GUESTBOOK

I had the pleasure and privilage of meeting Joan in 1988. I had come across her books and read them all, and had some very minor 'fame' at the time for my own first book. It so strongly occurred to me that her stories would make vividly uplifting movies, and that they could open minds in that format; and chose 'Scarlet Feather' as the best for purpose, as also the budget wouldn't be so vast as for other books. Having no idea of her nationality or where she lived I wrote asking for permission to write a screenplay. To my astonishment she replied from London, where I then lived. So I went to visit her in her care home, where she received me while she was in bed. We had a long talk about many things, she was still quite acute in mind, and certainly she gave permission for me to work on a screenplay. (However, I later discovered how difficult it is for a screenplay to be accepted if you are an outsider from the business of movies, so I had only sketched out the project and didn't see it through to a finished work at the time.) I was then VP of a national spiritual charity and lived briefly without my own personal phone next-door to its HQ. So I gave her the number of the charity HQ next-door as I was often there. Joan called a number of times but only got to speak to me once or twice, as I wasn;t around. Very regretfully, I felt so busy running the charity all my waking hours then, that I didn't revisit.

I had to broadly smile as she sat in bed in the care home in her own room, and frankly acted humourously as the queen she once had been! If there was no response in a minute to her pressing a button (or a cord pulled?) to get attention, she'd regularly get attention with the alarm! They knew who it was and had to come. Joan explained to me how her books were actually written, and that it wasn't at all the normal process of sitting down as author to figure out any wording: it was as though her mortal self didn't write the words at all. (My concept would simply be that actual words came from a form of 'higher self'?)

I still value her books, and value so much that we got to know each other just a little including by phone after my visit, and I also still firmly believe her books are wonderful screenplays just waiting to happen.

By sheer coincidence, on another matter, that same period I also visited and spent a couple of hours with Denys, re past-life regression, at his rural home.