Ghost In The Machine
Justified & Ancient
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A Stationary Moment in Time
Location: Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
Date: 1973
Type: Type 4: A sharp realistic image, in which the witness is completely integrated; they can communicate with people around them, handle objects, and even purchase things.
Persons Involved: An individual only referred to as “Mr Squirrel”.
Number of Persons Involved: 1
Interactions:
Source of Testimony: Appears in "The Directory of Possibilities," edited by Colin Wilson and John Grant (published 1981) but is referencing an account from “The Mask of Time” by Joan Forman (published by Macdonald and Jane's - 1979).
- Visual – Change in Environmental Appearance and/or attire of persons in the vicinity.
- Social – Speaking with another individual who vocally acknowledges or responds to subject's vocal comment.
- Physical – Interacting with Objects or Environment.
- Physical – Physically interacting with another person or persons.
- Auditory – Hearing a sudden change in the level of background noise in the area.
Description: This much re-relayed story is of an account given by a ‘Mr Squirrel’, who at some point in 1973 walked into a Stationers located somewhere in the Norfolk coastal town of Great Yarmouth, looking for some envelopes.
He was served by a woman who appeared to be in Edwardian dress and bought three dozen envelopes. The bill came to One Shilling.
Recalling the event Mr Squirrel attested that he had noticed that the building was extremely silent. There was no obvious traffic noise from outside.
He revisited the shop again, approximately 3 weeks later. But on doing so he was surprised to find the shop completely changed and modernised. The assistant, an elderly lady, denied that there had been any other assistant in the shop in previous weeks.
The previously purchased envelopes apparently “disintegrated very quickly”.
Joan Forman claimed to have interviewed Mr Squirrel after hearing about the case, during which occasion he was able to produce one of the remaining envelopes to show her. Forman claimed to have written to the manufacturers, who had informed him that such envelopes had ceased to be manufactured by them some 15 years before.
Notes:
You will find various retellings of this story in several places online – all of which seem to refer to Joan Forman’s testimony, but a different distances and via several difference go-between sources.
Mr Squirrel’s first name has never been revealed.
It is uncertain how Mr Squirrel would have paid ‘One Shilling’ two years after Britain’s decimalisation of currency. Nor is it mentioned whether his modern currency was either accepted or questioned by the shop assistant.
No details are provided over the interior of the shop. Was this simply a woman appearing to be in Edwardian dress or had the interior of the shop also changed in some fashion?
We do not know the name of the stationers or where it may have been located within Great Yarmouth.
Some references online mention the type of envelope Mr Squirrel as not only being discontinued at some point in 1968, but that they had ‘been first made around 1920’. I am unable to verify that, as I do not own the book to confirm if that was mentioned in The Mask of Time.
It also entirely possible that Mr Squirrel was simply sold some very old envelopes. Although that doesn't entirely account for the shop assistant or her attire.
Just to add to the credibility of that one...
I was at primary school when decimilisation happened and am pretty sure (older folk here might be more certain?) that some older people at that time would still call 5p a shilling or a bob a good few years afterwards. Not sure when the actual shilling was phased out, but think that whilst some coins were instantly obsolete after decimilisation, something with a direct equivalent like 5p= 1-/ would have remained in circulation and when not - they were still interchangeably called by their old names. So, for example, a thrupenny bit went out instantly but you still saw old shillings used as 5ps for ages? I was very young and might be misremembering. But so far as I recall, even a couple of years after decimilisation, a 5p looked like or even was, an old shilling, and people still sometimes called them that..?