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

In this latest tale, Peter and grandson Andy make an unexpected journey ...

IN the infernal summer of 1976, a crotchety 70-year-old grandfather named Peter King was pestered by his wife to take their grandson, 19-year-old Andy, to have a look at the cars at New Brighton Garages on Waterloo Road.

There was a Lancia Andy had seen at the garage and he wanted to have another look at it and thought it would be a good idea to bring his grandfather along because Peter was a retired tractor mechanic.

Peter had constantly told Andy there was a world of difference between the workings of tractors and agricultural machinery and the engines of cars, and he had advised the teenager to bring along a proper mechanic.

But it was: "like talking to a wall" to quote the elderly man in his evaluation of his grandson.

Peter took Andy to Wallasey in his three-year-old Range Rover, and the two of them set out from Birkenhead in the searing heat of the 1976 drought that morning.

"I wouldn't be getting into debt to get a Lancia; I’d get a cheap runaround if I was you," said Peter, putting on his sunglasses as he slowed upon his approach to the lights.

Andy grimaced at his grandfather’s suggestion. "Granddad I'll be alright; I’m not driving some rusty wreck. I want a proper modern car with a big engine."

"And big insurance to pay for it," Peter chipped in, giving the two-finger salute at the motorist overtaking him before he reached the lights.

"You're nineteen for Christ’s sake, lad," sighed Peter, "took you three attempts to pass your driving test, and the examiner said you're a nervous driver and advised you to have more lessons.

"You're bound to have a few scrapes. Can you imagine the repair job if you crash a Lancia?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore - you're jinxing me; just take me to the garage,’ answered Andy, and gazed sulkily out the window.

"And you should have brought Big Des with you instead of me," Peter continued, watching the lights change, "he's a time-served mechanic."

"What's that down there?" Andy asked, thinning his eyes at an approaching cloud of smoke. "Is there a fire down there?"

Peter rolled up the windows of the Range Rover and slowed down as the cloud enveloped the vehicle.

It was so dense, Peter could no longer see the traffic in front or behind him.

"What the devil - " he was saying when suddenly, the sun shone through the cloud, and a blue sky appeared again - and something Peter had not seen for years - a tram heading towards him!

Peter swerved and turned the air blue in the Range Rover as he let loose a string of swear words.

He pulled over and as the smoke fully cleared, grandfather and grandson saw that all of the people walking past were dressed in the fashions of a bygone era – possibly Victorian or Edwardian.

The men wore bowlers, straw boaters and trilbies and the women had on huge bonnets and dour-looking long dark coats and dresses.

Horse-drawn carts trundled past, and Andy saw two little ragged-clothed barefoot boys running alongside the Range Rover, gazing at the vehicle with wide eyes and open mouths as if it was from outer space.

It gradually dawned on Peter and Andy that they had somehow travelled into the past after passing through the cloud.

"This is Victoria Road in New Brighton," gasped Peter, taking off his shades and slowing the car to about 10mph.

"What on earth has happened?" he asked, and checked his mirrors and pulled over.

"There must be like a fancy dress thing going on, Granddad," suggested a nervous Andy, "like a festival or something."

"I don't think so," said Peter, "look at the tramlines and the trams, and there isn’t a bloody car on the road except this one.

"Look at the cobbled roads. I don't like this one bit."

"Granddad there's a copper coming over the road towards us," said Andy, half twisted in the seat, looking out the back of the Range Rover.

Peter found himself driving off down Victoria Road and he left the trotting policeman far behind in minutes.

"This is bloody bizarre," muttered Peter, looking at the backdated pedestrians scrolling past, and he kept swerving and dodging carts and hansom cabs.

Peter looked at Andy and with a grave expression said: "I don't know how this happened but we've got to get back to 1976."

His words frightened Andy, who had now given up hoping that they had merely driven into streets where some period drama was being filmed or where people into Victoriana were gathering for some seaside convention.

Peter drove around for about fifteen minutes with a sense of mounting panic.

He and his grandson really did think they would be stranded in the past and. at one point, Andy said a prayer, asking for God to get him and his grandfather back to 1976.

And then Peter cried out: "Look! It's the Neptune! Thank God!" and slowed the Range Rover and brought it to a halt outside the Neptune pub.

The two men sat there for a moment, trying to process what they had just been through, and then they got out the vehicle and went to have a drink.

The time was now late afternoon - Peter and Andy had lost six hours.

Someone in the pub doubted Peter's account of what happened and Peter almost walloped the sceptic only for Andy's intervention.

Just what happened that day is hard to explain, but it seems to have been some sort of timeslip - a phenomenon I have written about many times in my books and articles.

Quantum physicists say they are entirely possible, but how they come about is still a mystery, for now at least ...

• Haunted Liverpool 33 is out now on Amazon.