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

In this latest tale, Tom explores Wirral's baffling timeslips...

Since my story about the Birkenhead timeslips in the Globe (November 7, 2017), I have been overwhelmed with stories from readers concerning timeslips of their own, and what follows are just two of these reported slippages in time.

I’ll start with the most recent one.

Last June, Sophia, a 22-year-old university student from Exeter, was visiting her uncle and aunt on Parkstone Road, Prenton, and at one point Sophia was sent to the off-licence on Borough Road – a mere 160 yards away - to get some drinks in for a party.

She returned minutes later and told her aunt and uncle that the girl in the off licence would not accept her money, saying it did not look as if it was ‘legal tender’.

Sophia had then suggested paying for the drinks with her credit card, but the woman behind the counter also rejected this idea, and so the baffled student stormed out of the off licence.

Sophia’s Aunt Jane went with her to the off licence to see what the problem was, and when the two women reached the corner of Parkbridge Road and Borough Road, Jane saw that the usual off licence – Bargain Booze, and its pillarbox-red facade – had now been replaced with a white storefront that was very familiar to Jane; it was an Ashe & Nephew off licence – the very same one that had stood on that spot decades ago.

Jane and Sophia went into the shop, and found it deserted. Both women also noticed a strange silence on the premises, and aunt and niece also thought there was a very unsettling atmosphere in the shop – almost as if something bad was about to happen.

Sophie shouted “Shop!” and “Anyone here?” but then her aunt urged her to leave, and they went back to the house on Parkstone Road.

Jane’s husband said Ashe & Nephew had closed down years ago and seemed to think his wife and niece were pulling his leg.

He went to the off licence, and came back with wine and beer.

The usual off licence had returned, and only then did Jane realise there had been some sort of timeslip at work.

A neighbour later told Jane how, in the previous March, a florist on Borough Road had given her old mother a bouquet for Mother’s Day.

The only florist’s shop at the spot indicated by the old lady had been “Michelle Flowers” and that shop had gone many years before.

A most intriguing timeslip was reported to me by a retired policeman in his mid-seventies named Ken.

In January 1973, Ken, like every other police officer in the Wallasey area, was on the lookout for a very mysterious and brutal maniac with a hammer who had just killed a 37-year-old woman on Gorsedale Road.

The same murderer was thought to be behind two previous attacks on young women at Matthew Street and Clarendon Road (and after the latter attack the victim died).

Photographs of the type of hammer used were put up on hoardings by the police and there were door to door enquiries.

Ken was on his beat up at New Brighton around this time, when he suffered “a funny turn” on the Marine Promenade.

Everything went completely silent, and he could not even feel the sharp coastal January wind.

Then suddenly, the grey oppressive clouds of New Brighton were instantly replaced with a clear blue canopy of sky with a scorching, blinding sun beating down.

This sudden change in the weather was confusing enough to the policeman, but as he took this in and regained his hearing, he was shocked to see that the Mersey and Liverpool Bay resembled the sand plains of the Australian Outback.

Ken looked to his left and saw the lighthouse standing in this surreal arid landscape, and it had sustained serious structural damage and was heavily pockmarked – and then Ken noticed the huge rusted hulk of a ship lying stranded further out on the dried seabed of Liverpool Bay, shimmering in the tropical heat.

About fifty yards from Ken was the sun-bleached shell of a bus with windows begrimed with sand-dust, and near it were human remains – white skulls and rib cages and bones.

Ken swore, and he tried to radio HQ to tell them what he was seeing, but all he could hear was white noise on the VHF band.

No one answered, and he felt intensely alone.

The backs of his hands turned red in the savage searing sunlight, and he began to hyperventilate.

He felt as if he’d strolled into the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Ken negotiated mountains of rubble and one of the few landmarks he could recognise was St James’ Church on Victoria Road, although the building’s steeple was blackened as if it had been burned.

Inside the church, Ken was shocked to see hundreds of skeletons in tattered clothes, many of them kneeling in the pews.

He turned and ran outside, and had another “funny turn”. He found himself back among the living on Victoria Road, and the landscape of desolation and the baking sun had gone.

He decided he could tell no one about his unearthly experience.

Ken went back to the station and said he didn’t feel well, and the desk sergeant said, "Hey Ken, what’s wrong with your face?"

Ken’s face was red and the skin was peeling, and skin on the back of his hands was also raw.

This was proof that Ken had not hallucinated his inexplicable short-lived trip into some nightmarish future.

Had he walked through some ecological disaster, or as he suspected, the aftermath of World War Three?

Over the forthcoming weeks Tom will tell you more tales of the mysterious and the uncanny in the Globe.

Haunted Liverpool 28 is another dazzling collection of supernatural fact by Tom Slemen, England’s greatest writer on the paranormal.