Interesting. Though possibly not for all of the right reasons.
(As a side note I don't think that I would ever choose to describe Bold Street as 'Posh'.)
I find it a little frustrating that the writer has provided no sources for the majority of the experiences he is describing here. Even the story which was relaid to him has no individual attached to it by name. It's still an anonymous tale.
There are obvious quirks in this for British readers (the fashion in which High Street stores are referred to as if they were tiny curious independent retailers) but what I find of most interest is that once again we return to our old friend
'Frank's' Bold Street tale. Only here several key details differ.
For example Tom Slemen's telling of this story refers to the bookshop in the story as 'Dillons'. Which in this 1996 account would be correct. The Dillons chain was operated by Thorn EMI back in the 90s, who would later acquire the HMV Group, and then the Waterstones chain in 1998. After that point they started to rebrand Dillons stores as Waterstones, but at the time of the original account it would very much have been 'Dillons the Bookseller'.
Tom Slemen describes Frank as "
an off-duty policeman from Melling". The MU piece however states that Frank "... was supposedly an ex-Policeman". This may be a UK-US language divide misinterpreting of 'off-duty' as 'no longer a copper', possibly. Or it may well be that at the point Brent Swancer of Mysterious Universe heard of this account Frank was retired (or had left the Force of other volition) and he has assumed that he was also 'an ex-policeman' at the time of the incident in 1996.
While the Mysterious Universe account does not mention arriving via Central Station, but it does basically start in the same place. Where we differ more specifically is in what follows that. Both state that wife Carol goes to the bookstore. But whereas Tom Slemen tells us that Frank went up to a "
record store in Ranelagh Street to look for a CD " the MU account has Frank bumping into an unnamed acquaintance and then chatting while his wife went over to Dillons.
Here things diverge slightly further. Slemen's account specifically refers to a timescale of 20 mins and Frank returning to Bold Street after walking up "
the incline near the Lyceum". MU do not state a timescale or state that Frank left the vicinity of Bold Street at all. That account simply says that he finished having his conversation with this unnamed acquaintance and appears to still be on Bold Street at that point.
In the MU version Frank's response to the initial experience is that "he had the sudden and odd feeling that he did not recognize where he was". That it was "a very disorientating feeling". The general tone here seems to suggest almost a sense of disorientating bewilderment in Frank, which is not echoed in Slemen's piece. There he is portrayed as somewhat more rational. It's hard to tell of this is dramatic license or different understanding of events.
In Slemen's account the scene is described as "
somehow [entering]
an oasis of quietness". The background volume and ambiance is not really addressed in the MU piece. Nor the calmness Slemen's 'quiet' version implies
A note here: If you are one of those who has previously criticised Tom Slemen for embellishment? May I point out that Slemen's decription of "...
this really unnerved him" seems positively restrained next to the MU's description of "... his growing confusing and creeping sense that something was definitely wrong".
Both pieces describe the people Frank sees in the vicinity as being dressed in clothing from the 1940s or 1950s. But only Slemen's version states that "
He realised that he had somehow walked into the Bold Street of forty-odd years ago". That conclusion is not made in the MU piece.
The 1950s 'Caplan's' van beeping at Frank appears in both accounts. But in MU it is beeping for him to get out of the way. In the Slemen piece it is "
beeping as it narrowly missed him" because Frank is walking down what he knows as a pedestrianised road, where a van was unlikely to be driving unless delivering goods. I do wonder if pedestrianisation is a thing in the US. Maybe that's why it doesn't get a mention here. I'm not in a place to really know.
In Slemen's version Frank crosses the road to find that the bookstore is no longer a bookstore, but a store "
with the name 'Cripps' over its two entrances". In the MU version Frank looks for bookstore but is unable to locate it. The result is Frank becoming confused and he "began wandering around to see if he could get his bearings straight". Again the effect the experience is having on Frank underwrites him as not being 100% with it.
In relation to 'Cripps' Slemen's version says "
He looked in the window of Cripps and saw no books on display, but womens' handbags and shoes." Whereas the MU version "... and in the windows were not books, but rather women's dresses and shoes of a similarly vintage design as the people walking along all around him ..."
Both accounts reference the girl Franks spots in more modern clothing. But only Slemen's version actually describes her appearance in any detail ("
a girl of about twenty, dressed in the clothes of a mid-1990s girl; hipsters and a lime-coloured sleeveless top. The bag she carried had the name Miss Selfridges on it, which really reassured the policeman that he was still somehow partly in 1996.")
The MU piece describes the girl as "... standing at the entrance of the store looking just as confused as he was". At no point is she described as looking confused in the Slemen account, merely that upon seeing something more familiar Frank "
smiled at the girl as she walked past him and entered Cripps".
In the MU account both Frank and the girl enter
together, with "quizzical looks on their faces". Once they cross the threshold Frank sees that inside they are back in Waterstones, and nothing is amiss. The girl looks "... around in shock", and expresses confusion that "it wasn’t the clothing store she thought it would be". This is quite a different tone to the Slemen article.
But in Semen's account Frank
follows the girl into Cripps. As he does the interior in front of him changes "
in a flash to the interior of Dillons Bookshop". The girl is then on her way back out of the store and Frank grabs her by the arm. He asks
"Did you see that then?" and
"the girl calmly said, "Yeah. I thought it was a new shop that had opened. I was going in to look at the clothes, and it's a bookshop"." Note that there is a lack of shock in this account. It notes that she's calm, as she responds. Slemen then notes that "
The girl just laughed, shook her head, and walked out again. Frank said the girl looked back and shook her head in disbelief. " A very different tone. No shock. No concern. Actual laughter at something odd just having happened.
The MU version does not mention that Frank relayed this incident to his wife Carol, or that she hadn't noticed anything strange. It does however follow up that "It would not be until later that Frank would figure out that “Cripps” had been a popular, historical traditional dressmaking shop that had opened in 1848 and closed down in the 1970s, and that the name on the van “Caplan’s,” was also a delivery business that had closed down long ago".
I would genuinely be interested to know what account Mysterious Universe's Brent Swancer was drawing from, as while both accounts broadly describe the same event there are enough differences in the two to raise further questions.
Both Swancer and Sleman are of course telling a story with a specific audience in mind. But are we simply looking at a difference in tone or have they been told slightly different stories.?