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July 18, 2020 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes

01:05:15

Edition 469 - David Ditchfield

This time the amazing new story of David Ditchfield who survived a train accident that would have killed many people - and came back from his "NDE" very different...

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	Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
	Thank you very much for all of your lovely emails.
	If you're coming out of lockdown, lucky you, we're still in it here, but the restrictions change all the time here, so supposedly you can do some more things that you couldn't do before.
	But certainly as I record this now, I've been in it for more than three and a half months.
	And I've forgotten what it's like to get in the car and go for a drive.
	And I'm going to have to steal myself and do it sometime because I want to see the outside world.
	You start forgetting what it's like.
	I'm lucky enough, you know, that I live adjacent to some quite nice trees and things.
	But just imagine what it's been like for people.
	It might be you who's been through all of this and you haven't been able to see anything other than bricks and mortar outside your window.
	You have my good thoughts here.
	Hopefully, all of this is going to abate and subside before long.
	But thank you for all of your reflections and communications about your experiences of your life and lockdown and everything.
	I'm going to do some shout-outs in just a second.
	But if you want to contact me, please go to my website, theunexplained.tv, designed and of course and created by Adam from Creative Hotspot.
	And you can follow the link and send me an email from there.
	You can also send a donation if you'd like to to help all of this going.
	And it's been a shoestring operation for all of these years, but we're still here.
	And that's the best news of all.
	If you have sent a donation recently, very many thanks from me.
	And, you know, it means an awful lot.
	And thank you for all of those communications that come along with them, too.
	And thank you to Haley for booking my podcasts, including the great guest on this edition of the show, a guy who's been through a near-death experience after an horrendous accident.
	And the kind of thing that could happen to any of us in our worst and deepest and darkest nightmares.
	We're going to be talking with him.
	David Ditchfield is his name.
	He's written about it.
	It is a great book.
	It is a gripping and compelling story.
	And I can't wait to speak with him.
	We're going to do that in just a moment.
	A couple of people to say hello to.
	Thomas at the Sunday Times in South Africa.
	Thomas, your email meant a lot.
	Thank you very much, Thomas.
	Cynthia in Portland, Oregon.
	Nice to hear from you.
	Cherie in Arizona.
	What a kind email, Cherie.
	And I may take you up on that offer one of these days and might actually see beautiful Arizona.
	I would love to do it.
	I long to see the big, bright open spaces.
	And who knows, might happen.
	And Janet in Australia.
	Always good to hear from you, Janet.
	Thank you very much.
	Okay.
	I think we need to be getting to the guests now because this is a great story and a very gripping story.
	And I think you will also find it in many ways a moving story.
	David Ditchfield is the guest on this edition of The Unexplained.
	Let's get to him now.
	David, thank you very much for coming on my show.
	Thanks for having me along.
	It's a pleasure.
	So David, we've got an awful lot of ground to cover here.
	It is an astonishing story that you tell.
	Just talk to me, though, first of all, so we can introduce you to our listener, wherever our listener might be in the world, about the life that you're living now.
	You know, who is David Ditchfield?
	What is he?
	What does he do?
	Well, my life has gone in complete turnaround, in all fairness.
	What I'm doing now, I'm living in Cambridge and I live by the river in a converted mill and I spend my time between painting and composing, composing music mainly for classical orchestra.
	Right.
	What a wonderful location to be doing that in and what a wonderfully creative life.
	It is.
	Yeah, I'm very blessed, to say the least, in all those elements, so it feels good.
	But like all good things in life, it's a journey.
	And to get to where you are at the moment, my God, you've been on one.
	Very true.
	A roller coaster indeed.
	Well, no, absolutely a roller coaster.
	The book that you've written about what you say happened to you and what's brought you to the position that you're in now is incredibly compelling.
	Look, I have an apology to make to you, and it's one that I make to some of the people who've written books who appear on here.
	You know, I don't get tons of time, so I had to do a speed read, and I didn't get to read every word of it.
	But, you know, I've scanned my way through it.
	It's one of the skills that I learned working on use desks.
	You just get to do that.
	But this book deserves to be sat down and read properly.
	And one of these days, when I next get a holiday, God knows when that's going to be, it's going to be in the pile of books that I'm going to read properly because it's such, even if it wasn't such a gripping story, a gripping real-life story, it's a really nice read because you're honest about it.
	It's very, you've been, it seems to me, honest about your life.
	That's right.
	That's exactly where I wanted to take the whole journey of the book, as you like.
	You know, obviously I wanted to talk about the whole spiritual aspect of the near-death experience and stuff, but I didn't want to miss out what my life was like before, because it was a struggle.
	And I wanted to also talk about the accident itself.
	And, you know, like you said, you know, there's got to be all rough and smooth.
	It's like any great movie that you've ever seen.
	You know, nothing's smooth all the way through.
	You've got to have the hard time.
	So, you know.
	Had you written, before you wrote the story of what happened to you, and it was a...
	What we can do is we can just say at the moment, it was a very, very serious accident that could happen to any of us.
	You know, I use trains an awful lot living in London commuter land.
	And it's one of my nightmares here.
	What happened to you?
	But we'll get into it.
	But are you somebody who's written before?
	Because what you've written looks like it's been that you're a writer.
	It comes across as being something that's been written by somebody who does writing for a living.
	No, I mean, I'm actually dyslexic.
	I left school.
	I'm dyslexic.
	I left school without any qualifications.
	And so, you know, I'd wanted to write this story for some time.
	So I was contacted by a friend of mine and said, look, I know somebody who could ghost rice it for you and help you out, you know, and put this together.
	And I thought, that would be brilliant, you know.
	And so we spent hours and hours and weeks and months, you know, just putting all this together between us.
	And I wanted It to be everything that I said, remembered, and thought.
	It's all my wording, but it's all put together into the form of somebody who knows how to put a book together.
	Well, in all fairness, that person themselves had only written a few medical journals and stuff and hadn't really got that much experience either.
	So it was like the stars were aligned for this to come together, basically.
	Yeah, because it reads like a screenplay.
	As I was reading it, I was seeing the pictures.
	And what you've described as the life...
	You know, the life that you were leading is the life that I was like leading maybe 15 years ago, maybe closer to 20 years ago.
	You know, young guy making his way in the world sort of thing.
	So it could have been any of us, this thing.
	And that again makes it so compelling.
	Now, the book, we have to say, has been endorsed by a lot of people who are well known, like Raymond Moody, who is very well known in all of these things, who wrote the forward, didn't he, to it?
	That's right.
	He did do, yeah.
	And describes it as, I've got it here.
	He says, well, the word that he uses is gripping.
	So, you know, that is, what is that?
	That's a powerful endorsement.
	It's incredible, yeah.
	I mean, I didn't even realize just how big Raymond Moody is in the whole NDE field.
	In fact, he coined the phrase near-death experience.
	So he's been doing research since the 1960s.
	And so, yeah, so I was very lucky there to get him involved.
	Again, it felt like the stars were aligned on that, that that should happen.
	I actually sent like a draft coffee before the book had actually been released and nothing came back.
	I didn't hear anything.
	Then his manager got in touch with me and said, oh, I've just seen your website.
	I've just seen what your book's about.
	It all looks amazing.
	And I think Raymond's going to love this.
	And so I'm going to pass it to him.
	So she did.
	And it was within about a week or so that she got back and said, look, Raymond's really loving this book.
	And he's going to write an acknowledgement for it for when it comes out.
	And I said, oh, brilliant.
	And then once he had finished it, she turned around and said, look, he wants to write the forward because he just loves it.
	So that was brilliant.
	So, yeah, of course, it obviously opened doors for us.
	But at the end of the day, for me, it was just, I really got to know Raymond as a really beautiful soul.
	And it just meant so much to me just to have that personal sort of, you know, endorsement and forward from him.
	So yeah, it's really lovely.
	I didn't know what to expect when I saw the news release about the book that was sent to me by a mutual friend.
	And I thought, well, is this going to be somebody, and there's nothing wrong with this at all, but is this going to be somebody who comes at this from a religious perspective?
	You know, maybe they were always religious and this confirmed their religious belief.
	Is it going to be one of those stories or is it going to be something else?
	And this is something else one has to say.
	So let's get into it.
	And would you mind if it'll only be a couple of short bits, but I've got a couple of bits that I can read if you don't mind me doing it from the book.
	No, please do.
	All right.
	So the book starts with something that could be a scene from a television drama here.
	I thought, you know, you are there with Anna.
	Now, just explain to my listeners who Anna is to you.
	Okay.
	Well, Anna is somebody that I'd met only a few weeks before the actual accident that I had myself.
	But she was very much a part of the whole story.
	And I really just wanted to talk about where I was at as a person at that stage.
	You know, I was not dealing with, I'd got no self-love or self-worth, to be honest with you.
	And I'd met this, I was chasing after all the wrong goals in my life, but I'd met Anna who suddenly had all this lovely authenticity about her.
	And I really was attracted to that, but I was scared of it as well at the same time.
	So I kind of wanted to set the pace of what I'm like as a person.
	So it starts talking about our relationship.
	It's like a stop-start sort of scenario, if you like.
	That was the impression.
	And that's what made it real.
	I thought, gee, this is a great bit of writing because it's so honest.
	There you were with Anna at the beginning of this.
	And it could have been the opening scene from a drama on the TV.
	And it should be.
	Because you are, you know, you've got to know this person, but you're not leaping headfirst into it.
	So you are not arm's length, but you're a little further back than people who rush straight into things, seems to me.
	That's right.
	Yeah.
	I was at that stage.
	That's where I was at.
	And I just can, I think, you know, all the gears were grinding for me.
	I'd met somebody that just meant something to me and was connecting with me.
	And I was, you know, I was fearful of it.
	And I just didn't know where to go with it, I guess.
	And I mean, the other thing is as well is like, it's interesting you say that it reads from something like a film script or TV, but me being dyslexic, you know, I'd never really read many books.
	I didn't know how books were structured or anything, but I knew a lot about films and movies and which I'd seen plenty of.
	And so for me, it was kind of like I wanted to live it as a movie, if you like.
	You know, it's almost like some of my favourite films, you know, that I've seen, like, you know, well, for example, a Schizes film called Raging Bull, which is about a boxer, you know, and it's like, if you think, it is, isn't it?
	You know, and so, you know, if you think about it, that could have started at any point in Jay Lamotte's life.
	It doesn't necessarily have to go in chronological order of the story.
	And that's exactly what you did.
	You didn't, you leapt around this story a bit, which makes it all the better.
	It is compelling.
	It is gripping.
	So there you are with Anna.
	And Anna, I think...
	She wanted to progress this further than, you know, faster than you wanted to.
	Was that so?
	Well, yeah, but that's only because, not because I was reluctant, but it's more that she was a lot more grounded.
	And so she was able to have the confidence to say, well, yeah, let's take this to the next stage.
	And it was only me that was holding back.
	And so the story really unravels and discusses that element of my character as well and why I got issues with that, because the whole near-death experience helps me to understand that and what have you.
	So it's really a case of like structuring me as a person, you know, just why I couldn't deal with a relationship and she could.
	So, yeah, that's pretty much where it's at.
	Okay, so it starts with a scene where it's the boy and girl scene.
	You've kind of laid out to us the stage of the relationship that you're at.
	And then, of course, life has to go on and Anna has to go back to where she's got to go back to.
	So you go with her to Huntingdon, which is in Cambridgeshire railway station, right?
	That's right, yeah.
	When was this?
	This was in 2006.
	Okay.
	And so she'd, yeah, so I'd basically I'd been I'd hit hard times living in London at that point.
	And I was drinking heavily and things were going really not too well for me.
	And my sister said, come and hang out with us with the family here up in Cambridgeshire when they live out in the country.
	So I did do.
	And while I was up there, I'd only met, as I say, Anna a couple of weeks previous, but we connected and we were chatting on the phone.
	And she said, why don't I come up and see you?
	So she did.
	So it was just like a question of we were just hanging out and she got to get back to London.
	So then it takes you from that stage of the journey towards going to the rail station and me seeing her off.
	So we were on the platform, the train pulls in and the doors open and I help her on with her bag onto the carriage.
	And as I stepped on, you know, I gave her a hug and a kiss.
	Goodbye.
	And heard the buzzers going.
	And I stepped back.
	And as I stepped back, it was a cold February day.
	So I was wearing like this quality coat, like a sheepskin coat.
	And that got trapped in the automatic closing doors.
	Absolutely.
	And that is what caused the accident that you went through.
	I mean, look, and one of the things that makes it such a great drama is that you convey in the book how fast that happened.
	If I may read just a little bit from it.
	Are you all right with it?
	Okay.
	You say.
	For a second, I thought everything would be okay.
	So I told myself not to panic, otherwise I'd look stupid in front of Anna.
	I told myself it would be okay because train doors automatically opened when something was trapped in them.
	After another second, the engine sound increased in pitch.
	Adrenaline took over.
	I grabbed a fistful of the coat fabric and started tugging at the trapped corner, stuck between the clamped doors.
	But it was no good.
	I couldn't pull the coat fabric free.
	Look for the door button.
	The door release button.
	It says press to open above the button.
	Hit it.
	Open the doors that way.
	Hit it again.
	Do it.
	No matter how hard I hit the button, the doors stayed shut.
	The control button didn't work anymore.
	I had no idea that the door locks were controlled by the driver.
	And he'd disabled the control buttons on the outside of the carriages.
	The next moment I heard a new noise.
	The engine sound changed.
	It became even higher, more intense.
	That was the moment I knew the train was about to move, and it felt like the air had suddenly frozen in my lungs.
	Then with a small jolt, the train wheels started inching.
	One inch, then a few inches, then a few more, then a foot, then even more as the dirty metal wheels rolled over and over on the oily track.
	I could see the huge wheels through the tiny gap between the train and the platform in the black oily pit below.
	I was looking down into hell.
	Without even thinking, I began walking quickly.
	I had no choice, because if I didn't, I knew I'd be dragged under the train.
	Come on, think.
	Just keep moving.
	That's it.
	Keep it up.
	You'll be okay.
	Someone will do something.
	Then increasing acceleration underfoot, forcing me to start running.
	Have to go faster now.
	Don't trip up.
	And that is, well, what an account.
	You know, I hope you don't mind me reading so much of it there.
	No, I don't at all.
	Gee, whiz.
	You know, that was the point at which I thought, what a book this is.
	Talk to me.
	There is an inevitability then building up in that scene.
	You tell me what happened next.
	Well, I mean, basically, I lost my footing and then I got pulled between the actual gap of the platform and the actual carriage, well, the train itself, which was going at high speed by that point.
	And I just thought, well, this is it.
	You know, I'm going to die.
	And then I just remember hearing this tremendous rip.
	I just kind of saw what looked like the carriage doors disappearing into the sky, you know, and then down I went into this, you know, as it says, their dark, oily pit.
	And it was just like going, it was just hellish.
	I was just, I was completely thrown into a mincer, into a machine and tossed around like a ragdoll, you know, and I was fully conscious throughout the whole thing.
	So the ordeal was very violent.
	And I just suddenly found myself at one point lying in between the track and the train was still thrashing ahead going really fast pace.
	And so I just remember just lying there thinking, right, you've only got you've got one chance here.
	And that is keep your head well down because some of the undercourages could just come and whack me over the back of their head.
	And you had time to think of that.
	Yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting.
	I had time to think about a lot of things because you go into survival.
	Well, I went into survival mode, basically.
	It's, you know, the rail police did a massive inquiry on it and the amount of time all this took was very quick.
	But for me, it felt like minutes.
	It felt like it was going on forever, you know.
	Not because it was an ordeal, but because I remember having time to think it all through.
	I remember thinking, even as the train was pulling out, I'd seen some footage on the news where a young child had been thrown from a burning apartment block from a third floor and had survived without any injuries.
	And they put it down to young infants being relaxed and not tensing up like adults.
	So I even did that.
	I thought, right, relax, that's your only chance.
	So you even had time to slow things down and think about that because I've heard stories of babies surviving plane crashes because their bodies are relaxed.
	They don't know what's going on.
	And everybody else dies and they live.
	So you even had time to do that calculation.
	Absolutely.
	That's what happened.
	So it's really amazing.
	But that's the scientific thing as well.
	I saw a guy who, an American guy who was doing sort of research into the brain.
	And he was saying that a lot of people who face scenarios like me, we're all sort of cliffhanger sort of deaths facing scenarios, that they do that, that the brain has time to process.
	And he called it the survival technique as well.
	So, yeah.
	so that's where I was at.
	And here comes the news journalist in me.
	Why didn't somebody stop the train?
	Well, my friend Anna, she saw the whole thing unfold, obviously.
	And so she ran through and there was no guard on the on the platform or on the train.
	You know, it's just, you know, the way it was.
	And she managed to find a ticket inspector and he stopped the train eventually in the middle of the country, you know.
	And also, a lot of it was to do with, Anna said to me that there was all these sort of notices above the doors saying, do not press this or you'll get fined £100.
	If you press this, you know, blah, blah, blah.
	It's all bad news.
	I mean, in the UK and I think in most other countries, you know, the trains have, in every carriage, there are a couple of buttons that you can hit and stop the train if there's an emergency or something goes wrong.
	But they all say if you improperly use this, then we're going to fine you.
	Exactly, yeah.
	So she was confused by all that and she was, she couldn't, she's not that tall, so she couldn't reach all these buttons either.
	So actually, that's one of the six things that changed from my accident.
	You know, they announced it a year later on news at 10 that they changed six of the laws throughout the whole UK.
	So all that's gone there.
	So when you get on a train, you'll notice that it's a lot more simplified.
	And so that was one of the positives to come out of it.
	And I didn't even know.
	I was watching the news at 10 one night and they just started talking about it and they talked about my accident.
	And it was like, what?
	So that was great.
	But yeah, so it didn't stop till way out in the middle of nowhere, basically.
	Okay, but everything slowed down for you and you were aware of the sky above you and all sorts of things.
	But you do a very clever thing at this point.
	And I thought, gee, this has been written by somebody who knows their craft.
	And I thought, you know, maybe somebody who knows screenplays and stuff like that, because you then stop the story and go back to where you were as a person in the period running up to all of that.
	So we got to know you.
	And then you pick it up again at chapter eight.
	But let's do it the way that you did it in the book then.
	Fill in the details of you and where you are at that, you know, that come to us.
	And people, if they want to read the full detail, they have to get the book.
	And I recommend they do.
	You know, they've got to read those intervening chapters.
	But, you know, just give me a thumbnail sketch of where you are at.
	Okay, fair enough.
	I was living in Highgate in London.
	I'd got myself a flat there, which is a bit of a flute because it's obviously a very expensive part of London.
	And I was picking up mainly manual labouring work.
	And so I was hustling work down at the local pub, basically.
	That was my office.
	That's where you got your work.
	And in all fairness, I really wasn't that good at that job.
	I was looking around at all these other guys and I'd see them plaster a whole ceiling and I'd go, wow, how did you do that?
	So I was constantly feeling like I didn't fit in anywhere.
	And I just was trying to aspire to all the wrong type of people that I thought would reflect well on me.
	I was chasing after a relationship with somebody who was very materialistic and who was involved in the music industry.
	And I just figured that's the girl for me.
	But inevitably, that just made life even worse for me because it was like holding up this mirror of myself saying, you're a complete failure.
	So you would have had to keep, listen, I know the situation.
	You would have had to keep running to catch up.
	Oh, totally.
	Exactly.
	And, you know, and I was totally running to catch up financially because she was very high maintenance and I really wanted that relationship to work.
	And also I got to pay my rent.
	So I was literally down to the bare thread.
	And so that's where it takes you in the journey into the story.
	How does she feel about you writing about her?
	I know that you've changed names in this, but have you had any communication with her?
	Yeah, I've changed names in the book.
	And I've done everything and made sure everybody's happy with the whole story and everybody's fine with it.
	And we've all made our peace and stuff, as it were.
	So that's cool.
	I wouldn't just go straight in there and just write.
	I just thought through curiosity.
	And of course, listen, 14 years in life is an eternity.
	Everything changes.
	And it certainly did for you.
	Okay, so life is not good.
	Life is not good.
	And so it's, and so, yeah, so as I say, it takes you to the stage where I'm sat in my basement flat in Highgate.
	And I'm just sat in there in the dark.
	And I actually, I prayed.
	And even though I wasn't religious and had no faith, it was the last desperate step just to pray.
	And I just put my hands together and prayed for help, you know.
	So that help obviously did come eventually.
	But it was a question of, you know, where do I go from here?
	And so interestingly enough, I'd taken myself a couple of weeks, months before the actual accident happened, I'd gone up to see my sister on another occasion.
	That was it.
	She'd phoned up.
	She contacted me and texted me and said, why don't you come up, you know, just spend Sunday with us and have a Sunday roast?
	And I said, I will.
	And on the train, traveling up to see her, I was sat opposite this lovely elderly couple and we got chatting.
	And the lady opposite was saying to me, oh, we're off to see a medium tonight.
	And I was going, okay.
	And I wasn't really interested in, you know, sparking up Timmitz with chat.
	But she was insistent on saying how brilliant this person was.
	And were you into any of that?
	I mean, I know that you prayed at one point, but were you into, you know, a lot of people, you know, it's maybe less so right now, but this is, you know, 2000 or whatever it was.
	You mentioned mediums and they think, oh, yeah, it's Wacko, Mumbo Jumbo.
	Exactly.
	That's how I felt at the time.
	But she came with this little flyer and insisted on, so I folded it up, put it in my top pocket.
	So I arrived in Cambridgeshire and there was a lot going on at my sister's at the time.
	And there was chaops with the kids.
	So I thought, I'm going to go to the pub and have a pint.
	So I did.
	And I pulled this flyer out and looked at it and I thought, do you know what?
	I'm going to go.
	So I went.
	I went to this demonstration.
	it was in a small spiritualist church, and it was packed.
	And this medium really was good.
	She wasn't like a well-known sort of, you know, big name or anything, but she was just there delivering one thing after another to all these people.
	And they were going, yes, that's my grandfather or what have you, you know.
	And I wasn't even looking for a message either.
	And I just sat there and enjoyed it all really.
	And then she suddenly turned around and went, man in the blue sweater over there, your life's about to change.
	And I went, oh, okay.
	But this seemed different than the messages that she was giving to everybody else.
	It was more poignant somehow.
	And I said, well, in what way is it going to change?
	And she stopped and paused and started talking as if she was having a conversation with somebody, you know, obviously her guides, you know.
	And then she turned around and she said, they're not telling me.
	But she said very directly, but be ready for it.
	It's going to be big.
	And I figured, what, is this the lottery winning?
	Is this going to be the girl I'm chasing after is going to come together and stuff?
	Sounds like, you know, all your Christmases come together.
	Indeed, that's what I was hoping for, you know.
	And of course, those things didn't happen.
	And it wasn't until a couple of months later, wind forward to the accident, that I realized that it was exactly something else that she was talking about.
	And it was that day.
	And so, yeah.
	But why didn't if the medium was so seeing, why didn't the medium tell you?
	Or why didn't the medium know, more importantly, that in order to get to where you were going to, you were going to have to go through a horrendous experience and nearly die?
	I don't think she would.
	I mean, mediums would never deliver bad news.
	I've been told this since.
	They never turn around and say, oh, by the way, you're going to be in a car crash.
	You know, they won't do that.
	So whether she knew that, I don't know.
	But I don't think she did know, actually.
	In fact, I met her.
	I met her months later, about six months later, because I was keen to track her down after what had happened to me.
	And I really wanted to sort of find out more from her.
	And she got no recollection, actually, of even that day.
	But anyhow, to cut a long story short, I don't think that's what it was about.
	And I think in all fairness, looking back, the whole accident had to happen.
	My life was just going so spiraling into this darkness that I needed something to jolt me and shake the whole thing up.
	Isn't that weird?
	Because I think sometimes in our lives, and I know what you're saying, you get the feeling that you don't know what it is, but something's got to give.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So you were feeling this pressure of, you know, like the volcano about to erupt, but you didn't have any idea as to how, what form that would take.
	No, absolutely not at all.
	And, you know, so it's interesting that people say to me, oh, do you ever regret if you could change the clock back and given a choice, would you say no to the accident?
	And I'd say no, I'd go through with it because what was to follow was far more life-opening and incredible.
	Well, profound, but what a way to get there.
	I mean, on a mundane and basic level, you must have thought to yourself, maybe I shouldn't have worn that coat.
	No, I never do.
	I don't think any of that at all.
	I used to have regrets a lot in my life.
	I've only done this.
	I've only opened that door and gone with that person and stuff.
	But now I don't.
	I just feel that everything is meant to happen for a reason and there was synchronicity that was all meant to happen that day.
	You know, the actual day of the whole thing, the accident itself, I remember even though I wasn't spiritual, I was very aware that the energy and the atmosphere was really odd that day.
	And I actually talked about it with Anna and I actually talked about it with my sister.
	I said, something feels really odd.
	I don't know what I can't put my finger in it.
	And this was as we were about to leave the house to go and get that train.
	So the energy was already, it was all predetermined.
	Yes.
	I mean, it wasn't just like an accident.
	It was something that was all leading up to a certain point that was about to change my life forever, basically.
	So before we take you back to the immediate aftermath of the accident, then, is there anything else to say about your life before it?
	As I say, I mean, I'd left school without qualifications and I wasn't actually sort of aware that I was dyslexic.
	And so I was just treated as if I was bad news at school.
	And when I left school, I sort of struggled from job to job.
	And as I say, I wasn't really cut out for doing the manual work that I was picking up.
	So I was constantly feeling like I just didn't fit in anywhere at all.
	So there was no self-love and there was no self-worth.
	In fact, I constantly beat myself up about my life.
	And I constantly carried this feeling of guilt around as well, especially in my family, because both my brother and sister seemed to have ticked all the right boxes.
	My brother went to university, you know, and they both got married and stuff.
	And by then, I was just like, none of those things had happened in my life.
	But so, yeah, so that's, you know, that was where I was at, really.
	Right, okay.
	So speed forward to chapter eight, and that's where we pick you up again.
	And just like a TV program or a movie, you do a quick splice cut, and then there you are back in the moment after the accident.
	And you start, you don't actually realize immediately, I don't think, that your injuries are horrific, do you?
	You don't realize that first.
	No, I don't.
	I mean, obviously that I was in shock.
	And so I think that that's a lot to do with it.
	And when you're in shock, you do strange things, you know, and the first thing I could think of was to get my cell phone out and call my sister to get her to call the police or whatever you.
	And I just then, because of the shock, I couldn't deal with that.
	That phone wouldn't have been working anyhow.
	But so, yeah, then I remember assessing, I did assess my, I looked, I noticed that this quality sheepskin coat I was wearing was now ripped to shreds.
	And I just, the first thing I noticed was my, when I looked, was my left arm was completely torn right open.
	And I could, it's odd, but I could see inside the hole of my arm.
	And rather than going to a state of panic and, you know, sort of fear and the kind of things you would expect, I actually was fascinated by seeing all these workings within my arm.
	And I thought, wow, that's me.
	I remember saying to myself, almost out loud, that's me.
	That's the inside of my workings.
	That's the inside of my body.
	So you weren't thinking about the pain first?
	Well, the pain was there.
	Yeah, I mean, the pain hit me, was most certainly with me, but obviously, just like all of us, I was assessing the damage.
	You know, it's the first thing that we all do.
	You know, you've only got to trip over in the street.
	And the first thing you do when you stand up is you look down to see what you've done.
	And your arm's ripped open.
	You lost a finger, I think.
	And that's just the start of it.
	Well, yeah, my left arm was actually seathered.
	I didn't realise at that point, but it was seethered from the elbow down.
	So it was, I mean, part of it was still, you know, parts of it was still attached.
	But yeah, so when they got me into the hospital, you know, I was losing a lot of blood.
	So, yeah.
	But the emergency guys arrived really quick.
	It was amazing because there was a hospital just around the corner from the rail station.
	And so they were there like within minutes.
	Because even though there wasn't a guard on the platform, there was a lady working on the cameras for the signal box, you know, and she watched the whole thing unfold.
	But I heard afterwards that she could do nothing about it.
	She couldn't alert the driver.
	You know, it was just the way it was set up.
	She got no contact with him at all.
	And presumably that's changed as well.
	It must.
	Well, there's a lot of things changed since then.
	And, you know, there's a lot of things that went wrong that day that will never happen again, especially on that station anyway.
	So you're in hospital, and obviously the National Health Service workers are good, kind and efficient and doing their job.
	What state are you in?
	Yeah, well, I'm by then I'm just kind of, I remember them being wheeled into the A ⁇ E department in the emergency and just seeing all this staff just waiting for me in a big semicircle.
	Then they just suddenly started working on me and there was all these frantic voices kind of going over my head and all this signs that I couldn't understand.
	I thought, wow, they're trying to save me here.
	This isn't sounding good.
	And so all this is going on.
	And again, the whole time thing seemed really odd because I remember the consultant who was looking after me was keeping me calm.
	He turned around to me.
	He said, look, your family are here.
	Would you like to see any of them?
	I said, yeah, that'd be great.
	And he said, how many can you handle?
	And I said, just send them all in.
	So there's quite a few of my family came through.
	And I remember my mother was in tears and she came over, you know, and there you go.
	The big guilt thing kicked in.
	And I was going, mom, I'm so sorry.
	It's always me bringing the drama to this family.
	And of course, it wasn't my fault.
	And she's going, no, it's not your fault.
	Stop, you know.
	And the first thing I said was, is Anna here?
	I just, you know, I needed to connect with her because we'd just been through this massive ordeal together.
	And I wanted to check that she was okay.
	And I saw her sat at the back there, just looking really, you know, completely drawn.
	And so she came over and she was just shaking her head from side to side and saying, I can't believe that you've survived that.
	She said, I watched the whole thing happen, you know, and she ran through to the window and saw me go under.
	What a trauma for her.
	But what a situation for you.
	But you wouldn't, you'd have been the last one to realize that your life was in danger.
	Well, yeah, although I was getting a bit worried at that point because I could hear, I could hear the fear in the doctor's voices.
	And I just figured this doesn't sound too good.
	They were really kind of going, no, no, you know, they were almost falling out with each other because it was getting a bit, well, that's not true.
	They weren't falling out with each other.
	But what I'm trying to say is that the tension was very high at that stage.
	So what was the full extent of your injuries then?
	So you had this partial severing of your arm.
	You lost a finger.
	You were pretty battered up.
	Tremendous blood loss.
	What else was going on?
	Exactly.
	Yeah.
	Well, in all fairness, considering what had happened to me, not an awful lot of, I suffered a lot of internal injuries, which I discovered throughout the years, actually.
	I had to go into hospital only two years ago to have a major operation because there was some internal bleeding.
	So, you know, there was a lot of stuff like that.
	But it took me ages just to be able to get myself walking again and stuff.
	And it's knocked it out of me anyway.
	You know, I'm not the same person as I was before.
	But yeah, I came out very lucky.
	I mean, as the rail police said, they spent a whole year doing their inquiries.
	You know, they took the carriage down to Finsbury Park and stripped it down to the last rivet.
	And they said afterwards, they said, we don't get it.
	We've done all our maths and everything.
	We've looked at all the footage.
	We've measured up.
	And you shouldn't be here.
	You should have died instantly.
	You should not be alive.
	So I know that something far more powerful.
	God, a kind of a miracle, but what a thing to go through to get your miracle.
	But here's where I'm confused.
	You were conscious.
	You were hearing what was going on.
	You saw Anna.
	Your family were called.
	Where's the near-death experience?
	Right.
	Well, that comes next.
	So this comes while I'm actually lying on the trolley in the emergency department while the family are there.
	And I suddenly leave all this frantic sort of environment.
	And I go into what seems like at first a beautiful darkened room.
	And I just felt totally at peace.
	And all the pain had just dispersed from my body.
	And I just thought, where am I?
	You know, and I just kind of looked around to see where I was.
	And the first thing I noticed were these kind of orbs which were like slowly pulsating all around me, different colours, like ambers and yellows and greens and blues and stuff.
	And I thought immediately I figured this is it.
	I'm dead.
	I didn't survive it.
	I have passed on.
	And so I didn't feel any sense of fear or regret.
	I just went with it and felt completely at peace with it all.
	And it was just, it was fine.
	It was a beautiful feeling.
	And then I kind of looked around to see what was going on.
	I realized I was no longer lay on this on this trolley, that I was now lay on like a huge slate rock.
	It was like a big medieval altar, if you like.
	It was very huge, but very comfortable to lie on.
	And I looked to check my wounds again to see what was going on because I noticed that I was no longer clothed.
	And I looked down and all the wounds were completely healed.
	You know, my arm was fine.
	There wasn't even the slightest bruise or scratch.
	Everything was back in place.
	And I was covered in this blue sort of cloth.
	It was like a sort of sheet, which was very like a satin sheet.
	And it was very sort of calming me, this sheet.
	And it felt very cool.
	And so I lay my head back and I felt the presence of someone else nearby.
	I thought there's somebody here with me.
	So I wasn't alarmed by it.
	And I just lifted my head up and I saw just at my feet, it was like an androgynous being, like neither male or female, just stood there, wearing just like a simple contemporary black t-shirt with this kind of white blonde hair and this glowing skin, the skin that was just almost like radiating from within.
	And this being was just kind of like smiling at me with a reassuring smile, you know, and I felt like I was being guarded.
	And I just felt like Sorry, you saying.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	You saying?
	No.
	No, that's okay.
	Did I?
	You said that I felt like I was being.
	Yeah, I felt like I was being protected and that I was being guarded by this being.
	And I also felt a sense that I'd known this being of light for the whole of my life.
	Or, in fact, further than beyond that.
	I was actually saying to myself, where do I know you from?
	I know your face.
	You know, if you go to a party sometimes, you might start a conversation with a complete stranger and you both turn around and go, hey, I know you.
	I've known you for a lifetime.
	So did you start, I mean, let's come to the chase here.
	Did you start to think that since you'd prayed that one time, were you thinking that you'd met God?
	Not at that stage.
	No, I didn't think that at all.
	I felt that basically I was being prepared to go on some for somewhere else.
	I felt that I was dead, but I was being prepared for something because the next thing I noticed, there were two female forms either side of me had appeared.
	And they got their hands stretched out over my body.
	And it was like they were kind of healing me, almost like a Reiki healing, if you like.
	But the energy that was coming from their hands was just so powerful.
	It was just like this beautiful feeling of love.
	You know, all the feelings of love you have in your life from your mother, your father, your pet dog or girlfriend or whatever, you know, it's all encompassed into one.
	And so, yeah, it wasn't until a bit later on in my near-death experience that I saw what I perceived to be God.
	And that was a huge tunnel of white light, which was looming in towards me.
	And the energy coming off that was just so powerful.
	It was tremendous.
	And it made me feel like every single molecule of my body was vibrating with this sensation of love that I talked about.
	And I thought, wow.
	And I just figured, this is it.
	This is God.
	This is not the Michelangelo sort of Renaissance style guy with a beard in the sky.
	This is God.
	It's this huge tunnel of white light, which was like this tunnel of white light had these dramatic flames that were just slowly circulating all the way around, you know, and as it drew in, I just thought, wow, this is the source of all creation.
	This is where it all starts.
	This is where it comes from.
	Yeah.
	That's profound.
	Absolutely profound.
	And were you, I'm trying to get a sense of how real this felt and whether you were conscious of where you'd come from.
	In other words, you know, your family and Anna and all of those people who you know were there a couple of minutes ago.
	Then you're in a different state and you're somewhere else.
	Was any of that going through your mind?
	Yeah, I mean, I started thinking about them, actually.
	I was worried that, you know, actually, I wasn't worried.
	There you go.
	All those feelings that I carried around with me in my previous life running up to that point, you know, all the anxieties and all the fears and insecurities and guilt had all gone.
	So I didn't feel guilty about my family.
	I wasn't going, oh my goodness, my family.
	You know, I thought, oh, my family are going to be really distraught now because I'm clearly dead.
	I better see if I can see them and check them out.
	And so I looked over my left-hand shoulder, hoping to see them down in the hospital, but I didn't see them.
	And what I did see them was this most beautiful vision, not a vision, a beautiful sighting, I should say.
	It was like a huge arc.
	It was like a waterfall of stars that was just like on a big curve, almost like Niagara Falls, the size of that, but pure stars just sparkling and cascading over the edge.
	And I looked down.
	I thought, wow, look at this.
	And I looked as far as I could see.
	And they seemed to be dropping down into other galaxies and beyond, you know.
	And the colours that were down there were really beautiful.
	And oranges and reds and yellows, again, were more beautiful colors.
	Sounds a lot like the way people describe drug trips.
	Now, you were heavily sedated.
	When you think back on it now, are you sure that it wasn't just the effect of the chemicals?
	Yeah, I'm absolutely sure on it because we actually, I decided again, as you pointed out, I wanted to keep this book as real as possible.
	And I wanted to get all the records from because my ghostwriter, as I say, she'd written medical journals.
	And so we talked about it together.
	She said, well, you'll Be able to contact the hospital, you have to pay for it, but you can get all the records.
	She said, I'll read through them all.
	I said, Oh, fantastic.
	So, she read through all the records and all the medications that were given me and the times they were given to me.
	So, we knew exactly the point that I had the near-death experience.
	And she said, No, none of the drugs that you were given would have been hallucinic.
	Yes, later on, but not until you went into theatre.
	So, all this happened before I actually went into theater to be operated on.
	So, yeah, I'm, you know, I know from that point of view that there was no mind-bending drugs that were taking into effect.
	Any past life reviews, offers of being able to stay or go, that kind of thing?
	No, I didn't have any of that, actually.
	I know, because obviously I've done a lot more research into near-death experiences, and I've seen that people have had past life reviews.
	But I think, in all fairness, I'm not trying to paint myself like an angel here because I'm not, but I think that's when people have really kind of like gone through their lives and they haven't been too good, and they've made other people's lives hard.
	And those life reviews are, they literally have to relive what they've done through those to those people.
	Whereas with me, I realized that it was only myself that I was being hard on and beating up.
	So I don't think I had to go through that.
	But not only that, I figured that they sent me back.
	And when they did send me back, I figured that they decided that I was going to be straight onto a mission as I was to try and get my message across to as many people as possible as to what had happened on the other side through art and music.
	Did they tell you that, though?
	Because that is the next stage of your journey.
	But did they tell you, we've had a chat.
	We're going to send you back.
	It's telepathy.
	There was no conversation.
	There's no echoing voice coming from the other side.
	There's none of that.
	It was like telepathy.
	And it was almost like, I don't know whether it was a decision made between us or whether they made the decision.
	But yeah, they obviously decided that I should come back.
	And when I did come crashing back into my body, then, you know, boy, it was a shock because the pain and all the anxiety came rushing straight back through me.
	But interestingly enough, I didn't feel any sense of, oh, no, why have they sent me back?
	You know, there was none of that because I was just so charged with the energy of what had just happened and the love that I'd been given that I just couldn't wait to tell everybody.
	I just, you know, I remember telling Anna, she came up to me, she said, oh, they're going to take you through now to operate.
	I said, Anna, I've got to tell you something.
	Something really amazing has just happened.
	She said, don't tell me now.
	I said, no, this is really important.
	And so she put her hand over my mouth.
	I said, later, you know, so, you know, it was something that I really felt right from the off.
	You know, when I came through, they took me into theater for eight hours.
	And I remember coming through, they'd give me my own room in the hospital.
	And I was lying in this darkened room in, well, a hospital room, I should say, at this point, you know, and it was just me and this little machine bleeping next to me, R2D2 thing, you know, and I've got all these tubes coming out of myself and I couldn't move at all.
	But it was a double-edged sword because part of me was processing this incredible thing that had just happened to me and how I was going to tell everybody.
	And the other was processing the absolute horror of the accident, you know.
	But I lay there and I knew at that point, I said to myself, I've got to do a painting just in case I forget all this because I was worried that I was going to forget everything.
	But of course, I hadn't.
	So I decided there and then with no, you know, sort of formal training whatsoever, that I was going to do a big Renaissance style painting.
	I thought that's, it's got to be a big canvas.
	It's got to be dramatic so that people can see exactly what I saw.
	So I'd made but you were doing that with one arm, presumably, were you?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, but the paintings, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, most certainly, yeah.
	So I mean, have you got, you know, presumably, did they, I mean, I don't know, I must have missed the details of this, but did they reattach your arm that is so badly damaged?
	When I was going through into theatre, I turned around to the consultant.
	He just started working there.
	Here you go, synchronicity.
	He just, it was his new job.
	And he was, he just, and I said, look, will you save my arm, please?
	You know, and he said, I'll try.
	And he told me afterwards that, you know, it was on the on the notes to amputate.
	And, but he said, no, I'm going to do this.
	So, yeah, so it took three major operations to save it.
	But, and again, I was, I was lucky because he said, look, one of the best bone surgeons in the country is going to be here in the next few days.
	So he's going to have a go at fixing everything.
	So as well.
	So, I mean, look, on a very mundane basis, it pays to ask, doesn't it?
	Otherwise, they would have taken it off.
	Wow, wow, wow.
	So there's another miracle for you.
	But why did you think that you'd been tasked to come back from that and do something?
	Why did you think you'd been given a mission?
	Well, I mean, I think two reasons.
	I mean, one was to give myself a second chance in life, because as I say, up until that point, life had been going constantly downhill and I'd hit rock bottom.
	And I think I've been given another chance to try and live my life, which I am now, and to discover all these creative sort of outlets.
	But the second thing is that is to be able to try and, just like other people have had near-death experiences, try and get the message across to people that death is not the end.
	The soul lives on, basically.
	It's only the next stage of the journey.
	And we all believe that, you know, it's like a society.
	You know, I met other people now have had NDEs and we all agree on that.
	So that we've got this, it changes our lives.
	And a lot of people who've had them, they talk about their lives before and they were pretty much on the same path as me.
	You know, their lives were fairly empty.
	And now they're much more fulfilled.
	So, yeah.
	Well, that's wonderful.
	Who or what then do you think that you connected with?
	Well, the being of light that I talked about, that I said I felt so familiar with, I believe that that was like my higher consciousness and that I was connecting with there.
	And I feel now that that higher consciousness is with me at all times and it was there throughout.
	And also the two guides either side of me that were healing me.
	And I believe that they've been with me throughout the whole of my life, but I just hadn't been able to tap into that and acknowledge it.
	Whereas now I do acknowledge them being around me and I call upon them a lot more.
	So and it's some and it's something else as well.
	I spend a lot of time trying to talk to other people about that we can all do that.
	You know, you don't have to have a dramatic accident like that or a near-death experience to discover that you've got guys.
	I do firmly believe that we've all got them.
	And so, yeah.
	Right.
	And you decided to paint and to create.
	Talk to me about that and how you became successful in doing that because, as you said, you weren't trained to do it.
	That's right.
	Well, I was determined to start on this first painting.
	And my aunt had come over from Canada to visit and stuff.
	And she said, I'm going to buy this canvas.
	So she did, which is lovely.
	So she bought this big canvas for me.
	And it was lent against the wall at my sister's house where I was recuperating.
	And I was relooked into stocks.
	I thought, I don't want to mess this up.
	This is too important.
	But then a friend of hers, my sisters came around and said, look, we run a yoga pilotist center.
	And you could come around and paint in one of our studios.
	It's free for a week.
	And I said, oh, great.
	So I got no choice but to start.
	And when I started, the ideas just started going onto that canvas really confidently.
	And I was really surprising myself.
	And I realized at that point that it wasn't just me that was painting this canvas, that I was what I call channeling ideas coming through.
	I was being helped, that I knew that there was this, I still got this connection with the other side and they were just still educating me to paint, you know.
	So I ended, it got to the end of that week and I was nowhere near finished, of course, you know, and they turned around to me and said, look, you can stay because they weren't charging me.
	And I ended up staying there for two years, which is brilliant.
	And I just, you know, they were fantastic friends now, obviously.
	And people, it was great because people would come up, they were going in for yaga and yoga and Pilates sessions and they would come up and see what I was doing.
	I became known as the artic in the attic.
	And so I realized then that when I started talking about my near-death experience to these people, that everybody was fascinated.
	And I thought, this is great because people do want to hear.
	They're not turning around thinking, yeah, okay, you know.
	No, I think they're more receptive.
	People are more receptive.
	I've always been receptive.
	Many people have been, but more people than ever now, I think, are searching for these things.
	And, you know, it's a look, this is a very moving and it's a wonderful story.
	What happened with Anna?
	Well, we remained friends.
	I'm not going to give too much away about it because it's part of the story as well, is our relationship because I wanted to intertwine that in.
	But also, she comes back into my life again when I'm writing the music as well, which is the second thing that came along.
	I started writing music, like classical music for orchestra, which was remarkable.
	So that all came about.
	And so she was very much involved in coming back into my life at that point and came to the concert.
	So, yeah.
	So I remember a phrase used by a rock star years ago.
	I think it might have been Paul McCartney, but he described a situation as we're just good friends.
	Are you just good friends at the moment, but possibly more?
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, we're good friends.
	We're very close friends.
	I mean, in all fairness, I would say the intensity of what we both went through is unprecedented for the two people I should have met after a couple of weeks.
	I mean, that alone is the kind of thing that would bond you, even if you only met her on the train station.
	It would probably bond you to life.
	Exactly.
	So that's it.
	So, yeah, we haven't continued.
	We haven't continued as lovers and stuff like that.
	But in saying that, it's worth reading the book to see how the whole relationship sort of unfolds in the story, because it's very much a part of the tapestry.
	I'm not trying to say, hey, you know, this is a great love affair.
	You've got to read it.
	But it's very much a part of you getting to know the ins and outs of my character and how my character develops.
	And because this is all part of it as well, because I still wasn't completely, it's not like I just came back from the near-death experience and I was cured of all insecurities.
	In fact, I had to have a lot of therapy because I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
	So a lot of my relationship with Anna came into those sessions as well.
	So we talked about me and just talked about how I was going about relationships and talked about realizing that a lot of the things that had gone wrong in my life before were a massive footmark for things going, not taking off relationship-wise.
	But yeah, but we've remained very close.
	She's read the book and loves it.
	And so that's great.
	Well, it sounds perfect to me.
	Now, through all that therapy and through your process of healing, and I'm not just talking body, but I'm talking psyche and mentally and everything.
	Did anybody ever try and persuade you that the things you thought happened maybe didn't and they were just some sort of drug-induced fantasy that you had when you were in hospital and on medication?
	Do you know what?
	I figure that I'd get a lot of that, but not too much.
	I mean, a few people have just kind of said it could be, maybe.
	I mean, I know with the therapy sessions, I mean, I touched on the subject quite a lot.
	And obviously, my therapist wasn't going to get drawn into that because that's not her job.
	You know, she's professional.
	She's not going to turn around and say, yeah.
	I mean, she basically told me what a near-death experience was because she'd spoken to other people before who'd been patients of hers, obviously because she worked in the hospital.
	So that's when I found out more about it.
	But yeah, I mean, I remember when I was going into, once I became an outpatient at the hospital, I was going back in for over the next couple of years or so.
	And each time I went in, my consultant, the great consultant I talked about, was going, He's going, I can't believe how fast you're recovering.
	You're recovering really quick.
	And I said, Ah, I'm getting help.
	And I started talking about my MDE and stuff.
	And he was, I could tell he kind of smiled and went, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm a scientist, you know.
	I can't believe that, you know, a lot of medical people will have heard this stuff before, I think.
	I think so.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, they're doing some is more resistant.
	And I mean that in a positive way.
	You know, you talk to medical people and they get stories of this kind a lot.
	And they are the people who experience that gossamer fine line between being here and not being here all the time.
	And some people come back and some people go on their way.
	That's part of life.
	It is an astonishing story.
	At the back end of it, thinking of it now, then these years later.
	Where do you think you've talked about ethereal beings and seeing beautiful showers of stars and stuff?
	Where do you think you went?
	As I say, I think I went onto the next realm, to the place that our souls move onto once the body stops, once we die.
	Because as I say, the soul lives on.
	And I felt that where I was, that it wasn't, even though it looked like my physical body and I felt like I was in my physical body, that I realized that it was actually, it was my soul.
	And the healing that I was receiving at that stage was peeling off the layers of, you know, stuff that I carried, insecurities I carried around all my life.
	So I just believe that that's the next stage that we go to before we move on.
	And so, yeah, that was death, basically, where I was.
	And, you know, I lost my mother last summer.
	And as hard as, thank you, as hard as it was to, you know, deal with the physical loss of my mum who brought me into the world and stuff.
	And I loved it dearly.
	I was also new straight away.
	I actually said to her in my head when she passed, I said, well, mum, you're going to love it where you're going now.
	And I wouldn't, you know, to me, I wouldn't have been cheesy enough to have said that if I hadn't believed it hand on heart, you know, but I really was, it was a great help to me to know that that was the next place that she would have been at right at that point, just as she left us, you know.
	Well, that's a deep reassurance, isn't it?
	It really is.
	So, okay, right.
	The back end of this now, then we're coming to the end of our conversation.
	Just give me a checklist of how you think you have changed and how you think you've improved through all of this.
	Give me some bullet points.
	Okay, well, the main one is from the NDE, I've learned self-love for the first time.
	So I learned to love myself from that.
	And once I learned to love myself, I learned to have faith in myself.
	And, you know, my life is basically more three-dimensional now.
	And it is because of those two things.
	So, so, yeah.
	And also, because I've discovered that all these creative abilities, you know, I'm writing classical music now for orchestra and they're selling out at concerts.
	And I can't read or write a single note of music, by the way.
	So how do you think you got, how did you get this ability then?
	Well, you know, it's just, it's amazing.
	As I say, I'm channeling these ideas through.
	So I'm being, I was, I felt when I was over the other side, as I say, it was all telepathy that I was being given this crash course.
	I was being educated while I was over there.
	I was being taught how to come back and live my life in a much more fulfilling way and to open up any creativess that I got within me to bring it out and make it happen, you know.
	And so, yeah, so it's not like I'm superhuman, but I'm just, that's the gift that I was given.
	And so I discovered that I was given all these ambition.
	I'd got no ambition at all before, you know, I was just scared.
	Whereas now I just think, do you know what?
	I'm going to write for a piece of music and it's going to be for orchestra and I'm going to do it, you know, and I made it happen.
	You know, and I thought with the same with the book, I thought, I've got to write this story.
	It's something I wanted to do for years and now it's happened and I'm dyslexic, but it's come together.
	And I've got, you know, people like yourself, thank you for turning around at the beginning saying that it's really well written.
	And it's right, wow.
	So there you go.
	So these scenes can happen for all of us.
	You know, we can, it's just all about self-love and self-worth.
	Oh, boy.
	A lot of people might naysay what you say, but I don't think they know you.
	And I don't think they will have spoken to you.
	They'll just make a judgment.
	I wouldn't naysay what you said.
	I think it's an amazing story.
	And I really want to believe that's the way it is because it gives me hope.
	And a lot of people who are listening to this, I think it'll give them hope too.
	10 years from now, what do you want to have achieved?
	Where do you want to be?
	Do you know what?
	I don't even think that far ahead.
	I just take one stage.
	Well, I'll tell you what would be nice.
	Everybody's turning around to me, as you said, as well.
	They're saying, this is a movie.
	This is a movie in the waiting.
	So that would be the next stage.
	It would be absolutely lovely.
	Okay.
	Well, the psychic side of me, such as it is, says that's going to happen.
	Maybe something for TV, maybe something for Netflix, but you watch that happen.
	I think it might.
	All right.
	Well, good luck with all you do.
	Privileged to speak with you.
	Give me the title of the book and how people can get hold of it.
	Yeah, it's called Shine On, and they can get a hold of it.
	But the best thing is you can go to my website, which is shineonthestory.com, and then you can click on there.
	There's an Amazon link.
	But yeah, it's available through Amazon, Waterstones, all the other outlets.
	But yeah, please go and order your copy if you fancy.
	I think everyone seems to be reading it at the moment.
	It's doing really well.
	It's been out for a week now.
	We're already doing really well.
	Shine on, David Ditchfield.
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	Brilliant.
	Pretty compelling story.
	Hey, what do you think?
	Please send me an email.
	Tell me what you think about the story you've just heard.
	If you have a guest suggestion, anything really, it's always good to hear from you.
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	More great guests in The pipeline here at The Unexplained as we cruise through summer in the northern hemisphere.
	So, until next we meet, my name is Howard Hughes.
	This has been The Unexplained Online.
	And please, whatever you do, stay calm, stay safe, and above everything else, please stay in touch.
	Thank you very much.
	Take care.

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