In Bootle’s aged shopping centre, billboards promise “there’s something changing at the Strand” but the place feels haunted by the past. The butcher’s shop where two-year-old James Bulger was abducted is long gone, as is the Mothercare where dozens of anxious parents bought 60s-style reins in the days after he was taken.
On the lower level, where CCTV cameras captured that haunting image of James being led away by one of his killers, a giant black poster celebrates 50 years of the Strand. It has been here since 2018. Even the big clock at the bus station next door is stuck in the past.
