Fifty Years a Medium – Chapter 1, 5/8 by Estelle Roberts

At fifteen I went to work as a nursemaid to a family in Turnham Green. I loved children and here there were three of them to look after. They occupied nearly all my time for the next three years. Then I met and married Hugh Warren Miles.

Hugh was born at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Park, and had received his education as a Bluecoat Boy at Christ’s Hospital. His stepmother, whose maiden name was Evelyn Galt, was a sister of the wife of the President Wilson.

He had a kind and sympathetic nature, and we were as happy as any two young people can be. It was a great joy to me to be with someone to whom I could talk freely about my spirit people, someone who listened and understood.

One such occasion was on the morning when I woke up and told him I had seen his Aunt Mary walk through our bedroom during the night. I had never actually met this aunt, yet somehow I knew intuitively that the figure I had seen had been she. We learned later that she had died that night.

In due course I found that I again had three children to look after, but this time they were my own, Ivy, Evaline and Iris. They were happy days though we had little on which to live, getting by only with difficulty on my husband’s meagre wages as a clerk.

Hugh was the most generous of men, with the softest of hearts. One day as he was walking home at the end of a week’s work, he was so touched by a tale of woe told him by a poor man he gave away his entire week’s wages! Imagine my feelings when I had no money with which to buy food for our own children!

Eight years after we were married Hugh fell ill. It was thought at first that he was suffering from consumption. Sir William Fairbanks, physician to the Royal Family, who was a friend of my husband’s family, arranged for him to be examined at Brompton Hospital. The diagnosis revealed that he was suffering from Bright’s disease. He was never able to work regularly again, although he tried hard to do so.