Statement copy and pasted from another source: Original post here
Statement originally posted: February 25, 2010
Information on statement giver: MRROCKET1 (username) Steven Harman (name), male
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 ?