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Dalby's cafe - found and lost


MRROCKET1

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Back in the day, during my 4th & 5th years at Langley Park School For Boys in Beckenham, Kent, a huge kind of obsessive fixation developed around a physics teacher, the late Mr Edward Dalby - a large bodied but mild mannered man, whose appearance bore quite a close resemblance to the actor Bryan Moseley, who played Alf Roberts in 'Coronation Street'.

Throughout those two years myself and group of like minded individuals held a relentless preoccupation with Dalby graffiti, cartoons, jokes, slogans, songs adapted from records from the time, and the like. On one occasion I was watching 'It Shouldn't Happen To A Vet' when a character was addressed as "Mrs Dalby", not quite believing my ears I immediately scanned the programme listing in the 'Radio Times' and then franticaly telephoned another Dalby 'enthusiast' saying "Quick watch 'I.S.H.T.A.V' - there's a character in it called Mrs Dalby!" Well, you get the picture, schooldays are meant to be the best years of your life, well the Dalby days were certainly some of the best of mine.

Quite recently, on having just exited The Record And Tape Exchange in Berwick Street in Central London, I noticed diagonally opposite what appeared a newly opened, old style cafe, door in the middle with net curtained windows on either side, with an eye catching bright red painted frontage and in blue letters a sign which read 'DALBY'S CAFE'.

This of course instantly brought back a wave of nostalgic memories from the old Langley days as all manner of Dalby connected joviality and amusements etc ran through my mind,

I paused on this for a couple of minutes thinking amongst other things how much of a conversation piece it would have been had it been open back in those days, and then went on my way not giving the matter any further thought.

However, on I returning to Berwick Street, a week or two later, I found much to my surprise and bemusement, that inexplicably, Dalby's Cafe was no longer there !

Naturally being somewhat dumbstruck by this I decided to try and follow the matter up.

I made enquires in the two shops - one of which the cafe was standing in place of, these being The Berwick Street Cloth Shop and the one to it's right (I can't remember exactly which of these it was, though probably the Cloth Shop) explaining to them what had happened and asked to whether their frontages had made up in this way as a film set, this being the only plausible explanation I could think of, but this was denied by all the people I spoke to.

None of the stall holders I asked in that part of Berwick St had any knowledge of a cafe by that name, there is no mention of a Dalby's Cafe in recent editions of the Yellow Pages, and most intriguing of all, Westminster City Council have no record of having having issued a catering licence to, or having a business by that name on any of their registers.

Although there is a 'Dalby's Cafe' in Margate, I contacted them with this account and they confirmed that they had no other 'branches' in the London area and had never heard of another cafe by the same name.

The only thing that was a little odd about the place was that despite its new looking appearance, I remember sensing that it did seem to have a subtle kind of 'deadness' about it, a kind of unused feel, similair to how it would be if it were closed (which of course it may well have been and there's nothing out of the ordinary about that); but other than that it was by no means in any way 'other worldly'.

I would like to point out that I was not drunk, under the influence of any kind of drug or in any way mentally fatigued at the time of this experience.

This does bear some resemblance to an experience that happened to a group of holiday makers from Dover traveling to Spain through France back in 1979. They had stayed the night at a curiously old fashioned hotel just outside of Montilemar had had been charged an outstandingly low bill for their visit. As they had liked the hotel and it's unbeatable bargain cost they decided to book in again on their return journey, only to find that the hotel had completely disappeared. A detailed account of this can be found on page 413 of the 'Metaphysics, Psychology and Psychic Phenomena' section of this site - entitled '20th century guests stay in 19th century hotel'.

So far the whole thing remains a complete and utter mystery and not surprisingly, noone I have spoken to about this has been able to shine any light on the matter.

If only I had troubled myself to take a look through the door window or maybe paid a quick visit to sample it's menu, I wonder exactly what I would have found ?

STEVEN HARMAN. 2010.

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Hmm. It could be one of those "time slip" incidents, though I have no explaination for why people have these experiences.

Maybe there was no sound in the cafe?

http://paranormal.about.com/od/timeanddimensiontravel/Time_and_Dimension_Travel.htm

There wasn't any sound from the cafe, or at least none that I could hear from where I was standing, but in what way does that account for or give any clues towards the reason for it's disappearance ?

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  • 3 months later...

Great story MRROCKET1 and welcome to UM.

Have you tried doing some historical digging around to see if a "Dalby's Cafe" was there at some time before?

How long did the other shop-keepers say their shops had been there?

I have read several stories about "Phantom" places. I love stories like these.

Would you mind digging up a few links for those? I'm really interested. Thanks in advance :tu:

Edited by Antimony
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Maybe just got shut down, usually happens

This is exactly what I was thinking when I started reading this. There is a store in the plaza beside my house that is constantly changing. It's been a nail salon, a scuba diving shop, a foreign food store.. all kinds of random things and it would close down and reopen as something else fast enough for no one to even realize what was going on.

However, MRROCKET1, you mentioned that no one in the surrounding area even realized this change occurring, or even remember the cafe's existence. That makes this a truly peculiar incident :blink:!

That was a great story and I'm glad you took the time to post it all. If you ever find anything else about it, please post your findings :).

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Funnyily enough there is a Dalby Cafe but it its called Dalby Cafe Ltd in Margate

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I know there is a DALBY CAFE in Margate , named after the road it is situated in, because I have mentioned in the text that I had contacted them on this issue and told them all about it. The photographs on line of this do not match the one that I saw in Berwick Street.

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Maybe u had some kind of special "eye" to allow u to see wat others couldn't?A little like the third eye.

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  • 3 years later...

Maybe u had some kind of special "eye" to allow u to see wat others couldn't?A little like the third eye.

If I had a Third Eye or whatever - which would be fine with me - then wouldn't experiences such as this be a regular occurence, which they're not ? I have drawn the conclusion that this instance may have been an example of some kind of illusionary phenomena, but I'm not certain exactly what it was.

Many moons ago when I was 16 I was told of an account of a group of girls who would 've been 14/15 at the time, were swimming in the sea down at Brighton or Hastings or wherever, when one looked round at one of the others who had the appearence a kind of Devil's face, she started having hysterics or whatever and this other girl was all upset over it and started crying etc.

As it's impossible as far as I know, for anyones face to turn into that of The Devil and for them to be unaware of it having done so, there's no way that the Devil's face could have been real; this does bear some quite close resemblence to the cafe as something appearing to be there when it wasn't.

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Do the City Council keep track of business name changes? I mean could there have been a different cafe on the site at one time which was later changed to Dalby Cafe?

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Or...maybe you're fated to open a Dalby's Cafe in the future.

Sir

Well I've no plans to open a cafe and I wouldn't call doing so a fate as such, but if I did, considering the prominence, exclusiveness and resonance of this issue, no prizes for guessing what the name would be.

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  • 8 years later...
On 6/14/2010 at 4:11 AM, Sarka said:

This is exactly what I was thinking when I started reading this. There is a store in the plaza beside my house that is constantly changing. It's been a nail salon, a scuba diving shop, a foreign food store.. all kinds of random things and it would close down and reopen as something else fast enough for no one to even realize what was going on.

However, MRROCKET1, you mentioned that no one in the surrounding area even realized this change occurring, or even remember the cafe's existence. That makes this a truly peculiar incident :blink:!

That was a great story and I'm glad you took the time to post it all. If you ever find anything else about it, please post your findings :).

I didn't say that the change was occurring as I was looking at it I said the change had occurred when I returned to the street and that none of the stall holders in the immediate vicinity I approached had any knowledge of a cafe by that name at the addresses I referred them to. My position on the matter is that it was probably caused by some kind of illusionary phenomena, but I've no idea exactly what that could be.   

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On 2/26/2010 at 9:29 AM, Mr.United_Nations said:

Maybe just got shut down, usually happens

The address that the cafe stood in place of was either  that of The Soho Cloth Shop which opened in 1986 or a recording studio which I didn't mention in the text and the name of which I've forgotten, that opened in 1980, this I confirmed in the Kelly's Street Directories. The point of the issue is that it couldn't of existed simultaneously at the same address as either of those two.  

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Just now, MRROCKET1 said:

The address that the cafe stood in place of was either  that of The Berwick Street

1 minute ago, MRROCKET1 said:

The address that the cafe stood in place of was either that of The Berwick Street Cloth Shop which opened in 1986 or a recording studio which I didn't mention in the text and the name of which I've forgotten, that opened in 1980, this I confirmed in the Kelly's Street Directories. The point of the issue is that it couldn't of existed simultaneously at the same address as either of those two.  

 

 

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Is there evidence and provanance to support this is more than a story.?

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Near where I live in southern Sweden, there is a village called Dalby. There is an inn there, Dalby Gästgivaregård, where I've eaten a few times, and I also was on a workshop there once with my job. They used to pretty wellknown around here for having good food. Since then, I think they shut down, and opened again with new owners so I'm not quite sure how they are nowadays.

In Scandinavian, "dal" means "valley", and "by" means "village" (Swedish) or "town"/"city" (Danish and Norwegian), so Dalby would mean "the village/town in the valley". Since Danish vikings used to rule over England, I guess there might be some Dalby in England too with the same origin of the name.

Edited by fred_mc
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On 2/19/2022 at 12:04 PM, stereologist said:

I love it how the mind plays tricks on us and an odd thought gets stuck in there even when it is not real.

I was just told in another thread the mind doesnt play tricks but it of course does faulty memory is just one of countless tricks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

On 2/20/2022 at 9:13 AM, fred_mc said:

 

In Scandinavian, "dal" means "valley", and "by" means "vill1age" (Swedish) or "town"/"city" (Danish and Norwegian), so Dalby would mean "the village/town in the valley". Since Danish vikings used to rule over England, I guess there might be some Dalby in England too with the same origin of the name.

The Angles were part of the Vendel cultural horizon and had close ties to Sweden before they merged with the Saxons. 

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On 2/16/2022 at 12:24 PM, MRROCKET1 said:

I didn't say that the change was occurring as I was looking at it I said the change had occurred when I returned to the street and that none of the stall holders in the immediate vicinity I approached had any knowledge of a cafe by that name at the addresses I referred them to. My position on the matter is that it was probably caused by some kind of illusionary phenomena, but I've no idea exactly what that could be.   

Good timing for this thread's resurrection as I just saw a long interview about experiencing multiple time-lines, time slips and the so-called Mandela Effect where people say their certain memories contradict the current state of things.

Even though my normal thinking mind does not like this as it is concepts it is not trained to work with, I have to say by now I am quite certain these things do involve elements that are not part of our straightforward understanding of reality.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I had to make an acct when I saw this. In 2000 a friend and I decided to travel to each state on the East Coast. As we were driving through Georgia we were near a small town called Dewy Rose. Up ahead to the left I saw the most beautiful farm house. Something drew me to it so I pulled in the driveway. I saw that the driveway was over grown with weeds so I figured nobody lived there. It had a big porch that wrapped around the right side of the house. When I walked up to the porch I was looking in the windows. Everything was so nice inside and very old. My friend and I each took our own cars and I didn't want to fall to far behind so I made a mental note to take some pics on our way back. Fast forward to a month later we were traveling through Dewy Rose again but when I got to where the house was there was no house, not even a sign of the house. The area where the house was over grown with grass and weeds. I'm 100% that I had seen a house and this is where it was. To this day I still think about it and wonder what the heck happened to me.

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  • 1 month later...

I think it's likely best that you didn't enter the place, as this has the feeling of a "bait location" to me, similar to some things I've experienced and also read about elsewhere.  You were interested in that whole Darby topic, and this cafe, seeming "dead" in some fashion, appeared, and was later not there.  It's as if someone/something created the illusion for you, to draw you in.  Be cautious about such things.

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