Cilla Black was convinced she'd be reunited with her late husband Bobby in the afterlife following a ghostly experience at her Victorian mansion.

The loved presenter, who died on Saturday in Spain, previously told journalist Michael Hellicar she had felt a spiritual presence at their family property in the Buckinghamshire countryside and it resulted in a fascination with the supernatural.

Writing for the MailOnline, Michael, who used to edit her newspaper column, recalled going for lunch with the Blind Date host and her husband at London's Capital Hotel.

He wrote: "She seemed tired and distracted, snappy with Bobby, and even our waiter got an irritable tut when he dropped a fork.

 

 

"'I'm so sorry,' she told me. 'It's just that I haven't been sleeping properly for a while. I'm lying awake all night, because I've literally seen a ghost at my bedside.'

 

Michael then remembered visiting her home the previous week and seeing a young girl, who he thought was a nanny for the couple's children, walking up the stairs behind the star, wearing a very traditional white dress with a ruffled collar.

He told Cilla, 72, not to explain when she had seen and to instead listen to what he had to say, recalling his strange experience at the house.

It was exactly the same girl Cilla claimed she came face-to-face with when she was woken up in the middle of the night.

 

"My first impression was that she looked very unhappy and vulnerable," Cilla told Michael. "I wasn't scared. She gave off an aura of peace and contentment, and we just stared at each other.

"Then I nudged Bobby, but before he could wake up, and turn over to look, she simply melted away."

Cilla did some digging into the history of the house and those who lived there and discovered a gardener, Thomas Redley, and his wife and daughter had occupied the servants' quarters in the grounds in the 1900s.

They had both passed away and 11-year-old Lilian, who worked as a maid at the house, was left an orphan before she too died three years later after being struck down by pneumonia. She believed the ghost she'd seen was Lilian's spirit.

 

 

Cilla, who left behind sons Robert, 45, Jack, 34 and Ben, 41, was adamant she wouldn't live past 75 and told friends she would be reunited with Bobby, who lost his battle with cancer in 1999.

"I know he is waiting for me," she reportedly said. "There have been little messages, unmistakable signals, and when the time comes I will be able to thank him for looking out for me."

Michael claims Cilla made a very poignant remark before she died about the possibility of somebody seeing her own ghost in the future.

"I wonder if you realise you're dead when you're walking around haunting people," told him. "I suppose I'll never know the answer to that until it's too late. But I'll take care not to frighten anyone! I wouldn't want anyone to say that Cilla's scary!"