'Nesta of the Forest', clairvoyant

Notes made by P.G. Mills, assistant Editor of the 'Echo,' regarding a clairvoyant, together with a letter and a self-published booklet by the clairvoyant.

Documents deposited by Mrs. Winifred M. Mills

'Nesta of the Forest' was born c.1890 and came to Gloucestershire in the 1930s from Newport [Mon.], her home town. She practised as a clairvoyant and 'psychic medium' in Newport and Lydney, and moved to Gloucester in June 1932, establishing her practice at the Pilgrim's Rest Cafe, 19 Worcester Street. At that time she was married to David Thomas Lewis of the same address. The police prosecuted Nesta Lewis alias 'Nesta of the Forest' under the Vagrancy Act for fortune-telling, and the case (which she lost) was reported at length in the Gloucester Journal, 29 April 1933. She subsequently moved to Bournemouth, many of her predictions about local and national events being printed in the Bournemouth Times. Towards the beginning of the second World War she came to live in the Old Manse, Oxford Passage, High Street, Cheltenham. She was then known as Nesta Lane, and according to her own account, outlived three husbands. She frequently wrote letters to the Editor of the Echo, and in 1963 visited the Echo office where Percy George Mills, Mrs. Mills' late husband, was Assistant Editor. She told him about a 'Gaelic-British' ritual 'for obtaining redress and justice' which she had carried out when a young man and his wife who did odd jobs for her stole a spade belonging to her. According to Mr. Mills' notes, Nesta told him that 'the wife lost her mother...and then they lost their three-month old baby. I had forecast all of it'. Mr. Mills also made notes about her beliefs and her earlier life, including a libel action she brought in the High Court against Odham's Press in 1936 in an attempt to get the Witchcraft Act of 1735 repealed or amended. She also presented him with a pamphlet of testimonials to her powers as a clairvoyant, which she published, c.1942, and annotated.