I had seen this done on TV and stage by many of the great mediums in this country and wasn't sure where I stood on it. I think there was something in my gut instinctively telling me that a spirit cannot be read by two mediums at the same time. I had even taken part in exercises at AFC where this was demonstrated but l remained unconvinced. I can now put that one to bed! I was given proof.

It was a Wednesday evening in January 2012 when the three of us attended the open platform event at Charminster Spiritual Church near Bournemouth. James, Rosie and me had gone along to practice our development of mediumship and our philosophy presentations.

During the time that other trainee mediums were on the platform I centred my focus and 'listened' within. I suppose I was doing it wrong really. I should have been doing what we had learnt and trained to do - get in the power first, as we say. Anyway, there I was listening to my mind rather than the medium on the podium and suddenly I had a feeling that there was a young man with me. This I know for sure. I wondered what his age was and thought him to be in his 20's or 30's. That was my guess and not something told by this young man. I seen him as a big fella, a real big fella. Chunky you might say, like me at this time!

I felt that he got on with me and would have naively accepted anyone at first meeting. He was happy. He made me think of food. Me being fatter than I should be I thought he was taking the mickey and I actually said to him in my head, " are you taking the p*~~#s?". He laughed and said that, like me, he loved bacon sandwiches or burgers. I wondered if that was what took him to spirit, a health issue perhaps. He did not confirm that. For some reason I really liked this lad - he was what you see and there was no hidden agenda. For some random reason I recalled that my remote control helicopter that I recently got for Christmas was now broken. Why that came into my mind  - so random? But when it did, the young man in spirit laughed and said clearly to me, " I had one of them, and I sat on it and broke it!" He also shared some names with me, though I cannot recall what they were.

The problem I now had was one that me and Rosie had both discussed in the car on the way to the event. Rosie had suggested that she was going to try something different than she normally did. She was going to go to the platform without a spirit. She confessed that normally she would get the link before going on the platform. Various teachers, and at college had advised students that the spirit are not with you until you go onto the platform. Further, that one should have no ideas what or who was there until on the platform and ready to work. So this kind of thinking was engrained in me and that is what we thought must be the correct way. In a way we thought that we were slightly cheating if we went to stage 'prepared'. Like a crutch to rely on.

Personally, one of the problems that I get when walking onto stage or platform is one of self-consciousness. I always fear the audience staring and worse still me making a fool of myself. Controlling this fear has been an issue for me and means that while other mediums can go onto the platform with a clear head, I would go on with a bag of mental problems! Anyway the teachings I had had, and Rosie too, was that one should go on stage with the mind free and ready to receive.

Back to the evening . . .  here am I sat there, already nervous about taking a chance and going onto the platform and I have a determined young man in spirit telling me that he wants me to talk about him to the audience. What a ridiculous situation this was. There was us setting out a rule for the evening and there was this spirit lad about to make me do things his way instead!

Meanwhile Rosie is sat there and preparing to go to the platform. After a while, a gap in the people wanting to go up appeared and Rosie took the opportunity to do so. She stepped onto the stage and instantly apologised. "I am trying something different than I would normally do now. I would normally get a spirit before coming on the platform. But tonight I am going to get out of my comfort zone and try it from here instead. So sorry if I'm a bit slow to start."

The chairman comforted her by stating that the evening was about learning and about experimenting. She settled and went into the quiet. She brought through a spirit person that no-one could take and shortly after asked them to step back.  Then Rosie started to describe another spirit that was with her. She described a young man and gave other details that one of the audience were able to take. The young man talked to Rosie clearly and she passed the messages on to the grieving mother. She absolutely knew it was her son and her emotional release was evident of that.

Towards the end of this reading it suddenly dawned on me that Rosie's young man in spirit could be the very same one as I had with me earlier. In fact I wasn't entirely sure he had left me. The evening came to a close and I made my way alone out of the room and down the corridor towards the tea-room. Half way along, I met the mother as she was returning back into the hallway to meet with Rosie.

I advised her that Rosie was actually coming out shortly. I commented on what a nice experience she had just had and she agreed. I asked her if her son was a big lad. She said he was.
"I mean, real big," I said. 
"Yes he was". The lady had a photo of him in her hand. He was as big as I felt.
"Did he have a fondness for bacon sandwiches?" I asked with a smile.
"Oh yes, he loved them".

I was fairly sure at this point that the young man that had communicated with me was definitely the same as the young man in spirit Rosie had described. I asked her if there was a story of him sitting on a remote control toy and breaking it. I had changed it from an helicopter like I had seen figuring it might be more likely to be any remote control toy. The lady nodded and smiled with total agreement. She explained that he had been flying his helicopter at the foot of the stairs when he fell back onto it and broke it. Inside myself I was absolutely blown away. But on the outside I stayed in control. As if to play it down I reminded the lady that this was indeed proof that the spirit of her late son had made a presence this evening and that she had received wonderful validation of that from Rosie.