A Slip in Time

As a Medium I have encountered some weird and wonderful things and my mind is open to many subjects and unexplained paranormal phenomena. One such fascinating subject is that of time travel. The science fiction tv shows, journeying through time and space to a futuristic, or past life, give us a glimpse of that. A machine that will take us to wherever its programmed to go. But what of the reality of it all. Can we move through time, projecting our body physically to that time frame?

I have pondered on this subject, as many of you probably have too. Manouvers through time physically, sound almost an impossibility unless you have the mode of transport to take you there. But what of time slips, in which a person accidentally finds themself in a place that seems to be totally in a different era. This usually only lasts for a short space of time, before everything returns to normal. How does this happen?, do you simply slip through an unseen door and travel backwards or forwards through time.

If I had doubts before about this subject, I don’t have doubts anymore. I was driving from home into our little town, singing away to the music on the car radio. As I started to drive down the narrow hill, the music started to fade in and out and crackle. The signal isn’t good down that road, and so I thought nothing of it, but turned it down as the crackle was annoying. As I approached the mini roundabout at the bottom of the hill, the radio gave up the ghost.

There are a number of really old buildings just towards the bottom of the hill, on either side, one of which is derelict and in a very sorry state of disrepair. I always feel a sadness towards that building as it dates back to the 1700’s, and I am quite passionate about our old buildings being preserved. On this occasion however, I was quite taken aback, as the building looked quite lived in, and I marvelled that I had only just noticed it. I thought that a heritage group had been taking working on it. It was then that I noticed the building on my right looked different too. There was bay window that I didn’t remember. Then I realised that the bay window belonged to a part of the building that is no longer there. In fact there is a car park there now. As I stared, a movement caught the corner of my eye, and as I turned to look, I could see a big old pub that I recognised, but I knew that it had been demolished at least 20 or so years ago. It was situated at the bottom of the hill, just off the roundabout, across the adjoining street. The movement that had distracted me was a woman crossing the road. She was walking away from the front of the old pub in a diagonal line towards the left hand side of the road at bottom of the hill. She wore a brownish taffeta long full skirt, and a matching jacket that fit snuggly at her waist. Her hair was piled fairly high on her head, but pleated very neatly towards the back. She seemed to have a very small hat perched on one side. She had gloves on, and carried a small handbag. She looked both ways as she crossed, but seemed in no hurry. As I watched, totally fascinated by the scene, the lady disappeared into a building on the left at the bottom of the hill. I moved a little closer to see where she had gone, and could see a shop doorway with two steps going downwards. As I looked inside I could see a counter to my left that seemed to be polished with beeswax or similar. There were many shelves on the walls and lots of boxes. At the far end of the room a man stood with an apron on, and the lady had her back to me. I could see what looked like a butter churn and thought I could smell ice cream, but other than that and a very strong smell of tobacco, I wasn’t aware of anything else. It was then that I realised, I could hear music. It was the first time that I had heard anything, and I thought that odd. In fact when I thought about it, there had been no sound the entire time, and the music I was now hearing was the radio faintly kicking into life again. I heard a whistling sound in my ears, and I knew that I was once more sitting in my car.
It took me a moment to collect my thoughts. I looked down at my hands on the steering wheel, my knuckles were white as they gripped the wheel. The music started to get louder, and I became more aware that traffic around me was moving. The normal everyday sounds started to come back, and I was very much back in the here and now.

I sat in stunned silence until the noise of a car horn behind me brought me back to reality. Driving the rest of the way into town was a little unreal, and I pulled in at the nearest car park to get my head together. I glanced at my watch, only 7 minutes had passed since I arrived at the bottom of the hill and reached the car park, and yet I felt that I had been there for an absolute age.

It was only when I sat and thought about it all that I realised that as well as there being no sound, there was a stillness to everything, that I couldn’t explain. And how had I got from the car to the inside of the shop, it was impossible for me to do that when I hadn’t moved from the car. In fact, the more I thought, the more details I remembered. The shop that the lady had walked into, is not even there anymore, just like the pub across the road. In a hazy sort of way, I could remember seeing a sign hanging from a wall to my left, but couldn’t recall what it said. I was also aware of an awning outside one of the shops, but again, the memory wasn’t clear.

 I was left in no doubt that I had encountered a time slip, and thought of this made me smile.

I was now on a mission, to see what I could find out about the time frame and scene that I had somehow stumbled into. I made a trip to the library and sought out every book of old photographs and local history that I could, and was amazed to find the very scene that I had encountered in a number of different photographs but from varying angles. From the style of dress that the lady wore, it appeared to be in the 1880’s. With that in mind, I started to look at the census returns to see who was there, and at what time frame. The little shop that I had seen the lady go into was at one time a tobacconist, and there was also a tea room. Lodging rooms were above the shops. So who was the lady I had encountered? I am hoping that I will be a visitor again, and this time I will try and make her acquaintance.

There is another thought to throw into the mix of this. Did the lady see me?, was I a ghost in her time?

© Jackie Dennison
Clairvoyant Medium at Feathers Academy & co host of Rescue Mediums TV Show
www.feathersmediums.co.uk