I met an angel in Oslo

When I was at school I saw photos of Norway and thought how beautiful it was. So, when I'd been working a few years and could afford a holiday abroad I decided that's where I'd like to go. None of my friends could go with me, so I went on my own. I was 21 and my parents had retired to a bungalow in Exmouth so I was living in a bedsit in Sidcup.
 
I planned this holiday for June 1962, and when the day came, I went by train to Newcastle and then on the SS Braemar to Oslo. It took about 12 hours to sail up the Oslo Fjord and it was breathtakingly beautiful. On arrival my luggage was taken from the boat to the hotel so I didn't have to go there - I had the whole day free to sightsee.
 
I had a plan of Oslo and thought I'd go to the Gustav Vigeland Sculpture Park so I got on a bus that said it was going there (did you know they have talking buses in Norway?!!) - and spent a lovely day looking around the Park and had a picnic lunch.
 
But then . . . it came to getting a bus back into Oslo and I didn't know where my hotel was or where to get off the bus! So I sat there on the bus studying my map, and looking for the Viking Hotel. I was beginning to panic inside in case I went too far on the bus. Then a man sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could help me - he spoke English with a Norwegian accent. I told him my plight and he replied that he was getting off at that stop and would tell me when we were there. So, I sat back and relaxed.
 
After about 10 mins, the pat came again on my shoulder and he told me this was our stop.
We got off the bus together, one behind the other. When I turned round to thank him, he was nowhere to be seen, and there was nowhere he could have gone. He didn't get back on the bus and there were no crowds for him to disappear in. It must have been an angel.
 
I knew my mother was praying for me - my first time abroad and on my own.
 
The next morning I got back on the train and went on the Oslo - Bergen railway up into the mountains to a place called Vatnahalsen where I spent 10 gorgeous days. Then I finished the train journey to Bergen and sailed back from there. A holiday I will never forget.

Two angels came to my aid

When my girls were about 12 and 8 we had a big old SAAB 95 Station Wagon with dicky seats facing out the back. The girls used to love waving to the people in the car behind!
 
On this particular day we were setting off to catch a ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Denmark. The plan was to go to my Aunt & Uncle who lived near Harwich, stay overnight and then they would take us to Harwich in the morning for the midday ferry.
 
Well, we got as far as the roundabout on the A2  before the turn off to the Dartford Tunnel - and suddenly I had no clutch. I pulled onto the gross verge and stopped. I told the girls and Wendy (bless her) stood up and said "Yes, you have Mummy, it's there, I can see it" pointing to the pedal!
 
I could see a garage up the hill so we locked the car and walked up there. I asked if there was a phone I could use to phone the AA - it all took time. Eventually we were directed to a phone. To get to it we had to walk across the forecourt. As we did so, two young men came up to us and asked if we were the owners of the SAAB parked by the roundabout!!!  How did they know!!!  When we said we were, they said "Can we help you?"  Whereupon I said "I shouldn't think so, the clutch has gone on our car . . . . unless you've got a tow rope?"  They said . . . . (wait for it)  "We are SAAB mechanics"!!!  Wow!!!  Then they said "We only work on the old SAABs not the new ones".  Another Wow!!
 
Well, we all piled into their SAAB 99 and they drove us back down to the car, whereupon they whipped off their shirts, got their tool box out of their boot and disappeared under our car. Ten minutes later they re-appeared and said "It's ok for you to drive back home; go gently and don't change gear any more than you have to". I thanked them profusely and opened my purse to pay them. They wouldn't hear of it and jumped back into their car and drove off.
 
You may be wondering how we got to Harwich. Well, back home we tried to think of someone we could ask to drive us to my Aunt & Uncle's. One of us came up with the name of 'Frank Perry' - so we rang him and, rather sheepishly, asked him. He said "Of course" and so we transferred all our gear (it wasn't called that in those days) from our car into his and we were soon on our way once again.

 The Angel on my hospital bed.

Angel No 3 is the only one of my angels who really looked like one. In 1985 I was dreading having a hysterectomy - but I also knew that it was the only way out of a dreadful problem, so it had to be done.
 
In those days they used to give you an injection called a "pre-med" before taking you down to the anaesthetic room - the idea was it made you so drowsy you didn't care you were having needles stuck into you, etc.
 
What I particularly hated was not the needles but the feeling of 'going under' and I would fight against it. I always lost the fight, of course, but it was horrible.
 
So, on the 14th November, they came and got me from the ward and put me on the trolley to be wheeled down to theatre, having given me my pre-med. As I lay on the trolley I could see, very clearly, an angel dressed in white robes with shiny shoulder length blonde curly hair, sitting on the front of my trolley with his hands holding onto the rail each side of him and his feet crossed at the ankles. Don't ask me how I could see all this detail - I just could, and the picture is as vivid in my mind today as it was then.
 
I don't remember any more. I was asleep by the time we got to the anaesthetic room so I slept through the injections and the going under. I was SO thankful for my angel that day.