Fortunately before we'd gone on This Morning
we'd already had loads of practice at phone-ins. For nearly a
year we had practised giving telephone readings over the air for
our local commercial radio station South Coast Radio. In this
case it was a late night show and nobody worried if we talked
about the spirit world or demonstrated mediumship. If only mainstream
television were so open minded! For The Cheryl Buggy Show
we were able to give some really uplifting evidence of survival.
It was the sort of heart felt material that could bring a lump
to your throat. Sometimes we could give the full names of the
spirit communicator, how they died and an accurate description
of their personality. In addition we were able to give exact evidence
of stories from their lives. For example I remember one caller,
with a Wiltshire accent challenge us to say which musical instrument
her father had played before he died. "The bagpipes!!"
chirped up Jane. I remember we were also able to tell one caller
that he had a leg missing, another that she was looking at a picture
of her mother as she spoke yet all we had as a 'link' was an unfamiliar
voice at the end of the phone line and the guidance of spirit.
Every time we appeared on the show the switchboard
was jammed with calls.
 We
demonstrated psychometry and did a phone in for Meridian TV's
Late Night Live with presenters Penny Smith from GMTV and
John Leslie from Blue Peter. For this somewhat hectic show
we read the vibrations from various objects including a glass
eye! On set we also met our old friend Graham Rogers who's
we had got to know when we gave guest appearances on his all night
link programme Nightime.
We did a series of shows for UK Living with Jane
Irving, demonstrated aura
reading, phone ins and interpreted dreams. For The Vanessa
 Show
we gave readings to people in the audience and interpreted what
they were feeling by the colours of their aura. Afterwards there
was a heated debate with one man getting quite irate about how
people like us are frauds. We all really let of steam and it was
an exciting show.
We went on the Richard and Judy chat show
and for the Daily Mirror's cable programme L!VE TV I taught astral
projection and Jane demonstrated how to use the crystal ball.
Normally in television what you say is edited down to just a few
minutes but on cable there's so much time to fill that you pretty
well have as much time as you like. I even went on Newsnight to
make predictions about the General Election.
|
One show that was a complete
disaster was Sky's One to Three. I'd written a feature called 'The
Twilight Bone' for The Sunday Mirror in which I related various stories
that proposed that pets have a sixth
sense. The programme producers suggested that we set up a TV experiment
in which Jane and I would use telepathy to will a hungry dog to eat
from the bowl of our choice. Unfortunately the woman who supplied
the dog fed him just before he came on and, to our horror, continued
feeding him titbits right up to the moment we released him for the
experiment.
The dog took no interest in the food whatsoever.
It soon became clear to us that British television
is divided into two distinctive camps: 'entertainment and 'documentary'.
Unless it's being trashed by magicians, psychologists and journalists,
television rarely makes serious programmes about the type of work
we do. Even the investigative programmes are still considered as
entertainment. It's terribly frustrating when you consider the spiritual
implications of what we are trying to say.
And as the Spiritualists have discovered to their
cost, the media just aren't interested in the philosophical gauntlet
that proof of life after death throws into the arena. It is almost
impossible to put forward a case for mediumship. For a long time
the BBC refused to screen anything remotely connected with clairvoyance
or mediumship. Even today, a contrary viewpoint from the sceptics
always has to be put forward at the same time. I wonder how the
public would react if it was mandatory that every time a clergyman
expressed an opinion on air then an atheist, psychologist or magician
must give an alternative viewpoint. I can see it in the listings:
'Songs of Praise: tonight's programme includes a talk by the archbishop
and a demonstration of water walking by James Randi.'
As we have never had a theatrical agent it is perhaps
inevitable that we were never paid particularly well for our TV
work. The entertainment programmes were fun and useful but really
we wanted to reach out to people and let them know about the serious
and compassionate side of our work.
The opportunity came firstly through the newspapers
when I signed a contract with The Scottish Daily Record to write
a column idea I had proposed to them. I suggested that I write it
in Jane and my name and call it The Psychic Postbag It would answer
readers questions about psychic subjects and quote their experiences.
The resulting weekly Saturday page was flooded with letters telling
sometimes amazing stories. The Scots, perhaps because of their Celtic
roots and the tradition of highland seership, were very open to
what we had to say and the Psychic Postbag became a lively, informative
and sometimes touching column. Throughout Scotland it caused quite
a stir.
>>MORE
|
NEW TELEVISION SERIES
