News from the Microcosm: Timeslip Accounts

A Timeslip from Kent:

On the morning of 18th June1968, and elderly lady, Mrs Charlotte Warburton, went shopping with her husband in the town. They decided to go their separate ways for a while and to meet up later. That morning, unable for find a particular brand of coffee from her usual grocer she went into a supermarket in Calverley Road. As she entered the shop she saw a small café through an entrance in the left-hand wall. She had never before realised that there was a café there. It was rather old-fashioned with wood panelled walls. There were no windows and the room was lit by a number of electric bulbs with frosted shades

There was at the time, she thought, nothing especially odd about the scene. 'Two woman in rather long dresses were sitting at one table and about half a dozen men, all in dark lounge suits, were sitting at the other tables further back in the room,' she said. 'All the people seemed to be drinking coffee and chatting ... a normal sight for a country town at eleven o'clock in the morning.'

Mrs Warburton did not stay but she certainly did not recognise anything amiss either then or indeed for several days. Even the rather formal and slightly off-key clothing made no immediate impression on her. Nor did the fact that although the customers were talking there was no noise from them to cause her to question her senses. Nor did she notice that there was no smell of coffee.

There is clearly something strange here. Yet without questioning the circumstances in which she found herself, Mrs Warburton blithely left the café and went to meet her husband. And she did not suggest to him that the scene at the café seemed in any was odd.

When they came to Tunbridge Wells on their next shopping expedition Mrs Warburton decided to take her husband to the café. Or rather, she hoped to take his there. But, of course, they never did find the place though they searched the street up and down. No, they were told in the supermarket, there was no café there. She must be in the wrong building. It was then that they learned about the Kosmos Kinema which had stood on the site of the supermarket. They were directed to the Tunbridge Wells Constitutional Club, where the steward told them that at one time the Constitutional Club had owned the premises adjoining the Kosmos, which was now incorporated into the supermarket. The club had had an assembly room in those days and to the rear a small bar with tables for refreshments. Mrs Warburton's description tallied exactly with the club's old refreshment room.

The bar, the cinema and the assembly room had all vanished years ago, Mrs Warburton was told. Yet, on 18th June 1968, she had stepped into the past and like others involved in time-slips had accepted without question, the place in which she found herself. Retrospective clairvoyance, it is called. Whatever it is, it is mighty odd to contemplate.

And one from South West England by Terry Cox:

In August 1941 two young sisters, aged twenty and eighteen, got off a bus at St. Mary Road [pseudonym] in order to walk along the very familiar road to Upper St. Mary [pseudonym] where a dance was being held in the village.

It was 6.20pm when they set off along a road which they had cycled along many times. It was a pleasant summer evening, and they were anticipating an enjoyable night out with friends. They were country girls used to walking distances even at night and kept up a brisk pace. Ahead of them lay Home Farm [pseudonym], and they could hear the barking of the rather nasty farm dogs they usually outran on their bicycles at other times. It was then they made the fateful decision that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. They would leave the road at this point, circle round the farm inside the hedge, and rejoin the road beyond the farm and the noisy, threatening dogs. They estimated the time as being about 6.40pm as they walked past a hayrick in the first grass field, entered the second, green field, and headed back to the hedge to rejoin the road. They climbed what they thought was the hedge by the road and dropped down .... into a ploughed field. It is at this point that what I like to refer to as the 'Brigadoon factor' set in. Both sisters agree that, although it was about 6.45pm on a late summer's evening, from the moment they dropped down into the ploughed field it appeared to be dark. Except that there was a very large red moon which, totally out of character for a harvest moon, both dazzled them and threw long, dark shadows from trees and hedges. They both felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding or evil as they climbed hedge after hedge, always dropping down into ploughed fields with no gateways. They were always aware of the position of the road because they could see the tall trees of Home Farm and hear the dogs still barking - also the very occasional vehicle went past (there were few privately owned vehicles in 1941). Eventually they found a gap in the hedge and found themselves on marshy ground where they could hear a stream, but could not see it for the alder trees growing along the bank. Importantly, as we shall see later, they insist they did not cross it. They headed back through the gap in the hedge and saw a previously unnoticed gate. In the hedge near the gate was a tall white pillar or stone, unusual for these parts where grey granite is the norm. Equally unusual and frightening was the loud squeaking noise that was coming from the pillar at regular short intervals. Remember, these were country girls. As they insist, they were used to animal and bird noises at night, and used to lonely country roads. In their own words,'we were not town girls lost and scared in the countryside'. Taking the plunge, they dashed past the white pillar and threw themselves over the gate into the unknown road.