“GHOSTLY TOUCH”

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1934, Page 7

“GHOSTLY TOUCH”

MARK STILL ON MAN’S WRIST. STRANGE STORY FROM IRELAND. There is a man, a member of a distinguished Irish family, living in London to-day who bears on his wrist a small brown mark. It appeared there more than 50 years ago when, in a dream, he saw his young fiancee—who at the moment unknown to him was dying—appealing to him for help. She put forward her hand and touched his wrist. At that moment he awoke and found on his wrist a small burn. In the half-century that has passed the mark has scarcely faded. Recent refemces to the famous Beresford ghost story (of a woman who died with a withering ghost mark on her wrist) brought this modern example of psychic phenomena again vividly to the mind; of the man who experienced it. He is Mr. A. G. Edwardes, ’of Denbight Street, Westminster. For many years the late Mr. Myers, who helped to found the Society for Psychical Research, searched for Mr. Edwardes in the hope that he might tell of his experience. But Mr. Edwardes could not be found, and it is only now that his story can be told in his own words. As I talked to him (writes a Daily Mail reporter) of his strange psychic experience of half a century ago, he bared his wrist and showed me the mark of that ghostly touch of his dead fiancee. It stood out brown and clear against the skin.

“I was in Brussels at the time studying for my final examinations as a diplomat,” said Mr. Edwardes. “My fiancee was in Faris staying with her family at the Belgian Embassy, where her father was attached. I knew that she was ill, but I did not know that she was likely to die. “One night I had a peculiar feeling of restlessness, and I eventually fell off to sleep and dreamed of her. “Even now I clearly recall her standing by my side calling out to me. Then she put out her hand and touched my wrist.

“At that second I awoke, and I found what I thought to be a small bum on my wrist. It blistered and was quite painful, and later on I showed it to mj£ mother.

“She sent me to a doctor, to whom I told the story of my dream. He poohpoohed the idea, and said I must have burned myself with a cigarette. In point of fact I did not then, and do not now, smoke.

“At all events he bandaged it, and on my return to the house I was told that my fiancee had died at the time I had dreamed she touched me. “From then until now the scar of that touch has remained. Neither before it nor since have I ever had any psychic experiences, but the memory of it remains with me.”