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Aug. 12, 2022 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:02:42
Edition 656 - Louise Hamlin
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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.
Well, here we are again in the sauna temperatures today as I record this into the low 30s.
In a day or two, I think and towards the weekend here in London, it's going to get up to the mid-30s.
And what I've learned recently is with the humidity, it becomes pretty impossible to record in my little apartment when the weather gets like this.
So I'm making sure that I'm up to date on podcasts.
And then for a few days, I'm just going to try to stop everything as best I can.
I've got a good one for you, I hope, this time.
Louise Hamlin is the guest.
We'll tell you more about her in just a second.
Thank you very much to my webmaster, Adam, for his hard work on the show.
Thank you very much to you for being part of it.
If you've sent me an email recently and that email required a reply, you said in it that you wanted me to answer, then please let me know, just in case I haven't got round to answering.
After my recent hearing issues and everything else that went on, I'm a little bit behind myself.
But it's really lovely to hear from you.
Please stay in touch.
Send me an email.
Tell me who you are, where you are, how you use the show, all that kind of stuff.
I love to get your emails, and they are tremendously...
What?
Therapeutic.
I would say that your emails to me are therapeutic.
You know, some of you say that this show has been helping you, especially through the COVID period and at other times.
Let me tell you, it's just as therapeutic, maybe more so for me.
So please, as they say, stay in touch.
Go to my website, theunexplained.tv.
Follow the link from there and you can send me an email.
And if you'd like to make a donation to the show, please do to allow it to continue.
And thank you very, very much if you have made a donation recently.
You know who that means.
Just a couple of shout-outs this time.
Tom in Berlin, nice to hear from you again, Tom.
And some very kind words and very nice thoughts from Kelly in Michigan.
Kelly, nice to hear from you.
From near or in the motor city, I understand.
Thank you very much for that email and the nice things that you said, Kelly.
Please know that it was received and it was appreciated.
What else have I got to say?
Nothing really very much, apart from the fact that I'm going to be recording this with the windows closed.
It's getting hotter and it's getting airless.
So I'm just hoping that I kind of make sense and sound reasonably coherent during all of this.
All right, enough weather talk, especially if you're in the southern hemisphere, because I know that in certain parts of the southern hemisphere, you've had a lot of rain and it's been cold at times.
So here I am talking about the weather in London being tropical.
You must wonder what the hell is going on.
And of course, for my friends listening in the far north of Scotland, in places like Shetland, I know that Shetland has had what we would consider here in London to be like spring temperatures, a lot of cloud, a lot of rain, temperatures mid-teens, I think, in these last few days.
So, you know, the world is a very different place, and your experience of it depends on your own terms and conditions.
All right, Louise Hamlin, the author that I'm going to be interviewing this time.
I say interviewing, having a conversation with is much better, we say in radio.
She's from Dorset.
She is a retired solicitor and this book that she wrote, WhatsApps from Heaven, the title instantly grabbed my attention, is about communication from beyond the grave.
We've had quite a number of guests who've talked about that.
I don't think ever like this.
You've got to make your mind up whether this is something that is an artifact and maybe wishful thinking on the part of Louise, or whether there is something that is genuinely happening here.
Having been through all the experiences in my life that I've been through, including the awful experience of bereavement, when I lost my parents, and if you've been through that, you'll know that you never get over it.
Do I believe that there is communication from one side to the other?
I've got to say it's 60-40 for me, yes.
Maybe 65-35.
Just on the basis of the strange things that happen.
But that's my experience.
You might totally disagree with me.
But that's my story, as they say.
All right, let's get to Dorset now before it gets any hotter here.
And let's speak with Louise Hamlin.
Louise, thank you for coming on my show.
Well, thank you very much for having me, Howard.
I'm delighted to be here.
You are in Dorset, and I think my listener probably knows that Dorset and the part that goes into Devon, but also the part that goes east back towards Bournemouth, are some of my favourite places in this country and very much a place of escape.
So I'm extremely envious.
Well, I certainly live in a very beautiful part of the world, and I do realize how lucky I am.
Yes, and I guess as the weather gets more and more sticky and all of the complications that that brings to living in a city accrue, then you're even luckier, I think, Louise.
Yes.
But you don't need me telling you that you really.
Okay.
Now, this is a story of a kind that we have heard on my show and shows before, but different and very much adapted to the modern age because part of it involves WhatsApps, including various other things.
You went through the awful experience of bereavement, and what I know from my life, nothing prepares you for that.
You lost your husband with whom you were very close, Patrick, didn't you, just a few years ago?
Yes, Patrick and I were very, very happy together.
It was a second marriage.
We only got together 15, 16 years ago.
And we thought that, you know, this was a happily ever after and we would live for many years and enjoy each other's company and love for many years.
And then suddenly he was diagnosed out of the blue with bile duct cancer and he was dead within three months.
And it was the most terrible shock for both of us.
And this is something, from what I know of it, and cancers in that area.
It's insidious because it doesn't give you symptoms until sometimes it is too late to fix it.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, he had no symptoms at all.
Well, not that we were aware of anyway.
We went on safari and had a fabulous holiday in Zambia.
He came back.
He was looking forward to the winter.
And then he sort of suddenly began to have a couple of symptoms, went to the doctors and was diagnosed with stage four cancer.
So, yeah, it was too late, far too late to do anything.
How did he and you handle this?
Well, he was incredibly brave and we hoped against hope that maybe the prognosis was wrong, that there was maybe a tiny chance that he could survive.
We talked about his dying, and neither of us really believed in an afterlife.
He was a lawyer, I was a lawyer, we were quite logical and we thought it was unlikely that a spirit survived, but we didn't close our minds to it completely.
And we just sort of lived from day to day, hoping against hoping that a miracle would happen.
It didn't.
He died.
Did you have, you know, life has to go on, doesn't it, in that period?
And I think we all know how difficult it is to maintain the veneer of an ordinary life when you're trying, both of you, to handle these things.
In the conversations that you must have had together, did you talk about any thoughts about what might come next, if anything?
Well, Patrick said, when we were talking about the possibility of an afterlife, or at least we were talking about death, he said, I'm scared of dying, but I'm not scared of death, because death is either oblivion, nothing at all, and I think that's what it is, in which case there's nothing to be scared of.
Or, he said, if there is an afterlife, then I think I've led a good enough life for it to be okay.
And he was right there, because he was a very, very good man.
And not in a pious sort of way, but deep down he was fundamentally an honest, honourable man of great integrity.
And so, yeah, he had led a good life.
So he was thinking of it.
And I think that's how I would think of it too.
That I've squared my accounts, you know, I have nothing owing.
And this comes to all of us at some time or another, even if we may try and kid ourselves that it doesn't.
But I'm ready to move forward to whatever.
Yes, and I mean, he was very, very kind to me in a way, because he made a new will, he spoke to friends and loved ones and people that he hadn't been in touch with for some time.
So, yeah, he cleared the decks and he tied up loose ends, which was actually a huge help.
It really was.
Well, no, the administration.
I know in the case of my parents, you know, probate and all of those things that you have to go through, and you're just not in the frame of mind to go through a lot of admins.
So if that can be minimized, that's a blessing.
What about you?
How did you handle this?
Oh, I was in the most terrible state, and I tried to appear calm.
I couldn't eat.
I could hardly believe what was happening.
I should perhaps say that before I met Patrick, I had had a long-term partner, and he had died in my arms from stomach cancer when he was only 57.
And I had nursed him for six months before he died.
So you must have thought, I can't believe this is happening again.
Absolutely.
I just couldn't believe that lightning struck in the same place twice.
I really couldn't.
My friends were a great support, and I would go and sort of weep on a neighbour's shoulder and then come back to the house pretending that I hadn't been weeping and screaming.
I mean, that's what I was going to ask you about, the having to not pretend, but having to put on a carrying on persona for the other person.
That is enormously difficult.
It is very, very difficult indeed.
And trying to be there for him and be with him and also provide food that he wanted to eat, which was difficult because his taste changed and then he lost his appetite.
And I was trying to feed him up.
It's horrendous for people who are dying.
It's horrendous for people who love them and looking after them.
And you just have to take each day as it comes.
You do.
And anybody who's hearing this who hasn't been through this, then I think accounts like Louisa's account and any accounts that you can read might help you ultimately, because unless you live the life of a Trappist monk completely separated from your family, or if you're, you know, if you don't have any family and you isolate yourself from the world, unless you're in that situation, somebody important, somebody close to you is going to leave this plane.
Let's put it that way, and you'll have to deal with it.
And like I said, nothing prepares you for that.
I'm just going to read a little bit from your book, if I may.
You say, on the 18th of February 2019, a man with a huge personality and so much still to give was no more.
I was numb with shock.
We all were.
The next few days passed in a blur.
I sat like a zombie, incapable of doing anything.
I was totally bereft.
I think the combination of shock, Which had been accumulating since that unexpected diagnosis three months previously, and of grief left me unable to function in any normal way.
So you tell me, and I understand that the process leading up to this, where you were with Patrick, all of that was compounded, of course it was, when you lost him?
Yes, Howard.
I really was, as I say in the book, completely incapable of doing anything.
I was incapacitated.
I mean, luckily the children were here and they were wonderful, actually, and sort of did what needed to be done with regards to organizing the funeral and informing people, what have you.
I just sat and I really was like a zombie.
I was numb, I think, and I couldn't believe what had happened.
I just couldn't believe that somebody who had been so, so dear to me was no more.
I felt as though I'd lost half of my body.
I felt as though I was just an amorphous blob of liquid.
And it was horrendous.
Horrendous.
This may seem a strange question, but I think there's a small amount of logic in it, I hope.
You come from a legal background, don't you?
That was your profession.
Did you find any comfort in immersing yourself in the details of all those things that have to be done after somebody dies?
Absolutely not.
Now, I know that some people do, and some people find it helps to be busy.
I couldn't do anything.
I really couldn't.
I didn't have the mental capacity to read a page.
I was just in such a state of trauma, I suppose, that I was just staring blankly into the room.
And people put food in front of me at meal times, and I had no appetite.
I would eat a tiny little bit.
But I wouldn't have been capable of feeding myself.
I really wouldn't.
I understand how people who are in a state of trauma just sit there because you lose any capacity to do anything sensible at all.
And I feel very, very sorry for people who lose a loved one and then have to do all the arrangements themselves because there's a lot of administration involved after somebody dies.
And I'm so grateful to my children for taking that on.
So an awful position for anyone to be in, and an awful position for you to be in for the second time.
Had you had any conversations with Patrick?
And we alluded to this a little earlier, I know.
We talked about the contemplation of what might or might not come afterwards and Toby that he felt his accounts were squared.
But had you talked about the possibility of communication?
I'll let you know.
No.
Funnily enough, I hadn't.
And I guess that it was implicit in our conversation that because we loved each other very much, he would try to let me know if he still existed.
But because we were both so sceptical about survival of spirit, I never once said to him, well, do let me know or do tell me what it's like.
It just didn't occur to me to say that.
There are a lot of sceptics in this world.
We know that.
And as you promote this book, as you do interviews about this book, you will hear some of the questions I'm sure that I'm going to ask you again.
But there would be people, I'm sure they're listening now, who would say, because it was such an understandably devastating thing, you were going to be looking for signs.
Well, possibly, but on the other hand, it took me an awful long time to actually accept that what was happening was really Patrick trying to send me signs.
And to start with, funnily enough, I wasn't getting any signs, but my close friends were.
So, for example, a close friend who is a healer and also is psychic, she contacted me just a few days after Patrick had died and she sent me a photograph of a tall, thin flame in a neighbour's garden.
And she'd taken this photograph from her sitting room window.
And she said that she'd been thinking about Patrick and she'd asked him for a sign that he was okay.
And she had actually specifically asked him to send her a flame.
And she said, not in a fireplace, but I want to see a flame.
And she'd asked him in the morning, and then she'd gone about her day's business.
And she said she'd actually forgotten about it, but she'd had a busy day.
And then that evening, when she went to draw her curtains, she looked out of her window and she saw this very strange flame.
She ran and got her camera and took a photograph of it.
And then shortly after, the flame disappeared.
The fence was in the way, so she couldn't see what was causing this flame, but she said it was very unusual.
That's a bit of a worry, isn't it?
A thin flame appearing from nowhere.
Yeah, and she sent it to me and she said, Louise, I don't believe in coincidences.
I asked Patrick for a flame.
This is a flame.
And I am sure that he sent it.
And it's a message saying he's okay.
And I thought, oh, do you know what?
I do believe in coincidences.
Yeah, it's strange, but it could have been just a coincidence.
Who knows?
But there was more.
And in fact, within days, there was more.
There was a story about snowdrops, I think that happened quite quickly after that.
There was some connection with, you wanted somebody to bring you snowdrops.
Well, yes, that actually is a story with a rather negative ending.
So, my great friend, who had come and stayed a lot while Patrick was dying, she'd come to help, she came to stay shortly after Patrick had died.
And I decided after hearing this story of the flame, and a couple of other friends had also contacted me with stories of their thinking about Patrick and lights are turned on and off and what have you.
So I decided, well, I will ask him for something.
And so I said, please can you send me some snowdrops within the next two days?
I was being generous, I was giving him 48 hours.
Anyway, my great friend arrived the next day.
And when the 48 hours were up, I said to her, oh, you know, I did ask Patrick for a sign and I asked for these snowdrops and they haven't come.
So, you know, I don't believe in life after death.
And anyway, Anna, my friend, she put her head in her hands and she said, oh no.
And I said, what's the matter?
And she said, well, just before I came to you, I went to a farmer's market and there was a stall there selling snowdrops.
And I really, really had an impulse to buy these snowdrops for you.
But then I thought, that's really silly because Louise is bound to have lots of flowers, which I did have.
And she said, oh, and I really, really wanted to buy the snowdrops for you, but I just felt that it would be silly to do so.
Is it something that she would have done anyway?
Well, no, no, it isn't.
I don't think she's ever brought me flowers.
So she was impelled to purchase them.
And like, you know, it's free will.
Life is free will.
You can either respond to the compulsion or you can go ahead with it.
But, you know, the impulse is there.
She had the impulse.
And she said to me, Patrick was obviously saying to me, buy the snowdrops, Anna, for goodness sake, buy the sodding snowdrops.
And she said, I didn't, I didn't.
So, yeah, so that was a sign that didn't happen.
But I just, you know, noticed that she felt that she had got in the way of somebody sending a sign.
But, you know, nevertheless, it was there, if you want to believe that.
Of course, those who are inclined not to believe these things will say, well, that's just a coincidence.
But then how many coincidences can be coincidental, I think, is something that might be is a point that might be added to the mix here.
There was a story in the book about a Mont Blanc pen.
Now, these pens are sought after.
They're very nice pens.
They're not cheap.
There is a story of significance to do with one of those.
Yes.
And I guess this was about a month or two after Patrick had died.
And I suddenly had this impulse to buy a new address book and to write down addresses in this book.
So I bought the book.
And I usually use a cheap felt tip to write.
Patrick always used to use a fountain pen, but I didn't.
I did, however, have a Mont Blanc pen, which I had bought myself once as a present.
And I thought that for this new address book, I would use my Mont Blanc pen.
So I went and I got it, and I started to write with it.
And I was halfway through the address book when a friend and neighbour came round and she very kindly was coming with supper.
So I was sitting at the kitchen table, which is a long table, writing in my address book.
So I put my pen down and I moved, or she moved actually, the pen and the papers just to one side so we could sit down and eat.
And after we ate, I decided I would just go to bed, which I did.
In the morning I came down and I was going to carry on writing in the address book and my Montblanc pen wasn't there.
And I searched and I searched.
And you know, it has never reappeared.
And I just couldn't understand it.
And I thought actually that it was quite clever if it was Patrick.
And again, you know, I didn't 100% believe this, but I thought if it is Patrick, that's very clever because I wouldn't have noticed losing a felt tip or a bar.
You know, most small things, I wouldn't have noticed.
had to be something of significance.
And if you lost that expensive pen, Yeah, no, I get that.
Okay.
Well, again, something else that you might, but there were others that you might put down to coincidence.
Were there any signs that might be regarded traditionally as ghostly, like variations in temperature, strange creakings, funny feelings of a presence, anything like that?
Not really.
I mean, I did sometimes feel his presence.
And I did one time smell his aftershave.
No ghostly creakings.
There were lights coming on and off and there were books flying off bookshelves.
Books that flung themselves off bookshelves.
Yeah, so I was in bed one night and it was about two o'clock in the morning, I think.
And I had spent the previous day looking for Our binoculars because, in fact, I'd had this message from someone saying, Oh, Patrick thinks you should look at the birds.
And Patrick and I had both become very interested in birds before he died.
We'd become interested when we were on the safari.
And we had a good pair of binoculars, but I couldn't find them anywhere.
So anyway, I was lying in bed and I was feeling pretty miserable missing Patrick.
And suddenly there was an almighty crash outside the bedroom door.
And I was terrified.
So I lay there, rigid with fear, waiting to hear what was going to happen next.
And I was alone in the house.
Nothing happened.
So eventually, being very brave, I slipped out of bed.
I hadn't been wearing a night dress.
I popped my night dress on to give me some flimsy protection.
And I turned on the light and went to see what had caused this crash.
And a book from the top shelf of the bookcase in the landing had flung itself from the top shelf, as I say, onto the floor.
And it had obviously flown with some velocity because it was some way from the bookcase.
It was the book, Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson.
And the only significance of the book is that I knew it had been on the top shelf with the other Kate Atkinsons.
So I couldn't see any reason at all why this had happened.
It seemed inexplicable.
But I bent down to pick up the book and bending down to pick it up, I saw the binoculars which had been tucked into the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
So there was something to this you think of significance, nothing to do with the book, but what the book led you to do.
Exactly.
So I, exactly.
I found the binoculars.
And otherwise, you know, I would have never thought to look in a bookcase for them.
So either your life was becoming replete with coincidences, or somebody, maybe Patrick, was leading you a merry dance.
Yeah, that's very true.
And then the WhatsApps started.
Can I talk about those in just a second?
Because that, of course, is the crux of the book.
Just to get into mediums, you know, a lot of us, I think, have been through bereavement and maybe have other questions in our lives.
I certainly had a period of medium shopping for a while and then I stopped.
But a lot of us go to mediums looking for answers.
And apparently that is what you did too.
Absolutely.
And, you know, I'm a prime example here of cognitive dissonance because on the one hand, I didn't really believe that our spirit survived.
On the other hand, and at the same time, I was desperately worried about Patrick and whether he was okay or not.
And I desperately wanted to communicate with him.
So I started going to mediums.
And the first medium I went to was not a success.
And I didn't feel that she actually got onto Patrick's wavelength at all.
I felt she was sort of casting around and just talking in generalities.
And was that person, and let's not name anybody, but was that person asking you questions that might have led you?
Well, I felt she was trying to.
And she said, oh, you know, I've got a military man here.
And that didn't mean anything to me.
And then towards the end, I think once I sort of lost interest in her because I realized she wasn't there, I said something about, oh, well, actually, my husband was a lawyer.
And she said, oh, well, I said a military man.
And so, you know, military, the law, that's the same.
It's all to do with rules and regulations.
Yes, but I think once you start...
Once you start extemporizing like that, you're not really getting anywhere.
Okay, so that was one of the less positive examples.
There were others.
Yeah, so that was very negative.
And I do mention this in my book because I do think that some mediums work for some people and not others.
It's horses for courses.
And so if you are bereaved and you do want to try and make contact, and the first medium you see doesn't help, don't give up.
Because then the second medium I made contact with was brilliant.
And she was quite extraordinary.
You say brilliant and extraordinary, how?
Well, so I went onto the internet, as one does, and I saw that there was a medium sort of one and a half hours away.
And I rang her up and I said to her, hi, my name's Louise.
My husband died in February, and please may I come and see you.
And she said, hmm, that might be a bit too early, February.
Oh, she said.
What, a bit too early for her or for you?
Yes, I'm not quite sure.
I think she meant for her, but I'm not quite sure.
She said, anyway, she said, that might be a bit too early.
And then she said, oh, he died in the middle of February, didn't he?
And I said, yes.
And she said, oh, he died on the 16th of February.
And I said, well, no, he lost consciousness on the 16th of February, but he actually died on the 18th.
Well, she said, he's telling me that he died on the 16th, so that's what I'm going to write down.
And I thought, that's extraordinary, really.
She knows nothing at all about me.
She doesn't know my surname or anything.
There are 28 days in February, and she immediately homed in on the two days of his dying.
And I can see that for him, he did die to me on the 16th because he couldn't communicate with me after the 16th.
I couldn't communicate with him.
And look, I don't know, but perhaps as he might see it, he was in the process of departure.
And for him, that process of departure began on the 16th.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I went to see her and again, I thought she was amazing.
She described him immediately.
She could sort of see what he looked like.
She said he was standing there.
And her description, both of him physically and of his personality, was absolutely spot-on.
And then she said, oh, he's holding up a cornflower.
Why is he holding a cornflower?
He's showing it to me.
And she didn't say, you know, a flower.
It was very specifically a cornflower.
And the thing is, that had been the flower that Patrick had worn in his buttonhole when we'd got married.
And that had been, if you like, our wedding flower.
And that's pretty unusual, isn't it?
It's not a rose.
No, exactly.
Cornflower.
Okay, well, I think we can give that one to the medium.
I don't know whether some people would think I'm a pushover, but I think that's pretty good.
They say, and I remember interviewing Alan Gould, who is one of the leading researchers in these matters in this country, has been for decades and decades.
He was at the University of Nottingham.
I was a young and callo youth asking all the wrong questions at that time.
But one of the great things that came out of that conversation with Alan was that the true evidential material is material that the medium tells you that you don't know at the time, but subsequently you find out to be true.
Was there anything like that presented to you?
Well, there's something a little bit like that.
And this was with another medium.
And this medium said, oh, a woman's now come in.
Oh, she's short and dark.
She's very forthright.
Oh, she's your mother-in-law.
And she wants to show you this and say that.
And I said, no, no, my mother-in-law was blonde and very gentle.
No, no, the medium said.
This woman, she's very forthright, she calls a spade a spade, she's got a very strong, dominant personality, she's got dark, curly hair.
And I said, no, that's so unlike my mother-in-law.
And we sort of had this discussion, argument, whatever, for a few minutes because the medium said, well, I'm sure it's your mother-in-law.
I mean, can you think of anybody else?
And I said, no, no, I can't.
I can't think of anybody like that.
And so eventually the medium said, oh, well, we're going to have to park it then.
She's all dressed for a wedding and she's very happy about a wedding that's going to take place.
And there was going to be a wedding in the family.
But, you know, it didn't make any sense to me.
And then, just as the medium said, oh, well, I'll have to park it then, I said, oh, stop.
I said, of course, I never met Patrick's mother.
I was thinking of my first mother-in-law, the mother of my first husband.
And I said, but actually, though I never met her, Patrick has described her to me in the past, and it sounds exactly like her.
And so I hadn't known that somebody whom you hadn't known could come and want to see you, and it had never occurred to me that somebody I hadn't met would come.
And what was extraordinary, I thought, was that though I kept on saying no, no, no to the medium, the medium insisted, and she was right.
It was my mother-in-law.
One medium you went to told you about green earrings.
I think Patrick had given you green earrings, and they were very dear to you.
And this medium mentioned the green earrings.
Yes.
And it was actually the same medium that I've just been talking about.
And she said, oh, Patrick loves it when you're wearing the green earrings.
And when we'd got engaged, he had bought me an emerald engagement ring and some matching emerald earrings.
And these were, they are, my very best earrings.
And I always wear them for special occasions.
And so, yeah, those were the green earrings.
Were you taking comfort from all of this?
Oh, totally, Howard.
It was so comforting and so consoling.
And even when I still was a little bit uncertain, you know, I just found it wonderful when these messages came.
And there were lots of messages which a medium couldn't have known.
How many mediums did you see?
I think it was about five.
Okay.
I jumped in there and you said there were many messages.
So were there any others that we haven't covered that were really important and impactful?
Well, I think the slippers were as well, actually.
Because after Patrick died, the undertakers took his body away and he was wearing pajamas.
He died at home in our bed in my arms, which was as it should be.
And they then asked me to send clothes to put on his body in the coffin.
And I thought about it, and I thought, well, he was always at his happiest when he was outside.
So I sent his outside country clothes.
But then I looked at his boots and I thought, oh, they'd be very heavy for him to wear for eternity.
So I thought, I'm going to send his slippers.
So he was in the coffin in his sort of outdoor country clothes and his slippers.
A strange combination.
You know, it's only strange if you're looking at it from the outside and you don't know the backstory.
Yeah.
So anyway, so this medium said, and this is the medium who'd also seen the corn flash, he said, now he's pointing at his feet and he's wearing slippers and he's laughing.
So why is he pointing at his slippers and laughing?
And I said, oh, I know exactly why.
So, yes, that really resonated with me as well.
Why did you stop going to see the mediums?
I think that once I knew for sure, once there'd been lots of signs, and I totally and utterly knew that Patrick's spirit still survived, that he still loves me, and he can hear me, I thought, that's great.
I sort of know now that it's okay, that he's okay.
But slightly frustrating, it would be for me if I wasn't able to actually ask whoever it was, but in your case, Patrick, where are you?
Are you okay?
What was the process of crossing over and are you watching over me every day?
You know, maybe four questions along those lines, just to tie things up for you.
You must have thought of those things.
And I think that's where the WhatsApp messages came in.
Yes, and I have thought of those things.
And I've been told that Patrick says that he sort of learned how to live in two worlds at once.
So he somehow is now living both in this world and is around me and also in the world of the afterlife.
And he says, once you, and I was told that he says, that once you learn how to do it, it's quite easy.
So.
Well, we can all hope so, can't we?
Yeah, exactly.
In the book, quote, August the 6th, 2019, you were walking on Tooting Common with your dog.
You got back to your son's house.
You found that you'd apparently created two WhatsApp groups.
At 11.06 in the morning, you knew that you hadn't done that.
You didn't even know how to.
One of them was called Hamlins and one Hamlin family.
One consisted of Patrick Patrick's daughter and me, the other of Patrick and me.
There was no rational explanation as to how this had happened.
I realized it was Patrick sending me an incontrovertible message that his spirit was still around and also a similar message to his daughter whose birthday it was that day.
That sounds utterly extraordinary.
I know it's the whole linchpin of the book.
The first thing I guess anybody would do when that kind of thing happens, apart from being absolutely gobsmacked and astounded, I would start asking around as to who might have done that.
Oh, I was totally dumbfounded.
I stared and stared at the screen and I thought, I haven't done this.
I can't have done it.
I didn't know how to do it, but I knew that the phone was in my pocket.
I was walking on the common with my dog.
I knew the phone had just been in my pocket.
And by then, there had been so many different signs.
I looked at it and I thought, this is Patrick.
And this is Patrick doing something on my phone, which is telling me, for goodness sake, darling, just accept it.
I am sending you messages.
I am still around in spirit.
So my scepticism disappeared that day.
Was he a big WhatsApp user?
No, no, hardly at all.
He wouldn't have known how to create a WhatsApp group when he was alive.
Now my son, I was staying with my son at the time, one of my sons, and this son is a lawyer.
And he's a materialist in Outlook.
And he spent ages trying to work out how somebody could have done it.
You know, why anybody would have done it, heaven knows.
But he was very reluctant to accept that it was Patrick.
He was trying to find an explanation which didn't bring in the paranormal, which didn't bring in the afterlife.
And he is an incredibly intelligent, thorough, successful lawyer.
He put a lot of effort into it.
And in the end, he had to admit defeat.
And he said, do you know what, mum?
It must have been Patrick because there's no other way it could have happened.
Well, if somebody who's a sceptic and wants to see everything in black and white rational terms says that, that's telling you something.
And of course, the one thing we have to think about, and I'm sure you and your son both thought of this, is that if some third party did this, they must have had knowledge of you and your family.
And that's not a nice thing to do, is it?
For somebody who's been bereaved to somehow hack your account and do that.
But if no person externally could easily or rationally or simply do that, then I'm not sure how it could have happened.
Well, no, I mean, my son sort of eventually came to the conclusion that the only way somebody else could have done it would have been if they had had my phone at that time.
And they didn't, because my phone was in my pocket as I walked on Truthing Common.
And IT question here.
Had you had any anomalous experiences with your, I don't know if you use Skype or any apps like that, or indeed WhatsApp.
Had anything weird happened with any of those things?
I'm not talking paranormal.
I'm just trying to rule out hacking.
No.
Right.
No.
Well, I mean, it's one thing to set up a group, but when you start getting messages via the group or groups, then that becomes something else, doesn't it?
Yes.
The first message that I received, which, you know, in retrospect was from Patrick, but at the time I didn't know, that came onto my phone from nowhere.
And it was a whole lot of words which didn't really make much sense.
Yes, I've seen those words.
I don't know.
Are some of them Latin?
I've looked at them.
I've tried to run them backwards, forwards.
They don't make sense on the face of it.
No.
And I mean, now I have decided that he was sort of learning how to do it and so was practicing and wasn't very good to start with.
I mean, who knows?
I can't hypothesize really, because it's all way beyond my understanding.
And thereafter, I started getting these messages from Maria, who was another median that I'd seen and who certainly seemed to have a sort of, well, be a portal for Patrick.
And she had a lot of orbs of light and other strange things happening when I was contacting her about Patrick.
And she would find these strange messages on her WhatsApp ready to send to me.
And the first one that she found, it was part gibberish, but also more comprehensible.
And three times it said in the message, darling, it's me.
And he always called me darling.
So, you know, that made sense.
And these messages came quite often.
And she always said, no, I promise you it's not me.
I've just found it on my phone.
So you're sure that those groups were set up on your phone and things were happening on her phone and you're sure that was completely unexpected and random?
I am sure that, yeah, and that Patrick was somehow using her phone to send me messages.
As I say, I think he somehow found it easier to go through her.
I don't quite understand it.
But what was really significant about these WhatsApp groups was it was on my phone.
There was no third party involved.
There was no room for any suspicion at all, as far as I was concerned.
I don't know how that...
So unless that had happened, I don't know how this could occur.
The information, the things that were passed to you then, was it useful?
Was it evidential?
Was it stuff that you could take that comfort from?
Well, I don't know that it was particularly evidential.
One message he sent was, I can hear you, darling.
Please hear me.
In fact, the please was P-M-E-A-S-E.
So, you know, it obviously was meant to be please.
And I found that very touching and moving.
And he sent a message about Cyprus.
Several times he mentioned Sri Lanka.
And so, in fact, I ended up going to Sri Lanka just a few months ago because I thought I don't know why he's mentioning Sri Lanka, but I'd better go there.
I had a lovely holiday there.
I arrived just as the troubles were beginning.
And I still don't know why he said Sri Lanka, but anyway, for whatever reason he did.
And I went on holiday expecting something amazing to happen.
It didn't.
But, you know, there we go.
Yes, it can't all the time.
Please don't take this the wrong way because it's certainly not intended that way.
But you must have thought at some point what is happening to me.
And I wonder if you asked for any advice as to whether any of these things might be to do with the quite understandable state of grief that you were in.
Actually, do you know, I didn't think that really.
But some of the things that happened had witnesses, if you like, so it couldn't have been me just subconsciously imagining things.
So, for example, one day I was playing Bridge with three friends.
And I don't know if you play Bridge or not, but you have two packs of cards and you use the packs alternatively for each hand.
So we played with the red cards and then we played with the blue cards and then we went back to the red cards.
So we knew that there was a complete pack because we'd already played with the red cards once.
So anyway, Jane, my friend, was dealing and she was a card short.
Not a big deal.
She'd obviously misdealt.
So we counted our cards to see who had the extra card.
None of us had.
So we thought, oh, a bit odd, but hey, perhaps the cards dropped on the floor.
So we looked.
No card on the floor.
We looked on our laps.
We stood up.
We started searching for this card because we knew it had been there for the previous hand.
We searched and searched.
We could not find the card anywhere.
One of my friends said, Well, I bet this is Patrick.
I bet it's a heart.
So we looked to see what it was, and it was the nine of hearts.
And so they said, Oh, does the nine of hearts have a significance for you?
And I said, Well, no.
I said, If it had been the queen of hearts or the ace of hearts, but no, the nine seems quite a random number.
Anyway, we had to go and find a new pack of cards because we could not find this nine of hearts anywhere.
A couple of days later, I was talking to a friend who does tarot, and I told her about this missing card, because, you know, it really was quite extraordinary.
And she said, oh, well, in tarot, the nine of cups, which is like the nine of hearts, that's the card which means the deepest love.
That's the most wonderful card in the pack.
And, you know, I was sure it was Patrick because there was no other explanation for where this card had gone.
And witnesses, the other three friends who'd been with me, you know, they couldn't find any reason at all for the disappearance of this card other than that Patrick had taken it.
It's 2022 now, three years now since you lost Patrick.
Have you stopped looking for signs?
Are you still getting signs?
Are messages still coming through?
What's happening?
I don't get very many signs anymore.
Very rarely.
And I sort of think that he has persuaded me that he's okay and that he's still around in spirit.
And so I don't need him to keep on proving that to me.
But I still feel him around.
I still feel him a lot.
And I still talk to him.
And I still ask his advice and I know what he would say.
And quite often when I'm driving, I sort of feel that he's taking over the steering wheel.
So you're good driver.
Yeah, and he didn't like being driven by me and he didn't really rate my driving.
So he's there guiding you.
Exactly.
What a fascinating story.
How are you?
I am now fine.
I mean, I think that when you've been bereaved, you always carry a stone of grief, if you like, within you, and it just becomes part of you.
But I'm now able to look back on the times that we had together and on the relationship that I had with my husband and think I was very, very lucky to have that and what a lot of joy I had at that time.
And so I can look back on it fondly.
And yeah, I don't know what the future holds, but I now want to enjoy my life and live it to the full.
And then when I die, I hope that I will meet up with Patrick again.
But for you, the quest for signs and proof and evidence and information, that's not as urgent for you anymore because you've had that and it's given you the leave to carry on.
Yes, exactly.
So you sound like you're in a very good place now.
Well, do you know what, Howard?
I never used to believe in an afterlife.
And now I don't believe in an afterlife.
I now know that there is an afterlife.
And that's a huge consolation.
And it completely changes your worldview.
Why did you write it in the book?
Two reasons.
When I was bereaved, I wanted to read about other people's experiences of being bereaved because I really wanted to find some sort of hope that you could actually pass through, navigate the horrors of bereavement into something that is more comfortable.
And I found lots of books written by people from the outside in, sort of describing what it was like to be bereaved, but not having been bereaved themselves.
And so I just wanted to write the book that I couldn't find at the time.
And also, I discovered talking to people who'd been bereaved that if I said, oh, I've had a sign or two, have you?
More people than not would say, yes, you know, this happened to me after my loved one died.
And I've never really dared tell anybody because I didn't want to be thought crazy.
And so I'm hoping that my book also will validate the experience of other people who think they've received signs, but just haven't dared talk about it.
I think you find that with a lot of these things.
When it's a completely different thing, but if I talk about UFOs or I talk about ghosts, and there are a lot of very skeptical people around there, but some of those people will say, I don't believe in any of that.
Pause.
Mind you, there was this occasion, and then they'll tell you their story.
And then you realize, as I've growingly come to realize as I've done this, that more people, as you say, have had experiences like this.
Your book has been endorsed in the book by people like Teresa Chung, of course, who's written in this field and who I know.
Since the book has been out there and the book is WhatsApps from Heaven, have you been getting a lot of interest?
Yes.
And I have a website, which is louisehamlin.co.uk.
And on the website, I invite people who have had signs and would like to tell me about them to write in.
And so I've had quite a few emails from people who have read my book and want to tell me about their signs, which, you know, is fascinating.
It really is.
It is.
Have you thought of partnering with somebody who perhaps investigates these things in a more systematic way?
Maybe somebody at a university, maybe somebody like Callum Cooper, or well, I mean, there are many people who do these things.
Have you thought of that, or do you want to keep it anecdotal?
Oh, I haven't really.
I mean, I haven't thought of it.
And yes, I would be very interested in doing something like that.
I have been in touch with Callum Cooper, and I have told him about my WhatsApps, and he I know has investigated telephone calls.
Yes, yes.
And I was in touch with Gary Schwartz because he investigates mediums.
So I would love to be part of a research group, but it seems to me that it's just people's personal experiences which are so compelling, and so many people have these experiences, but don't talk about them.
But it is, in fact, part of life.
And I think going back decades, if I look back in my own family in Liverpool, there was a lot of experience of this kind.
And people talked about it from time to time within the family, but it was in those days, I think, more of an accepted part of life.
I think we accepted more, and this is a broad sweeping statement, I may be wrong, we accepted more that even though we are very clever these days, there are some things we cannot explain.
Oh, totally.
And I mean, the College of Psychic Studies, that was created, I think, in the late 19th century, and people like Conan Doyle and people in very high places, members of the great and the good, if you like, they all believed in and were very interested in spirit survival.
And then I'm not quite sure why, but suddenly it fell out of fashion.
And of course, a few charlatans were uncovered.
And there are always going to be charlatans in this field.
There are always going to be people who try and make a quick buck.
But there are also very many genuine people who, yeah, who have great stories.
And are well-intentioned with them.
That website, it was louisehamlin.co.uk.
Yes.
Right, and people can find out about the book there too.
Yes, and you can buy the book on Amazon or anywhere.
Well, well sold, Louise.
Well, I wish you well on your journey.
I'm very envious of you being in beautiful Dorset, especially on this boiling, baking hot day.
And thank you very much for speaking with me.
Howard, it's been a delight to speak to you.
And I hope that if there's somebody who's bereaved who has heard this and has found it helpful, then, well, actually, I hope that will have happened.
Thank you.
I'm sure those people will be in touch with both of us.
Louise, thank you.
Goodbye.
And you've been hearing from Louise Hamlin.
I think that is a remarkable story.
Yes, we've heard stories of that kind before, but never quite like that one, I don't think.
But your thoughts as ever gratefully received about this.
You can email me through my website, theunexplained.tv.
Follow the email link and you can send me a message from there.
And if your message requires a reply, please let me know that too in the message.
What a story.
And it's getting hotter now where I'm recording this, so I'm very pleased that I've finished my recording now and I can turn this hot equipment off and go and get a cold drink.
I hope that everything is okay with you.
More great guests in the pipeline here at the online home of the unexplained.
So until next we meet, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained, coming to you from baking hot London.
And please, whatever you do, wherever you are, stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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