My Mum, God rest her, was as honest as the day is long and I never had reason to doubt her in every day matters ever but she swore blind that Alnwick Castle in Northumberland is populated by a host of interesting, super-natural folk. To name but one (there are several but none recurring such as this), she described to me an experience she had as a child of seeing a young woman wandering about in flowing robes. 20 years later she saw the same woman who acknowlaged her with a nodding and smiling look. And 30 years later still, she had a conversational experience with the same lady (although no actual words were uttered) relating to husbands away at war and felt a real and tearful, emotional bond to the girl...

I was always a bit of a 'yeah right mother, course you did!' kind of bloke until one day I was out walking with her in the Peak District, strolling along the route of an old Roman road. I saw her stoop and without even looking down, she retrieved a Roman Coin from a crevice between two stones. When I asked her, in stunned amazement I might add, how she could possibly know it was there, she told me hesitantly and quite vacantly, that she'd "dropped it a while ago". Talk about gob-smacked.

My sister still has the coin which was subsequently identified and authenticated at the Castle Museum in York.

I personally have never had any such visions from beyond but I was impressed that day I can tell you. Never have got my head around that...