Sounds can be another sign that the departed are still around. Often clocks will stop ticking at the time a person dies or strange sounds will be heard. At the moment of her child’s death, one woman heard the sounds of a wake outside, although she lived in the wildest part of an island, miles from any other house.

John, a radio presenter in the West Country, told me that while he was living in Lyme Regis, his grandfather, who lived hundreds of miles away in Newcastle on Tyne, became very ill. John had decided to return up North to see the old man the next day. However, that night he was woken at 2 a.m. by a loud gunshot. In the morning John received a telephone call to say that his grandfather had died during the night. When John returned home, he asked his mother what time the old man had died. She said that no one knew for sure except that it was during the early hours of the morning. John told her that he thought the death occurred at 2 a.m. but did not say why. John’s father said that he also wondered if it was at 2 a.m. as he had been woken by a loud gunshot at that time in Newcastle.

If you do experience a strange sign, especially on an anniversary or in a place that a person loved, do not worry about rationalizing. Televisions do suddenly go wrong, the electrics can play strange tricks, but when a radio suddenly plays a loved one’s favourite song or a grandmother’s favourite perfume is smelled at a time of crisis or unhappiness, then the sign can be taken as an indication that there is some kind of contact. Sometimes a favourite photograph can be moved back to its original position or a musical toy belonging to a dead child can begin playing on the anniversary of the death or on a birthday when there is no one near it and perhaps has not been played for years.

If you do receive a sign, ask if there is any message and express love or friendship to the person whom you suspect it is. Listen and you may here words in your ear or out loud. Sometimes a regular sign can indicate the presence of a specific person. For example, whenever one woman is sad, her taps turn on and she smells Blue Grass, her mother’s favourite perfume, and knows that her mother is with her.

Finally, sings may not be personal to you. You may just be privileged to experience another world fragrance or sound. Tim, who lives in Surrey, picked up a reassuring sign of ghosts not long after he moved home:

I now live in a pleasant little cul-de-sac by the River Thames. As it is well lit I’ve no qualms about walking down the centre of the road. I was doing so late the other evening on a breezy summer night when I walked into the scent of a cigar. It was such a nice smell that I stopped and breathed in deeply before walking on.

You know you sometimes get a feeling of ‘weirdness’. I’d gone on another 20 feet or so before it dawned on me that the smell hadn’t dissipated in the wind as I inhaled it, so I walked back to where I had originally stopped. The smell of a cigar, a good-quality cigar, was still there just in this one spot. I walked through it, around it and stood in it. It had a boundary, a couple of steps in any direction and no smell; I searched the ground for butts, manhole covers. No one was around, no house lights were on and, if I moved away, no smell. Puzzled, I walked a long way off and then came back. It was still there, but was not there in the morning when I went to work. The funny thing is it was such a friendly, homely smell I couldn’t help but smile when breathing it in.