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Tom Slemen's Books

M

Melf

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Nov 6, 2002
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has anyone read his books or heard him on radio city in liverpool (the building is shaped like a 50s ufo on a concrete pole)?

if so how come the contributions havent been included in "national ghost books"?


(waiting for fortean lexi-cross with "sleman computer messages" posts) :D
 
Shouldn't that be Slemen with an 'e'? (not 100% sure).

Nah not read anything by him but i'm led to believe he has a devoted following.

Good to see the word Slemen on my screen again. Reassuring.

'tis all a symptom of the Lizards infiltrating our technology...
 
Having been a student in liverpool I've come across and purchased several of them too :)

he certinly dose write a good yarn, much better than peater underwood whose accounts tend to be along the lines of: "there's a ghost monk that haunts priory X it pops up from time to time and scares old lady. in the 1960's bones were found under the flagstones of a celer. they must be the ghost's and the ghosts reason for haunting". I've posted a sleman story up in the ghosts section (the chatroom ghost) and been careful to reference it corectly as it's copywrited as he has 'enhanced' some of the witness statements, that would be my guess as to why the storys don't crop up more regully.
 
Tom Slemen

Tom Slemen writes like the wind on fire and I greatly enjoy his stories. He has also been generous enough to make a great number of his tales available free online.

But there yet remain some caveats for anybody relying on Slemen's writings for serious Fortean research.

For just one example, in Slemen's re-telling of the story of the mid- 1930s "suicide song" "Gloomy Sunday" he transposes the location of the song's composition from Budapest to Paris, for no good reason I can discover. That is simply misleading.

And he sometimes takes an urban legend and re-writes it as a "news" story.

For example, he writes of "Soap Sally," an old Liverpool hag who abducted and then murdered young women, using the fats from their bodies to manufacture soap. When I first read Slemen's account I assumed that this had indeed been a genuine Liverpool murder case. But upon attempting to track down additional details I soon discovered that the "Soap Sally" story (under exactly the same name) is an urban legend known for generations in the American South.

P. S. I still enjoy reading Slemen's stuff.
 
We did have a thread on here about the name Slemen mysteriously appearing on computer screens, but the thread, like a ghost, seems to have vanished.

One detail that stuck in my mind was that a Richard Sleman from Cornwall was a passenger on the Titanic. But in quickly trying to verify this I was surprised how many Google hits were no longer available. And I found RS on one passenger list, but not on another!

Just to bring this full circle, Tom Slemen has also written a story based on the Titanic sinking.
 
he writes a regular column in the merseymart/liverpool star whatever its called free paper, and does indeed recycle the odd story to set it in liverpool or the surrounding areas.
 
Tom Slemen

Tom Slemen is not a paranormal researcher, paranormal expert or a medium. He is a writer out to make a quick book by re-hashing earlier published stories, giving any old crank page-space, and if its a slow day, making them up.

His first book 'Haunted Liverpool'; re-hashes stories written by Richard Wittington-Egan in the 1960's.

His stories tend to be of the 'An old fella from down the road told me this story, he was called Simon and was walking home from a local pub one night...' variety.

One of the things that really erks me is that in his book he mentions that there could be vampires in the Williamson Tunnels... so you always get people asking about them. There has never been any documented case of vampiric activity in the tunnels... ever.... ever....
 
Re: Tom Slemen

rjmrjmrjm said:
Tom Slemen is not a paranormal researcher, paranormal expert or a medium. He is a writer out to make a quick book by re-hashing earlier published stories, giving any old crank page-space, and if its a slow day, making them up.

His first book 'Haunted Liverpool'; re-hashes stories written by Richard Wittington-Egan in the 1960's.

His stories tend to be of the 'An old fella from down the road told me this story, he was called Simon and was walking home from a local pub one night...' variety.

One of the things that really erks me is that in his book he mentions that there could be vampires in the Williamson Tunnels... so you always get people asking about them. There has never been any documented case of vampiric activity in the tunnels... ever.... ever....
Click to expand...

From my experiance, I belive you.

Will not say nothing about it though.
 
Sock Puppet Warning: When slated in the past, Slyman has posted on here, using a stinky and see-through sock-puppet.

Since his stuff is clearly indefensible tripe, he simply attacks critics ad hominem, saying he has heard of Slyman but not of the poster.

I thought he must have an angry and devoted fan till I saw him try the same technique on the Ripper Casebook Site, where it was laughed out of court.

The posts in question were not on the Ripper thread but page one of the Spring Heeled Jack thread. :rofl:
 
I thought he must have an angry and devoted fan till I saw him try the same technique on the Ripper Casebook Site, where it was laughed out of court.
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Suprising he actually carried out something he said. :shock:
 
I suppose the biggest pile of garbage he's come out with isn't a ghost story but a conspiracy theory.

I don't want to mention it here in case some people actually believe it and perpetuate it.

Here it is in Toms own words: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Thea ... night.html

Later, in the local paper he scribbles for, he published the same story except he removed the ghost references and treated it to a bit of the old Dan Brown Magic (c) and peddled it as conspiracy fodder.

The uproar caused was so great that even the retired clerk of works for the original excavation wrote in to dispute dear old Tom.
 
On the casebook forum, someone asked why he took a ghost story from hull and changed the details and set it in Liverpool. All he said was I never. :lol:

This Cavern Devil one was funny. My dad was a bouncer for the original one and thought he was talking crap. :lol:

Tom only said that well Billy Butler has heard of it. Strangley only Tom has mentioned it and no one else.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Film ... devil.html
 
Suburban Spaceman

Regarding the "Suburban Spaceman," after a fairly diligent Google search I am unable to locate ANY UFO or other paranormal encounter for February 22, 1977.

The only story I've been able to find of even passably Fortean interest for that date is that the "Bohunice nuclear power plant in Slovakia....suffered a major accident during refuelling."
 
Cavern Club Devil

Thanks, Max. I'd been tempted to take the "Cavern Devil" story at least half-seriously due to all the (seemingly) evidential detail. I had the tale filed away with a question mark.
 
No problem. :yeay:

My dads in his 60's now but he was a bouncer on the original cavern and he and my mum who have been in the Original cavern have not heard of this. Slemen thinks Billy Butler a BBC radio DJ has though but I think he was too young at the time of the original Cavern not sure.
 
Max, a lot of ghost and paranormal stories of this sort dissolve as soon as a single serious look is taken at them. For just one example, there's an on-line report (Shadowlands.Com) that MY OWN Northern Kentucky high school is haunted by the ghost of a football player accidentally killed in a game in 1951.

Now there is no doubt that this young man actually existed and that he died tragically in the above manner. I passed his wood-and-glass memorial display case several times every day throughout my high school years.

But GHOST? I never heard the slightest whisper, nor did my younger brother nine years later.

Moreover, the ghost is suposed to be especially noticeable in the Band Music room. But none of the ex-bandspeople I've spoken with have ever heard of the ghost either.
 
The 'Kirkby Spaceman'

For a guy who passes himself off as the fountain of all knowledge on these things I was suprised to find out that Tom claims to knows nothing about the many many sightings of the 'Kirkby Spaceman' from the 1970's.

In truth the sightings were pretty well covered by the local papers as I recall at the time.


Also the thing is about Tom is , nice guy that he seems to be, when you actually press him about details of his cases, he starts to get very vauge ! His Liverpool Strategic Reserve of trains story , is so full of holes that's it's a bit laughable. Anyone with even some primary knowledge about such things will tell you that.
 
Re: The 'Kirkby Spaceman'

signalnorth said:
For a guy who passes himself off as the fountain of all knowledge on these things I was suprised to find out that Tom claims to knows nothing about the many many sightings of the 'Kirkby Spaceman' from the 1970's.

In truth the sightings were pretty well covered by the local papers as I recall at the time.


Also the thing is about Tom is , nice guy that he seems to be, when you actually press him about details of his cases, he starts to get very vauge ! His Liverpool Strategic Reserve of trains story , is so full of holes that's it's a bit laughable. Anyone with even some primary knowledge about such things will tell you that.
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Have you spoke to him as well?
 
for those who have a low opinion of the mentioned author (fortunaly, i havent read his work), but surely nothing can be as bad as the ghost stations series by bruce barrymore halpenny, after an hour reading these, i have to ask the question "did he ever go to school"?

IMHO of course :)
 
I noticed the other day that I book I have called Strange But True is actually by Mr Slemen. He's right about the 'strange' part.
 
Re: The 'Kirkby Spaceman'

MaxMolyneux said:
signalnorth said:
For a guy who passes himself off as the fountain of all knowledge on these things I was suprised to find out that Tom claims to knows nothing about the many many sightings of the 'Kirkby Spaceman' from the 1970's.

In truth the sightings were pretty well covered by the local papers as I recall at the time.


Also the thing is about Tom is , nice guy that he seems to be, when you actually press him about details of his cases, he starts to get very vauge ! His Liverpool Strategic Reserve of trains story , is so full of holes that's it's a bit laughable. Anyone with even some primary knowledge about such things will tell you that.
Click to expand...

Only by email

Have you spoke to him as well?
Click to expand...
 
"Novelty" Writer

A British correspondent on the "Unexplained Mysteries" list informs me that in Liverpool Tom Slemen is known as a "novelty" writer, not to be taken seriously.

I still enjoy the heck out of reading his stuff, but that's becoming more and more a guilty pleasure.
 
I have a feeling that somehow I might be guilty of creating one of the stories about a vampire in Liverpool :oops: . In the 70's I was at Liverpool university at the top of Brownlow Hill. My old school friends and I would write letters to each other (no mobile phones in those days) as we were scattered around the country at various colleges, uni.s, etc. We would write themed letters to each other and one of the themes was vampires. I wrote about one living in the basements off Brownlow Hill, coming out at night to go to the pub, going to discos and hanging around the univsersity buildings searching hopelessly for a garlic free victim. I would write these letters whilst in the students union and other friends would chip in and add bits and we would laugh about the various details each other would put in. We all got heavily in to the vampire idea and one guy would dress up in a dinner suit, cape and top hat and wander around the campus area. It all seems a bit daft now but some of the stories coming from around this time seem all too familiar!
 
Yet his Vampire stories are set in Toxteth and strange grave robbing ones in St James Cemetry? :?
 
St James is but a stagger from the Phil and Toxteth was full of student flats in the 70's. Slemen also bases one of his stories (about a ghost/vampire/ghoul?) in a basement off Brownlow Hill, not to mention the Hauntings around Rodney Street. Most of us walked from the halls of residence, through Sefton Park to the university buildings and later got digs in the old houses around the area.
 
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