. And there are some of us near the Earth who have to work with you lot anyway, and we pick up from you and all.

People have said to me, 'oh, well you talk of certain things', you know, 'that weren't existing in your day when you was on Earth. You use certain words for things', you know. Well of course not, but I pick them up from you lot.

I mean...[laughing]...if you get attached to somebody, like old Les - I mean he gives me the willies at times - but the point is, that I get a lot from him and he takes a lot from me. That’s what good mediumship's all about. That’s another thing people don’t realise.

Because, mediumship is being in tune and in touch with the instrument that you use. And obviously, if you are that in close encounter, you’ll take from the medium certain things or the people who sit with the medium, and my vocabulary; good, bad and indifferent, is on different levels according to the people I have to be with - whether it's you lot...

I mean if somebody comes and has a sitting and 'swears like a trooper', it doesn’t mean to say I've got to swear like a trooper, but it registers in the condition of the atmosphere. People have got funny ideas. They think because you kicked the bucket that you suddenly become very angelic, but how boring we would all be if we were all that angelic. We wouldn’t want to be here, we’d want to be somewhere else.

The point is that there are different levels according to one's evolution and consciousness and...people have got funny ideas, they really have, about us. We're real people. We're not, sort of, conjured up imaginary things, you know. I wish people could realise that.

I mean, if you work with old Les, like I've done for half a century, as you term it, you couldn't help but sometimes lower your standards.

Group:

[Laughter]

Mickey:

Not that he's radically wrong, he's not a bad sort. He's a good sort, in more ways than one. But occasionally, you know, I could kick him, but then I think he can't help it, that's his nature and his temperament. He is a decent sort, fundamentally, you know. I get on well with him and we've done a lot of good work together...

Billinghurst:

Here, here. Yes you have.

Mickey:

...and I hope we'll do a bit more. But, of course, time takes it's toll. I mean think it would be alright for a bit longer.

Group:

Oh good. Good...

Mickey:

Who knows, eh? [Laughing] [Shouting] TIME IS A BIG ILLUSION !

Group:

[Laughter]

Flint:

Oh dear!

Billinghurst:

Oh dear. You're on good form today Mickey.

Mickey:

Yeah, I'll have to go in a minute.

Flint:

Mickey, you haven't brought anyone through.

Mickey:

[Whispering] Oh so what?

Dittmann:

He's brought himself through...

Mickey:

It's my little farewell to my friends.

Female sitter:

Yes.

Mickey:

And when you all come down to Hove.

Billinghurst:

Yes?

Mickey:

...that posh place...then you can all have a dip in the sea...and you can come and have a natter with me, and perhaps others.

Billinghurst:

Good.

Mickey:

Anyway, cheerio.

Billinghurst:

We look forward to that.

Mickey:

All my love and God bless everybody.

This transcript was created for the Trust by Karyn Jarvie and K.Jackson-Barnes – February 2018