Ghosts and Timeslips ...

... has anyone ever had a strange experience in Bold Street, Liverpool? Several years ago I was coming out of the exit from Central Station that leads directly into Bold Street and I thought I'd walked into a film set! There were cobblestones and horses and carriages and people dressed in bonnets and long dresses. I'm not sure what period it was but they looked like the people on the Quality Street tin. I was totally disorientated for a few seconds because in my mind I was just going to cross Bold Street and into Waterstones but suddenly all these horses and carriages and people were in the way. First thing I thought was "They're shooting a film and I've walked onto the set, silly me." But as soon as I'd told myself that, everything was back to normal, present day and I was left scratching my head as to what had happened. I definitely needed a cuppa before I did anything else and I think I sat in Cafe 53 for about an hour trying to work out what on earth I'd just experienced. :shock: Has anyone else had a similar experience there or can throw any light on what it all means.

Must be a time slip here, I have read this post before!

heard a few of these tales about Bold St. Think there are a few in Tom Slemens books too.

from tinternet:


"The following is a story from the mouth of a Merseyside Policeman who inadvertedly travelled back in time when he was off-duty in July of 1996 in Liverpool City Centre's Bold Street area.

Frank, the policeman in question, and his wife, Carol, were in Liverpool one sunny Saturday afternoon shopping. At Central Station, the pair split up; Carol went to Dillons Bookshop to buy a copy of Irvine Welsh's 'Trainspotting'. Frank went to HMV to look for a CD he wanted.Twenty minutes into his short stroll to the music shop, he walked up the incline near the Lyceum Post Office/Café building which leads onto Bold Street intending to meet up with his wife, when he suddenly noticed he had somehow entered an oasis of quietness.

Suddenly, a small boxvan that looked like something out of the 1950's sped across his path, honking its horn as it narrowly missed him. Frank noticed the name on the van's side. 'Caplan's'. When he looked down, the confused policeman looked at his shoes to see he was standing in the road. Frank crossed the road and saw that 'Dillons Book Store' now had 'Cripps' over its entrances. More confused he looked in to see not books, but womens' handbags and shoes.

When he looked around, Frank realised people were dressed like those from the 1940's. Suddenly he spotted a young girl in her early 20's dressed in a lime coloured sleevless top. The handbag she was carrying had a popular brand name on it, which reassured the policeman that maybe he was still partly in 19961. It was a Paradox2, but the policeman was slightly relieved, and he smiled at the girl as she walked past him and entered 'Cripps'.

As he followed her, the whole interior of the building completely changed in a flash to that of Dillons Bookshop of 1996. As she was leaving 'Cripps', Frank lightly grasped the girls' arm to attract attention and said;
'Did you see that?'
She replied;
'Yeah! I thought it was a clothes shop- I was going to look around, But it's a bookshop.'

It has been recently proved that 'Cripps' and 'Caplan's' were actual businesses based in Liverpool during the 1950's.

Another related case of a timeslip is from a construction worker on the renovation of the Lyceum Building. He put down his helmet for a second and then it was gone, with nobody within fifty feet of him! He also noted that his DIGITAL3 watch had gone back two hours!"
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Bold Street 1
Mr X used to work in Bold Street in Liverpool. He was walking one day, about 10 years ago, down Renshaw Street, then turned by Rapid into the lane that takes you across the railway line, and emerges by the Buro Bar.

Mr X had worked in Liverpool for a while, and knew the shops well, noticing the ones that closed down such as Collinsons, leaving empty shoe stands and hat stands still in the window.

Mr X carried on walking, he was going to meet his wife in town that Saturday afternoon, but as he walked onto Bold Street, he noticed that Collinsons appeared to have reopened as the window was full of shoes and hats as it had been a while previously. He also noted that Catchpoles appeared to be on the other side of the street, where it had been some years before prior to moving to a site across the street.

He turned to go down Bold Street, and noticed that all the cars appeared to be 10-15 years out of date, but all appeared new. He then noticed that all the shoppers seemed to be wearing unusual clothes, not dramatically old, but fashions from 10-15 years before. He assumed that there was some event on in the city that weekend. The street also seemed unusually quiet, there were sounds but they appeared quite muted.

Mr X carried on and met his wife outside the bank on Hanover Street. They went in and attended to their business, everything in the bank seemed normal, but when they emerged Mr X was surprised to notice that everything had returned to how he expected it to be - the empty shops were again empty , and Catchpoles was back to where it had been the previous week.

Mr X is unsure if the scene changed back to normal as he and his wife entered the bank, or as they emerged, but as the bank appeared normal we assume things changed back as he entered the bank. His wife, who had not been on Bold Street, had not noticed anything different that day.

Bold Street 2
Mr B had a lady friend who was very much a skeptic concerning matters of the paranormal. In the 80's she worked in Liverpool city centre, and if the weather was pleasant, she would sit outside and eat her lunchtime sandwiches.

particular day, being sunny and warm, she decided to sit on a bench which was situated diagonally opposite Waterstones book shop in Bold Street. As she sat down, she noticed that the sun did not seem as bright as it had been moments before, in fact looking back in later years she described the light as similar to when the area had a partial solar eclipse.

She also noticed that the street did not seem as busy as it had been, which struck her as unusual for the time of day, 12.30pm being the height of the lunch hour. She sat down next to a very smartly dressed man who was already sitting on the bench, and started to unwrap her sandwiches. The gentleman engaged her in conversation, and they chatted about inconsequential matters, as strangers do. As they chatted, the thought crossed her mind that although smart and very amiable, the man next to her appeared to be dressed in an out of date fashion, reminiscent of the fashions popular in the 1950's.

As they were chatting, the man asked her a question. As she replied, she leaned forward to put her sandwich wrapper in the waste paper bin to the side of the bench. She took her eyes off the man for a split second as she dropped the wrapper in the bin, but carried on replying to his question. On sitting up again, she was astonished to realise that the man had completely vanished. She immediately scanned the area for him, but he was nowhere in sight, and could not have run off in the split second that she had taken her eyes off him. At the same instant, the sun returned to its ordinary brightness, and the area was crowded with people once more.

Bold Street 3
Central Station in Liverpool has changed much over the years. Before its last major upgrade, trains used to come into the station and were shunted down to a dead end, then came back up the other side of the station. Passengers came out up a long stairway, then on turning left they emerged opposite Casey Street.

One day, Mr B was going down the stairway on his way to catch a train. This was in the 1960's, and it was 5 or 6 years since his grandmother had died. Mr B's grandmother was an unmistakable lady, she always dressed in old-fashioned clothes, more suited to the 1930's - however she was always smart, and very prim and proper.

As Mr B descended the packed stairway, he caught sight of his grandmother going the opposite way, leaving the station. He stared in amazement, and blinked a couple of times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Sure enough, the lady was his grandmother - no-one else could be mistaken for her as she was so unique in dress and style.

He tried desperately to reach her, but the stairway was so packed with people he could not fight his way through. He saw his grandmother turn left at the top of the stairway, going towards the exit, and at the same moment a gap appeared in the crowd. Mr B instantly took the opportunity and ran through the crowd and round the corner. But his grandmother was nowhere to be seen. There was nowhere she could have gone in such a short time, even if she had started to run (and being in her 70's when she died, this was not something she would have been expected to do).

Bold Street 4
At the top of Casey Street are the remains of St Luke's church, which suffered major damage in the May Blitz of Liverpool during World War II.

One evening about 11 years ago, Mr C was in Liverpool city centre. It was December, and he had been to the Hi-Fi shop which was situated at the top of Bold Street.

He was now on his way to meet a friend for a drink before going home. The weather was cold, and the streets were icy. Mr C made his way to Casey Street, then turned down the side of the church.

As he passed the church he looked up, and was surprised to see that all the lights were on inside the church. He thought how unusual it was, as the church was derelict, not even having a roof. Occasionally there was a light shining in the porch, but nothing more. Mr C was amazed, but assumed that the church had been renovated since he had last been past it.

Shortly before Christmas, Mr C was again passing St Lukes. However, this time he noticed that the church was again in blackness, and was derelict and locked.

Later, Mr C read Tom Sleman's story of the church, and his "blood ran cold".

Bold Street 5
In the 1950's, Mrs P worked in Cripps in Bold Street (now Waterstones) as a window dresser. At the time, there was an equipment room in the basement of the store. The store employed a commissionaire, an older military gentleman, 6 feet tall and thin. He always proudly wore his wartime medals, and sported a walrus moustache. He had been at the relief of Khartoum, so was advanced in age at this time. Mrs P "hit it off" with the commissionaire and they became good friends.

One morning, Mrs P went into work to find her friend was not there. It transpired that he had been taken ill at home, and had been taken into hospital. Mrs P carried on work as normal, and went for lunch as she normally did. After lunch, she went down to the basement. She heard a cough from the top of the stairs and recognised it instantly as her friend's cough - he had a very distinctive cough, much as you would imagine an upright, military gentleman's cough to be. She was very pleased at the thought that her friend had obviously recovered and returned to work, so she ran up the stairs to where her friend used to hang his coat. She was very surprised to find nobody there.

Later on, she discovered that she had heard the cough at the exact moment that her friend had died in hospital.

Frank/MrX/MrB/MrsC/MrsP - All sound too Slemenish to me and not a photo in sight in this day and age?

Come on Ged, everyone knows who Frank is.....

Is it to do with drugs Mart? :smoke:

No, Frank, you obviously don't know him then.
to be Frank, I thought everybody knew Frank.

We've encountered a few time slips in the Railway opposite work in our time Mart.

Ahem, best not mention them on here ...
Some old bosses may be looking in :PDT_Aliboronz_24:

Aha. He - the holy innocent one.

it's all coming out now.

Spill the beans JMLE, you will get a conditional discharge if you talk.

What goes on in the Railway, stays in the Railway.

An Old UB / Crawfords pact we had DIDN'T we "Mark" :ninja:

Well that takes the biscuit coming from you.

This is something that only last seconds probably....

I am from Runcorn but was born in Liverpool where some of my family still live. I met my mum and my auntie (they are twins if that has any relevance whatsoever) in Liverpool town centre to have look around. Now I am not completely familiar with Liverpool street names but I think it was the bit where a road and some traffic lights dissect the main shopping street next to the Lloyds TSB bank and you walk up a bit and you have the underground station on your left. I think there is a waterstones there also.

Well I had gone for a look round on my own and had headed up in that direction to meet them when I saw a group of people dressed in Edwardian clothes and hats. They looked like and had the body mannerisms of modern people though rather than the mannerisms and gait and movements of Edwardian people in films set in Edwardian times (though I know these are only films and in real life they probably moved and had the mannerisms we do now). I just assumed they were people working for one of the local stores because I now live in Windsor and in the cobbled streets by Windsor Castle they have people dressed up in Edwardian Costume to entertain the tourists and lure them into some of the tourist shops there. I also noticed they seemed to look at me briefly with slight contempt as though there was something wrong with me and then after that they forgot about me. I must add to that last comment that although I am quite paranoid anyway I do look normal, honestly I think, so their reaction puzzled me.

Anyway, I walked into a shop and met my mum and auntie and asked them if there was some store nearby which employed people who wore Edwardian costumes...some sort of shop like Past Times or something. I also asked if they had seen them. They said they hadn't seen anybody like that standing about and nor were they aware of any shop which employed people to dress like that.

After that I kind of thought no more about it until recently and I came across some Tom Slemen (Liverpool ghost author) stories of Edwardian time slips in that very area and then gradually the memory of what I have just written about dawned on me.

I am not going to say I experienced a 'time slip' because it probably was just modern people dressed but still I got a bit spooked. But if it was a time slip that might have explained why they looked at me as if I was some sort of joker.

I also feel the need to add that what struck me was how good looking they all were and how seemingly relaxed and happy and chilled out they appeared to be. If I remember rightly, they were all wearing blacks and blues and greys with white shirts. Most were women but one was a man who seemed to be flirting with one of the women in a decidedly modern way rather than a chivalrous 'old-style' way.

I also have no memory of noticing anybody else around them and whether other people were dressed normally or not.

Very interesting story, The exact same area where Tom writes about a time slip as well. The Past Times shop is not far away from the bottom of Bold Street, just being over the road really. So maybe they were from that particular shop and where advertising for the store.

Oh brother, was this when you came out of the "Midland"? :unibrow: Welcome to Yo,anyway!

Interesting tale Bro.
Welcome to Yo.:PDT_Aliboronz_24:

I once slipped on a discarded wrist watch... nearly broke my neck.

That was a time slip i'd rather not have again.

I lost that watch! Gizzit back :p (if its a Rolex :D Not that I've ever owned a Rolex )

Nah, it was a 'Bolex', I think someone had got it as a Paddys Market knock-off.

Maybe the bottom of the 'B' is a scratch!

Not a timeslip as such but over the last ten years or so I have quite often passed a young lady walking around the city in victorian garb complete with shopping basket and shawl. Think she just chooses to be different (and good on her). No doubt others must have crossed her path.