Getting into the spirit

CHRISTINE Dodds is a medium. Probably she's a happy medium, certainly a very cheerful one. Other adjectives may be inserted according to taste, temperament and, perhaps, need. Convincing? Plausible? Gifted? Comforting? "Entertaining", even, though she'd probably not choose it herself.

One presence from the spirit world at Sunday night's service is described as "a lady who would never put her teeth in", another as a lover of chips - "They smell lovely" - a third's a boy scout who's been singing Crest of a Wave in the Gang Show.

"You're going along on the crest of a wave and you aren't going to fall off," she tells the apparently intended recipient. "You needn't claim the insurance just yet."

Sometimes the lines of communication get pretty crowded. "I've a bus load coming in," she says; the gathering moves metaphorically along.

It's the Remembrance Day service at Shildon Spiritualist Church, only the second time in getting on 12 years that the column has reported from a Spiritualist service. Time, as it were, to see the other side.

Shildon's congregation has met since 1909 in a simple brick building in Middleton Road. The only time I was there was for the funeral of former Arsenal and Spurs footballer Laurie Brown, a lovely man. They played "Welcome to My World" when they brought in the coffin.

Now the church has been declared unsafe after an architect's inspection, an unknown but very likely substantial sum needed for repairs. "It's a bit worrying," says Russell Surman, one of the committee.

They meet across the road in the Masonic Hall, another venue with a certain mystique but, says Russell, thoroughly good neighbours.

From the walls hang boards listing Worshipful Masters of lodges like Tristram, Surtees and Royal Ark Mariners, a couple of the column's late uncles among them. One was a school caretaker, the other a bus maintenance engineer. A white dust sheet hangs over something at the front of the room. Their secret's safe.

They're warmly welcoming on a perishing evening, the 25 or so present including a chap with a Chihuahua - mildly curious but impeccably behaved - in a little basket on his lap.

Nora Auton, the president, talks of God's love for the animal kingdom and for plant life. Dogs definitely allowed.

Remembrance Sunday is marked by placing poppies on a heart shaped cushion, by prayer - "Only in this month do we seem to remember those who died for our freedom" - and by Christine's short address in which she recalls the Steptoe and Son episode where old Albert rabbits on about the Christmas Day truce in the trenches.

"Yes," says Harold, "and the next day you shot 'em."

Some hymns are familiar, others peculiar to Spiritualism:

There's a state, a realm unseen

Where parted friends must be

And but a step doth lie between

That spirit world and me.

The first part lasts half an hour. Part two, in which Christine seeks communion with the spirit world, lasts an hour and begins with a reminder that she's not into anything new.

"If you're waiting to hear your Lottery numbers, I can't help you."

It also begins inauspiciously, the "little old lady with the shakes" who has appeared from the other side provoking little recognition from the folk on the earth plane.

"That's a good start," says Christine. "I'm glad I'm near the door."

She's from Wheatley Hill, now lives in Newton Aycliffe, underwent "awareness" training and other instruction at the Spiritualist National Union and is booked more than a year in advance.

"You learn to open up and close down," she says afterwards. "If you were open all the time it would be a 24 hours a day job. You have to talk to people in an ordinary way. There's nothing worse than talking down to them."

Some of the mainstream Christian churches accept them, she says. Others are tolerant, others aren't tolerant at all.

Medium wave is a bit like a pre-war wireless in that it clearly takes time to warm up; once energised it's a bit like those latter-day iPod thingies, in that someone seems tuned in, but you've no idea what the message is about. Christine, at any rate, is getting a good reception.

Sometimes the message is general - "Can anyone take an Elsie?" - sometimes intended for a specific person.

A chap in the room is told that he was very generous in the local caf to someone on the other side - "I was," he says - another newly encountered spirit used to tell jokes which gradually turned bluer.

"I'm not going to repeat them," says Christine, decorously.

Another man, perhaps happily not the one with the Chihuahua, is told there's an Alsatian sitting beside him and that someone he knew was "always hitting the wall at the back of the room with her voice".

"Aye," he says, "you're right about that."

Another identifies with someone who's been killed in a car accident -

"He still sits in your back seat, he likes his ride around," says Christine.

Someone is told that he's due a shiny reward, another is urged to get a health check - "I'm not saying you're going to join the spirits, but prevention is better than cure" - another that the spirit communing from the other side was very bossy and still hadn't lost her starchiness.

"Yes," he says, "that's my sister."

Christine's timed out after an hour - "Just when I was getting into the swing of things," she says. Afterwards there's tea and biscuits, none rushing homeward.

Though readers must find their own spirit level, it seems pretty much like a comfort zone, whichever side of Middleton Road. "Sometimes it's nice to know that someone loves you and cares for you," says Christine. An unforgettable Remembrance Day, whatever.

* Shildon Spiritualist Church meets in the Masonic Hall every Sunday at 6pm. Russell Surman (01325) 300091 would welcome either builders or backers to help repair the church.