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

In this latest tale, Andy experiences a very cruel timeslip.

I'VE had to alter a few names in the following account for legal reasons.

One of the strangest stories to come my way originated in a letter I received from an inmate in Walton Prison named Andy Nichol.

He was serving time for armed robbery, but the subject of his letter was not that crime, but the strange outcome of an earlier spate of robberies that had taken place at New Brighton in 1995.

Andy, a Birkenhead man, had, by his own admission, been "a no-hoper continually on the rob" from his teens, and in the spring of 1995 the 35-year-old Andy left Birkenhead and went on the run when someone tipped the police off about a number of shop robberies he'd recently carried out across the peninsula.

Andy planned to flee to Spain but knew the police would be watching the airports at Liverpool and Manchester, so apathetically decided to lay low at a bed and breakfast in New Brighton of all places.

He grew a beard and one day, when he felt he had defeated the police, he relaxed a little, swigging soft drinks and eating dollops of homemade ice cream at Truffles ‘n Cream on Marine Promenade as well as mingling with the opposite sex at Coasters and the Grand Anchorage Nightclub, but then his luck ran out.

As Andy was passing a ragged old man sitting in the doorway of a shop, he sneered at him and said, "Why don’t you work for a living instead of begging, you smelly tramp? You’re an eyesore around here."

The down-and-out looked up at Andy and said: "It’s better to be a beggar than a thief, Andy."

Andy walked on a few paces, then stopped dead and swung around. The tramp obviously knew him.

"Who are you?" he asked him, and then the poor discard of life nodded and Andy recognised him; an old school friend from years back and also someone who had a big mouth.

"You grass on me and I'll do you in – you got that?" Andy growled in a low voice to the beggar, then hurried back to the B&B and got ready to pack his things and move on, but there was a screech of tyres outside, and Andy looked out the window to see two police cars pulling up in the street downstairs.

He left his hastily packed case on the bed and fled through the building, making his exit via the fire escape.

Andy ended up walking for miles with his head down, and everywhere he went he saw crawling police cars.

He headed for Fort Perch Rock, where he heard a voice behind him yell: "Alright Andy - it's over, mate!"

He turned and saw it was a detective he knew named McFarland, and three uniformed policemen, and behind them a Black Mariah was following.

Andy swore, cursing his old school associate, looked up at the overcast sky, said to God: "Give me a break, eh?" then vaulted over the rail and ran across the sands.

Ending it all actually flashed through his mind, and he considered running out into the waves.

He saw the gargantuan red cranes of Gladstone Dock misted in the distance – and they suddenly faded away.

Andy's ears popped, and in an instant everywhere was now sunny – and the people on that beach were dressed in old-fashioned clothes.

Puzzled at what he was seeing, Andy turned around – and saw that the detective, policemen and the Black Mariah had gone. Instead he saw tall huts and people in bizarre-looking bathing costumes.

Andy then saw New Brighton Tower.

He knew next to nothing about local history but he had seen pictures of the long-demolished Tower in books, and so it dawned on him that he had somehow gone back in time.

Two women in white blouses with puffy sleeves, ankle-length skirts and black straw boaters, were looking Andy up and down, and then they gathered together their small children (who were playing with crabs on the beach).

What these ladies of yore made of Andy's tracksuit is unknown, but they backed away from him.

Andy then set eyes on a young lady walking along the beach with a parasol who he perceived to be the most beautiful female he’d ever set eyes on.

He felt drawn towards her, and she seemed to recognise him. She fainted upon seeing Andy, and he and two men went to the lady and when she came to, she grabbed at Andy and gasped: "Oh! My love, you came back for me! You didn't perish in the deep!"

"What?" Andy asked, baffled, and the two men on either side of him looked at the time-slipped rogue, thinking he knew the woman.

The lady's bonnet fell off, revealing a head of curly Titian red hair.

She kissed Andy on the lips and called him ‘Robert’ and the two men stood up.

One blushed and walked away and the other told Andy: "You are lucky to have one as beautiful as her," then left.

The lady got to her feet and there were indignant looks from the seaside visitors as she embraced Andy.

From the ramblings of the young beauty, Andy got the impression she had mistaken him for a lover or husband who had been lost at sea.

He wondered if he could stay in this time period and start a new life with this beautiful lady, but suddenly found himself embracing air.

He was back in the Spring of 1995, and policemen were rushing towards him.

As he was being arrested, Andy asked Detective McFarland: "Can you hear her?"

McFarland ignored the odd question and carried out his duty, but Andy could hear that lovely lady of long ago crying, "Robert!" until her voice faded.

McFarland asked Andy how he'd pulled the "Paul Daniels number" – seeming to vanish on the beach, but Andy started to cry.

He felt he had lost a wife of many years; it was a very cruel timeslip in Andy's case.

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