What we did on our holidays

 

When I was a kid in the 60s, my parents used to love driving holidays. They were both rationalists and atheists (though if I were to write this in a memoir, I feel my sister might have some objections; she was of the opinion that they were both Church of England. Of course, that's basically atheist in itself). A good day's drive for my parents was a trip to Science Museum A, ruined abbey B, Science Museum C, Botanic Gardens D, a few minor science museums and a couple of cultural/historical buildings.

After one particularly grueling visit to several ruined abbeys and a culture museum featuring motley-clad peasant-role-players making beer and sackcloth in a wattle-and-daub building in a marsh, we arrived at our chosen hotel for the night. Pre-Yelp, of course, it had been chosen from a listing in a magazine. Inspection of the frontage was positive. It was large, and well-appointed and did not have any noticeable markers of unsuitability. It was after dark, and I was a child, so the contents of the car, and I, were bundled up in anoraks, windcheaters, fleeces, overcoats and etcetera and hustled straight past the front desk to a tiny, whitewashed room furnished with a double bed and a truckle bed. It was at least thirty degrees below freezing (in my mind). The 40 watt bulb in the room was not sufficient for much (and remember, in those days, no wifi or cable TV in rooms). I elected to go straight to bed and eventually thawed out sufficiently to go to sleep.

I was awakened by my parents suddenly talking loudly. It was about five in the morning – not yet light. The dim bulb was switched on and the two of them excitedly conversed in bed. I managed to fall asleep again, and in the first light, my parents dragged me out and into the grounds of the hotel.

"This way, through the hedge and down the stairs," my mother said.

"Then left through the field and towards the wooden bridge," my dad said.

It dawned on my, slowly, that they had both had the exactly the same dream. A woman in white had come to each one and asked for help. She had lit a lamp and led them through the hotel, into the grounds and down to the river.

Both had woken up at the same time.

My parents were still staunch materialists afterward, but neither of them were able to explain how they had both correctly dreamed of the path from the hotel room down to the bridge over the rushing river, and neither ever discussed what the White Lady had wanted from them.