Minnie Bessant Harrison was born in 1895 in Middlesbrough, England. She was the youngest of 11 children and one of five who became deep trance mediums. Minnie married Thomas (Tosher) Harrison in the 1920s and they had a son, Tom.

Minnie’s sister, Agnes, invited Minnie to work as a medium with her in London in the 1930s. Minnie passed all their tests and was accepted into the association, but she didn’t want to charge money for her messages. Instead, she remained in Middlesbrough, where she practiced her trance mediumship.

Minnie’s son, Tom, married Doris Hudson in 1940 and fought in World War II. While he was away, Minnie spent Saturday evenings with her husband, Tosher, daughter-in-law, Doris, and their good friends Sydney and Gladys Shipman in the sitting room behind the Shipmans’ store.  Tom wrote, “Our Saturday evenings were always enjoyable, with musical duets by Sydney on his violin and Gladys, an accomplished pianist. Unknown to us however there was a far more important purpose to that weekly get-together.”

On April 6^th, 1946, they held their first Saturday Night Club in a room darkened with blackout curtains. Tom kept detailed notes. “Our expectations were, at best, to make contact with our Spirit friends through the trance mediumship of my mother, something very special, which could not just be ‘turned on’ like a tap,” he said. “Little did we know that Albert’s statement at Helen Duncan’s sitting almost nine years previously about the ‘physical phenomena energy’ would come true. My mother’s mediumship amazed and astounded us all, not only by the rapidity of its development but in its unexpected quality and rarity.”

Minnie went into a state of trance, and her sister Agnes, who had passed four years before, and a Native American Spirit named Sunrise acted as controllers during the process. They instructed them to use a trumpets for communication. Sydney and Tom made metal and cardboard trumpets. By the 5^th week, voices began to come through the trumpets. They heard Agnes’ voice saying, “I am trying. I am trying.” It was after Sydney built a pyramidal wooden trumpet that they found a small piece of white cherry blossom. It was the first of many flowers they would receive from the spirit world as gifts for birthdays and anniversaries.

The group continued to progress during their seances. Apports appeared both inside and outside of the meeting room. They included flowers, an orange feather, and a temple bell. Spirit lights flashed in the room. After a time, spirits wrote messages on a paper next to the table.

After 25 meetings, ectoplasmic materialization began. The white substance would build up to form figures and hands. The group added a red light to help them see and take photographs of the figures. They later recorded the events with an infrared camera. The spirits that visited were not only people known to the circle members, but family members and friends of guests.

The Saturday Night Club lasted until 1954. Their January meeting was marked by numerous materializations and voices speaking through trumpets. Minnie had survived cancer in the early 1940s, but in 1958, despite the spirit healing and several operations, she passed on.

Tom continued to spread the word about the events that occurred during their Saturday meetings. Some of his interviews are available on youtube. He tells the story of his mother’s mediumship, from trance medium to direct voice communication. He also discusses the materializations that he witnessed at the time.

Additional reading:
Harrison, Tom (1989) Visits By Our Friends From The “Other Side” Swanland: SNPP

Harrison, Tom (2008) Life After Death, 2^nd ed. Saturday Night Press Publications, UK