An Angelset me free

And other incredible true

stories of the afterlife

Dorothy Chitty

I dedicate this book to five of my angels—

my grandchildren Thomas, Byron, Harrison,

Eliot and India.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Preface

Chapter 1 The Angels in My Life

Chapter 2 The Angels We Know

Chapter 3 Angels We Don’t Recognise

Chapter 4 Advice from the Angels

Chapter 5 Psychic Children

Chapter 6 Psychic Animals

Chapter 7 Healing Angels

Chapter 8 Miracles from the Afterlife

Learning to Listen

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books By

Copyright

About the Publisher

Preface

Angels are always around us. In fact, they are watching over you right now as you read this book. Whether you believe in them or not, they have been guiding you since the day you were born and chances are they have helped you out of umpteen scrapes you’re not even aware of. That’s what they do.

Many people consult me to find out about the spirit world after they have lost a loved one, wanting to understand more about where their father, mother, grandparent, sibling, child or partner has gone and what they are doing now. Other people come to me when something extraordinary has happened to them that can’t be explained by the laws of nature and science. Or they might turn up on my doorstep when they have a big life decision to make and they need some guidance. Whatever the question, I close my eyes and pray and the spirits come to me bringing comfort and answers for the person across the room.

However, in this book I want to explain that to a certain extent we can all do this for ourselves by learning to watch, listen, ask and be aware. I run seminars in which I teach people how to open up to the spirit world, but here I decided to tell you some stories about angels helping people on earth in order to describe how the process works. Once you understand this, you can ask the angels for help yourself at any time.

And it’s important to ask. Sure, angels will help you when you haven’t asked, even if you think the whole concept is fanciful. But once you learn how to be in touch with spirit, your life will be immeasurably enriched in all sorts of ways.

Angels can help with practical life decisions such as which house to buy and which partner to marry. They can warn us about danger and sometimes even rescue us if we ignore the warning. They can heal sickness and comfort the bereaved. I’ve got a wide range of stories in this book, from the funny (such as the woman whose skirt was tucked in her knickers as she walked through Reading train station) to the terrifying (the soldier in Iraq whose armoured vehicle narrowly avoided being blown up by a roadside bomb).

In most (but not all) of the stories, the people concerned were in some way following the wrong path in life. They’d got side-tracked and were trapped in situations that weren’t doing them any good. Maybe they were in the wrong career, or had become too obsessed with wealth and status; some people had slipped into careless disregard for their own safety or that of others; a few got bogged down by grief and depression: there are dozens of ways in which we get stuck in life. It’s happened to me as well, as I’ll explain in chapter 1. No one’s immune.

The point is that listening to angels can get you back on track and release you from anxiety about the future. All will be well, for you and everyone you care about, when you lead a spiritually aware life. That doesn’t need to mean worship in a church, but simply treating others (including animals) as you would like to be treated yourself.

Angels will help you to make your life the best it can possibly be. Listen to them, and they will set you free.

Chapter 1 The Angels in My Life

‘Come on, Dolly Daydream,’ Dad used to say to me at least twenty times a day, when he was trying to get me to come to the table for tea, or put my nightie on for bed. ‘You’re in a world of your own.’

He was right—I was. I didn’t realise at that stage that my world was different from other people’s. I just knew that there were always characters around me who weren’t members of our family, right from when I was a small child in my cot. It was a big old wooden cot, and one of my earliest memories is of five people bending over it and looking at me lovingly. Of course I couldn’t count at that age, but somehow I knew in my head that there were five. They looked so nice that it didn’t occur to me to be scared. I felt very safe and protected with them there and it wasn’t until I was much older that I looked back and realised they were angels, and that no one else in the house could see them.

I had a brother who was six years older than me and a sister who was three years older, but I was a very solitary child, perfectly content with my own company—and that of the angels who surrounded me. Occasionally I would surprise adults with the things I came out with. As Mum and I walked along the road one day, I pointed to a woman on the other side.

‘That lady is going to die soon,’ I said.

‘Goodness!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘What makes you say that?’ I was only three or four, so a bit young to know about death.

I frowned. ‘I just know.’

Sure enough, the lady did pass away shortly afterwards and I heard the adults saying she had died of duck egg poisoning. It made me too scared to eat duck eggs, and to this day I always avoid them!

I started in the local Catholic school at the age of five, and we had an assembly in the church every morning. A kind man in a rough-textured brown suit used to sit next to me and explain what the Latin sermon was about and I listened, fascinated by the beauty of it all. He never told me his name but in my child’s brain I assumed that he was God, and that’s how I came to think of him. Woe betide me, though, when I mentioned to one of the nuns that ‘God’ had been speaking to me. I soon learned not to refer to my brown-suited friend any more because they were very liberal in their use of the strap at that school, particularly for what they thought of as blasphemy.

Sometimes the man in the brown suit took me out of school to a nearby park. I loved riding on the big wooden roundabout but was too little to climb up myself, so he lifted me up to stand on the platform and span it around. We had to cross several busy roads to get there but I never came to any harm. One day I stopped in front of the sweet shop window to peer in at all the tempting goodies on display. Suddenly I realised I couldn’t see the reflection of my friend, although I could see myself clearly.

‘That’s right,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘Not everyone can see me.’

Gradually I learned not to mention him to anyone at school because I got teased so much. ‘She’s the one who talks to God,’ the other girls would mock. They wouldn’t let me join in their games in the playground because I was thought of as a kind of oddball, an outsider.

I still hadn’t learned to censor myself and sometimes I passed on things I had been told by an angel. One day a girl called Carol was crying. I was always drawn to anyone who was sad, so I went over to her. I knew her father had been injured in the war and that there was something wrong with his lungs, and I also knew that he wasn’t going to live much longer.

‘Everyone says he will be all right,’ Carol sniffed through her tears.

‘No, he won’t,’ I told her matter-of-factly.

She gasped. ‘You’re being horrible!’

‘But he’ll be all right once he dies,’ I said, ‘because he will be an angel and he’ll be with you all the time then.’

She asked me about angels—what they look like and how you talk to them and seemed reassured by my answers, that you can’t always see them but that they talk to you in your head. I told her to tell her daddy that she loved him because I could sense she was a little scared of him and had never actually said those words before, and she promised she would.

Not long afterwards, Carol’s father passed away and she and I became very close friends for the rest of our time at that school. But I was beginning to realise that it is better not to tell people bad news most of the time. You can help a lot more by passing on nice messages rather than negative ones.

When I was young, Mum and Dad seemed quite accepting when I told them I talked to God and saw angels. ‘You’re a very lucky girl,’ Dad said once. But I think the whole family was disturbed when I started passing on messages from my Uncle Charlie, who committed suicide by sticking his head in the gas oven when I was ten. (He wasn’t a proper uncle, but a family friend we knew by that name.)

When Charlie first appeared to me, his tongue was sticking out and his face was contorted just as it must have been in the moment of death, but I wasn’t scared for one moment. It felt totally normal. Charlie told me that he had killed himself because he’d found out that his new wife was leaving him for someone else and he just couldn’t face life without her, but he wanted the rest of the family to know that he was fine now. He came back with love rather than hatred or resentment. He was a gentle man, a caring soul.

We often went for Sunday lunch at the home of Charlie’s mother, who we called Granny Watts, and Charlie would give me messages to pass on while we were sitting over our roast. I think it made the grownups round the table very uncomfortable.

Things really flared up, though, after a nun at school accused me of cheating. I had written something that my brown-suited friend ‘God’ told me was the correct answer to a question. After the nun read it, she charged over and hit me across the head.

‘Where have you copied this from?’ she demanded. ‘These words are too adult, these are not your words.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘they’re God’s words.’

The nun looked down at me with her podgy face close to mine. ‘Read my lips,’ she snarled. ‘You cannot hear God. It is not possible.’

I got a good hiding that day, and it was reported to my parents that I was cheating at my schoolwork and disrupting the class with my cheeky answers when challenged. Next thing I knew I was being marched off for an appointment with a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist was an austere man with dark hair and glasses, who kept firing questions at me and scribbling notes on his pad. I looked down and there, in front of his desk, was a little blond boy who told me his name was Peter. He was a very pretty-looking child and seemed to have a glow about him. He told me the psychiatrist was his father. He had died of leukaemia the previous year and mentioned that his dad had put a little teddy in his coffin. ‘Tell my daddy I’m here,’ he said, so I did.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ the psychiatrist snapped, so I described what Peter looked like and all the details he had told me about his death, including the teddy bear. The psychiatrist was very taken aback but asked me some questions to pass on to Peter and soon I was passing information between them quite naturally.

Finally, the doctor said to my parents:’There’s nothing wrong with this girl. She’s got ESP.’

I had no idea what he meant and asked if it was catching, which made the adults laugh.

‘You’ve got a special gift,’ the psychiatrist told me. ‘You can talk to people who are dead. But you mustn’t tell anyone because other people don’t have it.’

I was only ten at this time, but as I entered my teens I realised his advice was good. If anybody found out I could talk to spirits, they would nag me the whole time, wanting me to contact their dead grandmothers or beloved pets or whatever. I just wanted to be a normal teenager, accepted for who I was and not labelled as ‘weird’ or ‘different’. I was interested in fashion and boys—although being at a girls-only school I had little access to the opposite sex.

When I left school, I went to college to study fashion design and started making my own clothes. It was the early 1960s, and fashion college was an exciting place to be. One day I was crossing the road, wearing a white swing coat with two big black buttons that I had designed myself, when a car drove up and bumped into me, nudging my leg.

I leapt back and yelled, ‘You idiot! What are you trying to do?’ I recognised the driver as a young man I had seen in a jazz club but had never been introduced to.

‘I’m trying to get to know you,’ he said, grinning.

‘Well, that’s not the way to do it,’ I snapped and stormed off.

A few weeks later I was in a coffee bar with some friends when the same guy walked in. Before I could say anything, one of my friends called out to him. ‘Hey Mike! Dorothy needs a lift home. You’ll take her, won’t you?’

The guy who had been supposed to take me hadn’t turned up so I reluctantly accepted a lift from Mike, but as we drove home I made sure he knew that I had another boyfriend with whom I was due to go out that evening. I introduced him to my parents and left them chatting as I got changed and rushed out for the evening with my boyfriend. Imagine my surprise when I got home in time for my ten o’clock curfew to find Mike still there, still talking to Mum and Dad, obviously getting on with them like a house on fire.

I stopped, listened to my feelings, and realised that despite the way we had first met, I liked and trusted this guy. Although at that stage in my life I had turned away from my connection with spirit, I always had strong instincts about whether people were good or not, and he definitely was. Six months later we were married, and we had our son Carl in 1963, then our daughters, Nicky in ‘64 and Tanya in ‘66.

As a young mother I was kept very busy, working as a freelance dress designer as well as running our household. I’d told Mike about my psychic abilities, but the world of spirit wasn’t something I had much time to think about. Then in 1972, my mother was taken ill with a severe cold and rushed to hospital. I drove up to visit her. She asked me to come close to her and she whispered, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it this time.’ I couldn’t bear to hear it and said, ‘No, Mum, you’re wrong, you will make it.’ The next morning I was getting ready for work when a voice in my head told me that she was going to die the next day. It even told me the time—eleven o’clock.

In my shock, I dismissed it. ‘Go away,’ I thought. ‘I don’t want to hear this. It can’t be true.’

I had to work that day but I rang the hospital first thing and they told me Mum was absolutely fine—quite perky, in fact. And then at quarter past eleven I got the dreaded call to say that she had died very suddenly. I was filled with fierce anger. How could someone so good be taken? Having been warned in advance didn’t help at all. In fact, I was angry with the spirits who had warned me and I pushed them all away in my grief.

I should have known that Mum would come back to me in spirit. Of course she would. The following year, when we were staying with my parents-in-law, I woke up in the night with an unbearably sharp pain in my chest, finding it extremely difficult to breathe. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life and was convinced I was dying but there was Mum’s voice in my head, saying softly, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be OK.’ I was rushed to hospital where they found I’d had a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot in the lungs. The doctors told Mike it would be touch and go whether I made it through the next twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile, my daughter Nicky, who was nine by this time, woke in the night and heard my mother’s voice telling her that she wasn’t to worry, that I’d been taken ill but that all would be well. The next morning when the news was broken over breakfast that I had been rushed to hospital and was very poorly, Nicky piped up: ‘It’s all right. Nana told me she will be fine.’

Of course, I recovered, and when I heard what Nicky had said, I realised that she has the same psychic abilities that I have. She gets visitors too.

Mike and I set up our own catering business that became very successful over the next few years but still I resisted listening to the voices in my head so we made mistakes. In particular, we changed the way our company was managed, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t the right thing to do, and we ended up losing our business, with huge debts to pay off. We had to sell our house, all the antiques and pictures we had collected over the years, and even our youngest daughter Tanya’s horse. It was a difficult time for all the family, and one of the lowest points in my life. It took us a long time to get back on our feet financially and decide what to do next.

A few years later, still searching, we moved in with my mother-in-law in Shaldon, South Devon, where we stayed for several months in a tiny room, cramped in with all our remaining possessions.

I went out for a walk along the cliffs one day, for some reason leaving my dog behind. I was lost in thought, just putting one foot in front of the other, when suddenly I looked down and realised that my toes were protruding right over the edge of the grass. The rocks on the beach were about a hundred feet below and I was more or less suspended over thin air. I’m not the kind of person who would ever consider suicide but I remember thinking, ‘Oh well, I suppose it won’t hurt for long.’

No sooner had I thought that than I felt my elbows being gripped firmly from behind and I was lifted off the ground, through the air and put down again behind a barbed wire fence a couple of yards further back. It was almost like being Mary Poppins. I sat down hard on the grass to get my breath back. What on earth had just happened? Who or what had saved my life?

The barbed wire was there to stop people getting too close to the unstable cliff edge and I’m not sure how I had managed to get on the wrong side of it, because my clothes weren’t ripped at all. I was suddenly aware there was a hand beside me pointing across to the piece of turf I had been standing on. I then noticed that the turf was curved downwards because it was only three or four inches thick and the cliff was eroded away underneath. I should have fallen to my death.

I sat on that grass for a long time thinking about the feeling of those hands that had gripped my elbows and I realised I had been saved by two angels, one on either side. It wasn’t my time to die. There was more I was supposed to do in this life and it was up to me to find it, but to do that I would have to open my mind to the areas I had been trying to ignore for so long. I had to start listening to the messages I received from angels and understanding that most things happen for a reason. It wasn’t just by chance that I met Mike the day he nearly knocked me down—we were meant to be together. It wasn’t by chance that we lost the catering business—I was supposed to do something else with my life.

Shortly after this, I was in a doctor’s reception making an appointment when I heard the receptionist chatting to some nurses about someone who did tarot card readings. I asked who it was and was told there was a lady in Newton Abbot, not far from there.

‘Are you interested?’ a nurse asked.

I surprised myself by answering, ‘Actually, I’m a medium myself.’

I went to see the woman in Newton Abbot and she looked up as I walked in. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for five years,’ she said. ‘I knew you would come. There’s a gold star over your head.’

More and more, the angels were nudging me to work with them but I was still held back by the fear that people would think I was stupid or weird, as they had when I was a child.

‘Trust in us,’ the voices in my head were saying. ‘Have faith.’

The tarot woman told me that I was definitely going to become a professional psychic. I did a reading for her and she must have been impressed with what I told her because she began to recommend me to her friends, and it all took off without any form of advertising at all except word of mouth. It was as natural to me as breathing. Someone came in and sat opposite me, and voices would come into my head. I just had to pass on the words.

It was gratifying work, because I knew I was bringing comfort to a lot of people. When helping clients to get on with their lives after a bereavement, I could show them that the bond of love that had been there on earth was never lost. It felt like a worthwhile thing to be doing. Other people came with financial worries or business decisions to make, or emotional problems in a relationship, or fears for their children, and in all cases I tried to help them through the difficult times they faced.

One day a woman for whom I had done a reading came to me and said, ‘I would love to learn how to do what you do. Would you teach me?’

I told her I didn’t think I had anything to teach, but she thought otherwise. I had no teaching experience but when I considered it further I realised I could probably do it.

I spoke to a few other people and quickly put together a group of six students, which seemed like a good number. I had no idea what I was going to teach, so the night before I sat in my bath and talked to spirit and they gave me the whole format for the course, just like that. The next morning I stood up without any notes, trusting in spirit, and the words came out easily. I think my students were pleased with what they learned because at the end of the day, they all asked if they could come back for more. And then news of my course spread rapidly by word of mouth until I was travelling the world, teaching courses in loads of different countries to groups of ten people each time. It all happened generically without any planning. Someone would phone with an invitation and I’d agree to go and then more work would flow in as a result.

My own troubles weren’t over, though. When my daughter Tanya was seven she was abused by someone in a position of trust and became very disturbed as a result. I tried to pursue this man through the courts but was told it was his word against hers. All he got was a rap on the knuckles. It was a very hard time and I was deeply depressed about it all, yet trying to be calm and comfort my daughter as best I could.

One day I was taking a course in Guildford, Surrey, sixty miles away from where we were living at the time. I was walking up the high street towards the place where the course was due to take place when a little man wearing a dark brown raincoat came up and tapped me on the arm.

‘Your mum wants to talk to you,’ he said.

‘No, she doesn’t,’ I said crossly.

‘Yes, she does,’ he insisted.

‘My mother’s dead!’ I told him.

‘I know that,’ he said and I looked at him more closely. There was something very calm and still about him. ‘I’m going where you’re going,’ he continued.

‘How do you know where I’m going?’

In response, he walked ahead of me and turned into an alley then round to the back of the building where I was taking my course and in through the correct door. I was amazed as I followed him in, and finally ready to listen to what he had to say.

‘Your mother is telling me that you feel as though you’re facing a brick wall. But she says to remember that as each door closes a window opens, and don’t you forget it.’

This was a phrase my mother had often used. I opened my mouth to thank him for the message but as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone again. Some people who were there for the course came over to greet me.

‘Do you know that man?’ I asked, pointing in the direction he had gone, but they all looked at each other blankly. No one did.

I never saw him again, but I believe he was a physical angel sent to bring me comfort at that very difficult time. Looking back, there was a kind of light about him and I trusted him instinctively. Reminding me of my mother’s words about all the opportunities in the world was the perfect message for me at that time and knowing she was around helped me to pick myself—and my daughter—up again.

Most people think of angels as being in the spirit world, but I have learned that there are many different kinds. They have all ascended through many lifetimes and evolved in each so that their souls are pure. They communicate with us in different ways, but always for a reason, and listening to them will help us to move forwards in our lives.

Many wise angels have come to help me in different periods of my life. There were the five souls looking at me with love as I lay in my cot; the man in the brown suit who I thought was God; the two pairs of hands that lifted me back from the cliff edge in Devon; that little man in the main street in Guilford; and many, many more (I’ll tell you about some of the others later in this book). I probably failed to recognise many angel visitations during the period between my teens and my thirties when I tried to turn my back on my psychic abilities. As I teach on my courses, the first thing you need to do is learn to be still and listen so that your sensitivity develops—and for a long time I wasn’t listening.

Angels visit all of us at different times. By learning to recognise them and heed what they have to say, we can lead happier, more successful lives and find comfort to get us through the dark times. They may even save our lives.