'How tickled I am missus'
An audience with Ken Dodd
The ability to dream and imagine is perhaps one of the
biggest assets of being human. Entering the dream state is one way of experiencing
all your fantasies and ambitions within the privacy of your own mind especially
the ones that you would find difficult to attain in reality. Occasionally
I wake up in the middle of the night after a bad dream, having to reassure
myself that what I have just experienced is not real. What happens though
when our dreams leave the confines of our imagination and actually enter
into our waking consciousness or reality. For myself, and I’m sure for
a great number of you too, dreaming about actual events is not that uncommon
but trusting these sleep images is not an easy thing to do. I constantly
ask myself the question, "is this my own mind or is somebody trying to
tell me something?" I can equate this feeling to the earlier stages of
mental Mediumship and the difficulties experienced in learning to trust
what is being received.
To explain what I mean I will tell you about something
that happened recently. The event centred around a man that I admire greatly,
the well known comedian Ken Dodd, who has been at the top of his profession
for more than forty years. He holds his audiences captivated and in fits
of laughter and all without the need to swear or use crude language on
stage. He has a magnificent talent and I have wanted to meet him for some
time.
One Sunday morning I awoke to find a dream still fixed
firmly in my memory. I will not bore you with a long winded description
of the dream but the basics I will describe. In the dream I met Ken Dodd
personally and we exchanged telephone numbers, we chatted at great length
and got on very well together. Nothing unusual in the dream you might think
but that evening I was watching television with my wife, and whilst flicking
through the channels I noticed an award ceremony hosted by Melvin Bragg,
of the South Bank Show. Several awards were given out and then Ken Dodd
was introduced to give an award to Caroline Ahearn, of Mrs Merton fame.
I said to Christine my wife, "that has just broken my dream." There turned
out to be more to follow in the weeks ahead.
In the middle of the following week I had a meeting scheduled
with the chairman of a new local radio station in Knowlsley, Liverpool.
I had been asked if I would like to have a regular phone in slot on the
station, incidentally which I now broadcast on 96.7 K.C.R. fm every Wednesday
at 11.20am. The meeting was successful and I was invited to the studio
to have a look around before the station started to broadcast on the 16th
June 2001. Whilst chatting to the radio station staff I was invited to
the opening celebrations which I decided to attend. I thought little more
of it until the opening day until I went to collect my daughter Gemma,
as usual, and headed down the M62 towards the K.C.R studio in Prescot,
Merseyside. As I got closer to the station I was able to tune in to the
station frequency and to my amazement found that Ken Dodd was to open the
station. They were announcing that he had arrived and was shortly due on
air.
I arrived at the station with my daughter and immediately
had a glass of champagne thrust into my hand, shortly followed by a cheese
sandwich and a cream cake. I peered through the sound proofed window and
saw Ken Dodd talking to Brian Cullen the presenter, and I remember remarking
to my daughter that he looked older than I thought he would. I did not
want to make my interest in him too obvious so I mingled with the rest
of the invited guests for a while. When Ken Dodd came out of the soundproofed
room I was introduced to him as the K.C.R. resident Psychic. We shook hands
and started to chat, so enabling the prophecy contained in my dream to
come true. We didn't actually exchange telephone numbers which had happened
in the dream, but he did ask me for my card.
My conversation with Ken Dodd turned out to be surprising
and unexpected. He explained to me at great length about his own personal
belief in the paranormal and told me that some of his closest friends had
received information of the most comforting kind from several Mediums.
He told me that sometimes he is stood on stage during his show and jokes
just pop into his head. They are jokes that he has never heard before and
he is convinced that dead comedians he once knew before they died, help
him out sometimes from the Spirit world. I explained to him that Spirit
contact comes in many ways and that I considered it totally feasible that
information could be passed to him in this way.
I think Ken Dodd is a healer. He does not heal by use
of his hands or surgical instruments but by laughter. He has always, and
will always command my deepest respect and admiration.
E-mail Gary Dakin.