I first read this story back in 1999, and didn't know what to make of it.
It caused quite a stir at the time.........so anyway, I'm posting it for those who havn't come across it before.

'In 1985, a 76-year-old pensioner named Maud lost her husband Bill to cancer. The couple - who lived in the Lancashire area of England - were inseparable, and Bill knew that when he died, Maud would feel so alone and lost. In the last conversation the couple had before Bill passed away, Maud said life without him would be unbearable, and Bill had said, "Keep your chin up love, because if there is a life after this one, I'll be there looking over you night and day. When the worst happens, just carry on and pretend I'm in the room with you." Bill was cremated, and Maud kept his ashes in an ornamental urn, which she kept by her bed. Each night before she switched off the light, she would say goodnight to the urn. She knew it was silly, but it was a way of coping with a terrible loss.
In the Christmas of 1985, Maud went into town to do some shopping. She entered a large department store, and during the shopping trip, she went to the ladies toilet. Instead of hanging her handbag on a hook, she put the handbag on the floor. Within seconds, someone had reached under the toilet door and snatched Maud's bag. That bag had contained her pension book, £400 in cash that she'd saved to buy her grand kids Christmas presents, her late husband's wallet and his wedding ring, and a cashcard along with her PIN number, which she'd foolishly scrawled on a piece of paper in the purse because she never could remember the four-digit code.
Maud reported the theft to the manager of the store and the police, who gave the unfortunate pensioner a lift home in a squad car. Because she didn't have the keys, a little boy in the street had to get in through the bathroom window so he could open the door for her.
Maud went upstairs to the bedroom and sobbed. She held the urn containing Bill's ashes and hugged it as she cried. She said, "Oh, Bill. How could someone do this to me? Help me Bill."
On the following morning the phone rang, and Maud answered it. A man said he was the manager of the department store where her handbag had been stolen. He said he had found the handbag intact, with nothing missing. She only had to collect it and sign for the handbag. What's more, the manager said he'd give Maud a free Christmas hamper because of the trauma she'd been through.
Maud was elated. She used the money a sympathetic neighbour had given her to take a taxi to the department store - but when she arrived the manager was baffled. He said, "I didn't call you, and no one has reported finding your handbag. Someone must be pulling your leg. I'm so sorry."
Maud said, "But how would they know my telephone number?"
"Oh dear," said the manager of the department store, and he looked at Maud and said, "I hope I'm wrong Maud, but the person who phoned you could be one of the people who stole your bag. Perhaps he told you to come here just to get you out the house so he and his associates can empty it; because I assume they have the keys. They were probably watching you as you left the house."
"Oh no." Maud started to shake. The manager ran to the nearest phone and alerted the police. By the time the police got to Maud's house, the robbers had already paid a visit and had stripped the place of anything valuable. Jewellery, the video, the TV, everything that was worth something was gone - even the phone. Maud was led to the bedroom to survey the way the robbers had left it in a mess, and she saw to her complete horror, that the ornamental china urn containing her husband's ashes had also been taken. Maud actually felt faint when she saw the urn missing and she collapsed onto the bed, and was later taken to hospital. She took a funny turn because of high blood pressure and kept waking through the night in the hospital.
At around 3 a.m. Maud awoke and saw her husband Bill standing at the foot of the bed. He was surrounded by a silvery aura of light, and was smiling at her.
"Bill. Is that you?" Maud said, raising her hands to the vision of her late husband.
"Yes dear. Everything's going to be just fine. Go to sleep. Everything will be okay in the morning. Now go to sleep." said Bill, in a very calm manner.
"But Bill; you're - " Maud couldn't finish the sentence.
"I know, but I'm waiting somewhere very near. I still feel very much alive. I gave those cowards who took your bag quite a scare. Now go to sleep. You need rest." said Bill, and he started fading away. Suddenly, there was no one at the foot of the bed anymore.
Maud closed her eyes and felt much better after seeing Bill, and she slept soundly.
At 10 a.m., two policemen called in to the ward and told Maud some strange news. The criminals who had taken the handbag and robbed the house were a woman named Jackie and her boyfriend named Giles. They had confessed to the robbery of the handbag and the housebreaking after something strange happened. Giles had been blinded, and was still being treated in hospital. He had opened the burial urn and was peering into it with his girlfriend, laughing, when some of the ashes literally shot out of the urn and blasted Giles in the eyes. Jackie washed her boyfriend's eyes, but still Giles couldn't see. In the end she took him to the hospital, and the doctors in casualty asked him how he had gotten the suspicious-looking ash in his eyes. Giles was in agony and he made a confession and told the medical staff the whole heinous story. The police were called in and charged the couple.
Then Maud remembered the vision of her husband in the wee small hours, and how he'd told her that he had scared the people who took her handbag and ransacked her home. The incident was investigated by the Psychical Research Society and as is usual in these cases, the whole episode was filed away for posterity. It took three months for the robber's eyesight to return, and an ophthalmologist who treated him said he could not explain the blindness.
Maud was later reunited with the urn, and still talks to it....'

(one from Tom Slemens' collection)

So did it happen or is it just a little tale to keep our hopes about our deprated ones being able to help us in times of need?

Hammy x x x

at least they cuaght them

Another example of just how cold and generally shitty people can be.

It would be nice to think that Bill came back to help his missus. Or did a distraught lonely woman imagine it, and did the thieving little git just get an eye-infection brought on by having bits of dead person in their eyes.

Having a more spiritual leaning to some ghost sightings, I'm not going to rule out Bill coming back. But wouldn't he have stopped the theft in the first place? Or laid in wait at the home for the vermin to break in?

I was going to do an Eric Morecombe joke, but it felt inappropriate.