Defense attorney: Tell us about the first occasion?

Vincent Woodcock: My wife passed away on 7th June, 1939, and in October of that same year, towards the end of the month, I went to Fleetwood, to Mrs. Bushley, of Fleetwood. That was my first seance. My wife had died with heart trouble and dropsy and, before she passed, she had excessive palpitation. That was the first thing that came through.

Defense attorney: Your wife came through?

Vincent Woodcock: Yes.

Defense attorney: How do you know it was your wife?

Vincent Woodcock: By the palpitations that she had when she died.

Defense attorney: Your wife came through. When your wife came through, how close to you did she come?

Vincent Woodcock: I was in the front row. She came about a foot away from where I was sitting, and she thanked me/her mother, father and sister, for what they had done for her.

Defense attorney: You had got your wife within a foot of you. Did you kiss her?

Judge: There is no need to stop him, I think. Go on in your own way.

Vincent Woodcock: She came through, and the first thing she said was she wished to thank the family for the gift of flowers that her little girl had thrown on to the coffin at the cemetery, at the funeral at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. My daughter threw a bunch of flowers on to the grave.

Defense attorney: Could you see your wife clearly or not?

Vincent Woodcock: Definitely I could see her clearly. I could outline the features. I was positive it was her.

Defense attorney: Did you touch her?

Vincent Woodcock: Not on that occasion.

Defense attorney: What about her voice?

Vincent Woodcock: It definitely was her voice.

Defense attorney: The voice of your wife?

Vincent Woodcock: Yes.

Defense attorney: And she has come through nineteen times?

Vincent Woodcock: Nineteen times in all.

Defense attorney: Have you any doubt of any kind about it?

Vincent Woodcock: No, I am absolutely convinced in mind that it was my wife.

Defense attorney: Have you- touched her on any occasion?

Vincent Woodcock: Yes, it was on an occasion in the following March, about eight months afterwards. My wife came through and invited my [present] wife, her sister-in-law, to come up to her in front of the cabinet, and my wife came up to me and took this ring off my finger, which I have here. She pulled it round thus. It was extremely difficult for me to get it off, and she put it on to my sister-in-law’s hand, thus. She clasped our hands together and kissed them, and said, “It is my wish that this takes place for the sake of our little girl.” Twelve months after that, her sister-in-law and I got married. She expressed great satisfaction. She came through on another occasion and said how pleased she was for the sake of her little girl.

Defense attorney: Apart from your wife, has anybody else come through that you knew?

Vincent Woodcock: Yes, my stepmother who was killed in the Manchester blitz. She was killed in the December. She said it was her. She called me by my Christian name, after she came out of the cabinet.

Defense attorney: What is your Christian name?

Vincent Woodcock: Vincent.

Defense attorney: Does Mrs. Duncan know your name as as far as you know?

Vincent Woodcock: Possibly she does now, because I have sat on nineteen occasions. She did not know then.

Defense attorney: Did she say anything else. How did you know it was your mother-in-law?

Vincent Woodcock: I am sorry, my stepmother. After my wife had been through, she said, “I have brought Lily with me”. Now my wife had had music lessons from my stepmother, because she was a music-teacher.

Defense attorney: Mrs. Duncan said, “I have brought Lily through”?

Vincent Woodcock: Yes.

Defense attorney: As far as you know, did Mrs. Duncan know that your stepdaughter’s name was Lily?

Vincent Woodcock: She had never met her.

Defense attorney: How long before that had your stepmother died?

Vincent Woodcock: About three months.

Defense attorney: How close to you did your stepmother get?

Vincent Woodcock: About two feet.

Defense attorney: Could you see her fairly clearly?

Vincent Woodcock: Definitely the features, because she said, “This is what they did to me”, and showed me ‘the blood mark, where, she said, “I was hit in the blitz”. She was killed in the Manchester blitz. I did not know that at the time. I knew she had been killed, but I did not know any details about the body, but I asked my brother on my next visit to Manchester and he told me.

Defense attorney: Had your brother heard of it?

Vincent Woodcock: He had heard of it, but he had never given that information to anyone before.

Defense attorney: The sound of the voice was the voice of your stepmother?

Vincent Woodcock: Definitely, yes.