Neville's mother, who bore twelve children and died of cancer at 61 in Barbados looking 90, appeared to him in New York City on the day of her death as a blonde girl of 20 brushing her hair under an arbour of flowers; he wrote at once to his sister Daphne, whose censored-era letter arrived eight to ten days later and, allowing for the hour's time difference, confirmed the exact moment of her passing.