WELCOME to Haunted Wirral, a feature series written by world famous psychic researcher, Tom Slemen for the Globe.

In this latest tale, Tom takes a sad journey into the past...

Almost everyone has pondered at one point in their lives on the nature of time; what is it? What happened to all those past days and years? Are they gone forever or could we somehow revisit them?

Time travel is increasingly starting to look more credible, and only recently was one form of time machine actually seen for the first time – a black hole.

Last month the first ever picture of a black hole was released to the public by astronomers.

It is three million times the size of the earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun. Physicists such as Michio Kaku and the late Stephen Hawking have stated that black holes are natural time machines because their gravity field is so intense, they would slow down time as you approached them and even stop time altogether.

By swinging on certain trajectories around the black hole you could even go into the future or past - but could there be other ways of travelling into the past and future here on earth?

Gravity waves pass through our planet regularly and cause slight ripples in time, but there have also been many accounts over the years of people finding themselves in the past and future for a brief period, and these episodes are termed timeslips; I’ve collected hundreds of these intriguing accounts.

In Liverpool, a timeslip hotspot is Bold Street for some reason, and in Wirral I’ve noted that Grange Road (and Grange Road West in particular) has a high incidence of timeslips. I’ve also noted a number of time-slippages on Old Chester Road, and one in particular stands out. It came my way when I was a guest on the Pete Price Phone-in radio programme many years ago.

I was talking about the paranormal and a listener named Stephanie told me her son had actually gone back in time twice whilst travelling along Old Chester Road, and she had thought the incidents were somehow linked to the Devil because she was very religious and believed some force was responsible for the baffling incidents.

I visited Stephanie at her home on Bedford Road and thoroughly interviewed Ian, her 30-year-old son.

He was re-interviewed six months later and did not add any detail to his story.

In June 1999, Ian (then aged 25) had been travelling up Old Chester Road on his motorbike to visit a friend in Holborn Hill, but as Ian reached the junction of Downham Road – near Mersey Park – he felt strange. Everything seemed to be slowing down and he felt a weird depression come over him – and then he saw that all of the cars on the road looked vintage, and the pedestrians were dressed in flares and sported long hair. Ian pulled over and looked about, and he realised that the June sunshine and unbroken blue skies had now been replaced with low grey clouds and it was noticeably cooler.

He drove off to his friend’s house and told him what had happened, and then the incident was eventually forgotten.

In early September 1999, Ian was once again travelling up Old Chester Road on his way to his sister’s house, and this time the sky was overcast and minutes into the journey a thin rain started to fall. Ian wore an open visor and was annoyed because the rain was coating his sunglasses. Just before he reached the junction at Downham Road, the skies turned blue in an instant, and once again he saw Ford Cortinas and cars that looked as if they dated back to the 1960s – and he also saw a young and very pretty blonde lady walking along the pavement to his left.

He slowed and recognised her. It was Allison, his babysitter from the 1970s.

She turned into Downham Road and he drove after her, thinking she was some ghost – because she had tragically died from what we now term sudden arrhythmic death syndrome around 1979.

The girl looked around nervously when she saw Ian follow her on his motorbike.

He shouted her name and she stood there with a baffled expression. He took off his sunglasses and she still didn’t recognise him. He told her his full name and said, "You used to babysit me," and she said, "I’m only eighteen – how could I have babysat you?"

She seemed to think it was a joke, and stood there, perhaps waiting for the punchline. What she heard frightened her. Ian said, "Allison, I told you I loved you when I was three. I was jealous of your boyfriend Rob."

"Who are you?" she asked, her smile evaporating, and Ian said, "Come with me Allison; they might be able to fix your heart."

Allison ran into her house and came out with her big brother.

Ian drove away and when he reached Old Chester Road, he found himself back in 1999, and he also found himself in tears.

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