Now! Then! The wife of the Vicar of Weston, near Otley, has a nocturnal premonition of the death of the composer Frederick Delius

30 January 1934: The wife of the Vicar of Weston, near Otley, has a nocturnal premonition of the death of the composer Frederick Delius

The spiritualist faker William Hope’s proto-photoshop of the Tweedales and Mrs’ (deceased) father, Frank Burnett, and an unedited photo of the latter (Doyle 1923).

Clare Delius. 1935. Frederick Delius. London: Ivor Nicholson. I believe this to be out of copyright. Please contact me if you have information to the contrary. Get it:

Excerpt

I was just composing myself to sleep, my wife was fast asleep by my side, when I heard her uttering little incoherent gasping sounds in her sleep. This continued for two or three minutes. Then suddenly she began to sing in a loud, strong, clear man’s voice:

“When the winds sing low, low, low,
When soft breezes blow, blow, blow,
Then I come for Delius go.”

The last line was absolutely shouted in a most astonishing and impressive manner. I at once rose and wrote down what I could remember of the words, and the first thing next morning I wrote down the tune to which they were sung, which, true I had never heard before, but which I remembered very clearly.

My wife continued in deep heavy sleep, and I did not awaken her. She said in the morning that she had slept all night. At breakfast I waited to see if my daughter, Dorothy, had heard anything of this, as she sleeps in the room above, and meanwhile I did not inform my wife or any one as to what had happened.

During breakfast Dorothy said, “Was mother entranced during the night? I heard another voice, not yours, shortly after you came to bed — I then saw a brownish-red light which flamed out against the wardrobe like a big moon (the window curtains were drawn), and died down again.”

Before I could answer, my daughter Marjorie chimed in, saying, “In the night I heard the small piano in my bedroom sound two notes loudly and it frightened me.”

Astonished at this recital and this wonderful experience, I said we would sit after breakfast, and we did so.

Our wonderful spirit communicator C — , who departed this life eighty-five years ago, came and said that it was he who had entranced my wife and sung the verse. He said that I had not got it quite right, and this was what he tried to make her sing:

“When the winds sing soft and low,
When the breezes blow, blow, blow
Then we come for Delius, too,
Who has other work to do.”

C — said that this portended Delius’s passing, that the red-brown light seen by Dorothy in her room was Delius’s aura, and that he, C — , had sounded the notes on the piano in Marjorie’s room. I asked if I should tell Delius’s sister. C — replied, “Yes, for evidence.”

The same day, January 31st, 1934, I wrote the account of this to the editor of the Wharfedale Observer, Otley, and have his acknowledgment of the receipt of it, dated February 5th, 1934, saying that the account had been filed for reference. I also sent the account of this wonderful experience to Mrs. Black (this is my married name), of White Gates, Idle, who is the sister of Delius, and have her letter dated February 1st, 1934, acknowledging the receipt, saying, “I am quite prepared to testify to this if necessary.”

Here is what has often been asked for by unbelievers, a perfectly clear forecast, four months ahead of a coming event, witnessed and evidenced beyond the possibility of denial, clearly proving the incursion of the Spirit world into our mundane affairs and announcing the passing of a famous man from this world to the next.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Original

The hamlet of Weston stands remote from the noisier activities of the West Riding on the north bank of the river Wharfe. It is about three miles from Otley and some four or five from Ilkley. Tucked away with its ancient hall, where Marvell, the poet, once dreamed his “green thoughts in a green shade,” its old Domesday church, its tithe-barn and stocks, it is one of the hidden gems of the countryside. In spite of its smallness it has been a separate ecclesiastical parish since before the days of William the Conqueror. Here, on the night of January 30th, 1934, the Reverend Charles L. Tweedale, vicar of Weston, had a curious psychical experience. I will tell what happened in his own words, as it was published in the local papers. Mr. Tweedale, I should explain, is a spiritualist:

I was just composing myself to sleep, my wife was fast asleep by my side, when I heard her uttering little incoherent gasping sounds in her sleep. This continued for two or three minutes. Then suddenly she began to sing in a loud, strong, clear man’s voice:

“When the winds sing low, low, low,
When soft breezes blow, blow, blow,
Then I come for Delius go.”

The last line was absolutely shouted in a most astonishing and impressive manner. I at once rose and wrote down what I could remember of the words, and the first thing next morning I wrote down the tune to which they were sung, which, true I had never heard before, but which I remembered very clearly.

My wife continued in deep heavy sleep, and I did not awaken her. She said in the morning that she had slept all night. At breakfast I waited to see if my daughter, Dorothy, had heard anything of this, as she sleeps in the room above, and meanwhile I did not inform my wife or any one as to what had happened.

During breakfast Dorothy said, “Was mother entranced during the night? I heard another voice, not yours, shortly after you came to bed — I then saw a brownish-red light which flamed out against the wardrobe like a big moon (the window curtains were drawn), and died down again.”

Before I could answer, my daughter Marjorie chimed in, saying, “In the night I heard the small piano in my bedroom sound two notes loudly and it frightened me.”

Astonished at this recital and this wonderful experience, I said we would sit after breakfast, and we did so.

Our wonderful spirit communicator C — , who departed this life eighty-five years ago, came and said that it was he who had entranced my wife and sung the verse. He said that I had not got it quite right, and this was what he tried to make her sing:

“When the winds sing soft and low,
When the breezes blow, blow, blow
Then we come for Delius, too,
Who has other work to do.”

C — said that this portended Delius’s passing, that the red-brown light seen by Dorothy in her room was Delius’s aura, and that he, C — , had sounded the notes on the piano in Marjorie’s room. I asked if I should tell Delius’s sister. C — replied, “Yes, for evidence.”

The same day, January 31st, 1934, I wrote the account of this to the editor of the Wharfedale Observer, Otley, and have his acknowledgment of the receipt of it, dated February 5th, 1934, saying that the account had been filed for reference. I also sent the account of this wonderful experience to Mrs. Black (this is my married name), of White Gates, Idle, who is the sister of Delius, and have her letter dated February 1st, 1934, acknowledging the receipt, saying, “I am quite prepared to testify to this if necessary.”

Here is what has often been asked for by unbelievers, a perfectly clear forecast, four months ahead of a coming event, witnessed and evidenced beyond the possibility of denial, clearly proving the incursion of the Spirit world into our mundane affairs and announcing the passing of a famous man from this world to the next.

I do not ask the sceptical to accept Mr. Tweedale’s conclusion. They could argue, and argue quite reasonably, that my brother, then in his seventy-third year, and suffering as he had been suffering for years, could not in the nature of things long survive — that the forecast of the time of his death was distinctly vague. I repeat the account, which attracted much attention at the time, because it was a preface to what happened afterwards which induced me to write this book of memories.

I had several subsequent communications from the Vicar of Weston, who declared that he had been urged at a succession of seances to induce me to write Fred’s life. I resisted the temptation for several weeks, but the demands became so persistent that I at last consented.

858 words.