§566

‘I was about twelve, staying in a room with my same aged cousin at my aunt’s house in Northumberland. Although the lights were off the room was lit by the streetlight directly outside the bedroom. My cousin had gone to sleep, and I turned over to do the same, when something caught my eye. It was a small creature dressed as an old-fashioned soldier in a scarlet uniform. He was walking in front of the heater, which had a red light on it, with a tiny musket on his shoulder. He literally marched backwards and forwards in front of the heater, lit up each time he walked in front of the light although still visible away from it. I knew immediately I was seeing a fairy. I remember sharing my experience a few weeks later when I was back at school in London and my fellow pupils laughing me out of the classroom. I never mentioned it again. But I know it happened.’ ‘It’s hard to talk about these things as people immediately laugh you down.’ ‘I believe in nature spirits.’ Why a fairy? ‘The size. We tend to think nowadays of fairies as small. Now you’ve said it, it could just as easily have been an angel. I just assumed it was a fairy.’