Weird Wednesday; the Wonderful World of Time Slips

Imagine, you’re walking down the road in a city you know, maybe you’re shopping or out for drinks with friends, you turn a corner and are transported back in time by 40 or 50 years, or maybe even further.

This isn’t a case of misfortune and accidentally stumbling upon a film or TV location, this is an actual experience which has befell a number of people in Liverpool, specifically in the area around Bold Street in the city centre.

The most famous account of a Time Slip encounter on Bold Street, is that of Frank.

Frank was out shopping with his wife on Bold Street in 1996. His wife decided she wanted to buy a book from Dillons bookshop (later Waterstones), Frank nipped in to another shop and his wife went on ahead, after he exited the shop, Frank bumped in to a friend, stopped to chat and then headed to Dillons on Bold Street, except when he reached the store he noticed the name Cripps above the door (the façade of the store was commissioned by John Cripp in 1860 and was occupied by a women’s clothing shop, called Cripps in the 1950’s and 60’s) as Frank stepped back and saw that there were no books in the windows, just women’s clothes and accessories, he was nearly struck by a van which looked old and had the name “Cardin’s” on the side of it (another company long defunct by 1996), coming to his senses, Frank spotted a girl in her twenties, dressed very much for 1996 and with a Miss Selfridge’s bag over her shoulder, she entered the shop and Frank followed, as they did, the stores interior changed from clothes shop to book shop. Frank quizzed the girl to see if she experienced what he did, she confirmed she had, smiled, laughed it off and exited. This girl would remain unidentified for over 25 years, until she appeared on Danny Robins’ Uncanny TV show in 2023.

Aside from the fact that the other witness to this bizarre event has finally come forward, we also have to recognise Frank’s statement holds credence because of the fact he is a former police officer – not a profession which you would historically associate with someone who makes up whimsical tales.

Fast forward 10 years to 2006 and we step across to the other side of the law…

Sean was 19 and a shoplifter, on that day in 2006 he had been “made” in a shop and had a security guard in hot pursuit. Trying to evade his pursuer, Sean darted down Hanover Street and then down the dead end which is Brooks Alley (opposite Bold Street), fearing the worst Sean waited for the Security Guard to round the corner in to view, he didn’t, when this realisation dawned on Sean, he realised something felt “off”, not with him necessarily but with his surroundings. With his pursuer nowhere to be seen, Sean exited back on to Hanover Street and crossed to Bold Street, Sean began to take in his surroundings, the cars were old, the people were dressed differently, he began to panic.

Rifling in his pocket, his hand landed on his mobile phone, he pulled it out but had no reception, no signal to make it receive a call. Really starting to panic, Sean continued down Bold Street, realising he may have fallen back through time with no way of returning to 2006. He passed a kiosk selling newspapers and there, on the front cover of The Daily Post, in black and white, the date… 18th May 1967, Sean had travelled 39 years back into the past.

He pushed on towards Samuel’s, the jewellers where he eventually managed to get a signal on his phone, as he looked around, he realised he was back in 2006. The weirdness doesn’t end there though, when looking back down the street, there were the people of 1967, still going about their daily lives – Sean, unsurprisingly jumped on a bus, heading home and trying to put distance between himself and the past.

Sounds like an awesome tall tale by a shoplifter wanting to escape reprimand doesn’t it? Full of adventure and the unexplained? Well, the actual inexplicable bit is the fact the security guard corroborated Sean’s story, he had followed Sean into Brooks Alley and then found there to be no-one there, not Sean or anyone else!

Additionally…

We have the story of Imogen, Imogen’s sister has just given birth and so she decided she was going to go into the city to buy some clothes and things for the new arrival. Wandering through the city, Imogen was chuffed to stumble upon a new Mothercare store on the corner of Lord Street and Whitechapel.

As she was moving through the shop Imogen was thrilled as the prices seemed so cheap, she grabbed what she wanted and headed to the till. The staff member scanned the items and Imogen went to pay with her credit card, the staff member looked at her for a moment and then called for a manager, the manager also looked at Imogen and then declared that they couldn’t accept card payment. Dejected, Imogen returned the items to the shelves and went home to tell her mum about what had happened, her mum was bemused “but that’s a Bank, it hasn’t been a Mothercare for years, it’s actually my branch!”.

Undeterred and wanting to prove her mum wrong, they returned to Lord Street together the following day. When they arrived, sure enough, what was a Mothercare just the day before, was now a bank. Interestingly, Imogen can’t have gone back in time as much as Frank, Sean or others (who have reported women in Bonnets, “similar to characters from the old Quality Street tins”) because the pricing of the items wouldn’t have made sense, given that Britain didn’t officially switch to decimalised currency until 1971.

Hey, McFly?!…

Startling looks into the past aren’t the be all and end all when it comes to Time Travel in Liverpool.

Local paranormal author, Tom Slemen who has conducted a vast amount of research on Bold Street and nearby areas, has a story of a mother and daughter who are shopping on Bold Street and stumble upon a futuristic looking Tattoo parlour called “Instant Tatt” – inside the shop was bright and there was a machine which instantly and painlessly printed tattoos on the skin. One of them selected a design and got a tattoo, and the other said she would go back in a couple of days, when she did, the shop wasn’t there.

Within 24 hours, the woman who had the tattoo, discovered it had disappeared, much like the shop – but apparently, on her bank statement, there showed a transaction for “Instant Tatt” on the relevant date.

But why?

Why Liverpool? Why this specific area? Well, it apparently isn’t limited to Liverpool with reports also happening in Edinburgh and other cities, the only thing which links these places, is the existence of underground railway systems. Could it be that there is a strange kind of electromagnetic energy emitted from these underground railways? Is it similar to reports of disturbances surrounding the Large Hadron Collider?

What do you think?