Lionel and Norah, going through London on the way to Eastbourne, on Friday, 26 May 1916, arranged to have a sitting with Mrs. Leonard about noon. They held one from 11.55 to 1.30, and a portion of their record is transcribed below.
At noon it seems suddenly to have occurred to Alec in Birmingham to try for a correspondence test; so he motored up from his office, extracted some sisters from the Lady Mayoress's Depot, where they were making surgical bandages, and took them to Mariemont for a brief table sitting. It lasted about ten minutes, between 12.10 and 12.20 p.m. And the test which he then and there suggested was to ask Raymond to get Feda in London to say the word "Honolulu." This task, I am told, was vigorously accepted and acquiesced in.
A record of this short sitting Alec wrote on a letter-card to me, which I received at 7 p.m. the same evening at Mariemont: the first I had heard of the experiment. The postmark is "1 p.m. 26 My 16," and the card runs thus:—
"Mariemont, Friday, 26 May, 12.29 p.m.
"Honor, Rosalynde, and Alec sitting in drawing-room at table. Knowing Lionel and Norah having Feda sitting in London simultaneously. Asked Raymond to give our love to Norah and Lionel and to try and get Feda to say Honolulu. Norah and Lionel know nothing of this, as it was arranged by A. M. L. after 12 o'clock to-day.
"(Signed) Alec M. Lodge
Honor G. Lodge
Rosalynde V. Lodge"
It is endorsed on the back in pencil, "Posted at B'ham General P.O. 12.43 p.m."; and, in ink, "Received by me 7 p.m.—O. J. L. Opened and read and filed at once."
The sitters in London knew nothing of the contemporaneous attempt; and nothing was told them, either then or later. Noticing nothing odd in their sitting, which they had not considered a particularly good one, they made no report till after both had returned from Eastbourne a week later.
The notes by that time had been written out, and were given me to read to the family. As I read, I came on a passage near the end, and, like the few others who were in the secret, was pleased to find that the word "Honolulu" had been successfully got through. The subject of music appeared to have been rather forced in by Raymond, in order to get Feda to mention an otherwise disconnected and meaningless word; the time when this was managed being, I estimate, about 1.0 or 1.15. But of course it was not noted as of any interest at the time.
Here follow the London Notes. I will quote portions of the sitting only, so as not to take up too much space:—