BOB Dylan was renowned for singing, “Everyone must get stoned!” way back in the sixties, but an Abergavenny man has made the unusual claim that the musical maestro took him on a journey into another dimension after he bumped into him in a New York alleyway.

“At first we thought he was like a tramp or something,” explained semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip.

“There was this frizzy-haired guy in a shabby suit that had seen better days, standing next to this ridiculously tall guy in a weird hat. They were both crowded around one of those trashcan fires you used to see in the Rocky films, and the little one was tunelessly blowing up a storm on the harmonica while the tall one began reciting some sort of poem.

“It was quite a weird poem but I remember him saying in a peculiar voice that sounded American but at the same time biblical, ‘The giants who formed this world into its sensual existence and now seem to live in its chains are in truth the causes of its life and the sources of all activity, but the chains are the cunning of weak and tame minds, which have the power to resist energy.’

“When the big guy had finished the little dude stopped playing the blues harp and said, ‘Amen bother Abe, Amen.’ And then they both turned to us as the little one grinned and said, ‘I sing the songs of experience like William Blake. I have no apologies to make.’

"He then invited us to warm our bones by the fire and sing a song.

“Just as Puerto Rico Paul was about to break out into a rendition of Duran Duran's ‘New Moon on Monday’ I silenced him with a look, and said, ‘We’re looking for Bob Dylan. Any ideas where we might find him?’”

Turnip explained, “What happened next was really freaky. At first, I thought it was the flickering of the flames and the darkness of the shadows playing tricks on me, but the little guy’s face and clothes began changing. One minute he was an old geezer in a shabby suit who liked like he smelt of urine and tobacco, the next minute he was a young fella in a cowboy hat and leather jacket. And the next he was even younger and dressed like some sort of beatnik. It was bizarre because his face kept ageing and de-ageing like a social media influencer let loose in a palace of Botox.

“After a minute or two of this, he looked at us with these piercing blue eyes that resembled glass marbles and said, ‘Got nothing for you, I had nothing before. Don’t even have anything for myself anymore.’

“‘Fair enough!’ I replied. ‘But that doesn’t really answer the question?’

“‘I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to ask me that?’ Said the little fella as his hair suddenly grew out and he became visibly younger, paler, and a lot more wired.

“A cigarette also suddenly appeared in his hand, and in between deep and frantic puffs, he cast his eyes downward and muttered, ‘All I can do is be me, whoever that is!’

“‘I loved ’Street Legal’ by the way!’ Piped up Puerto Rico Paul suddenly.

"‘Is it true you’re a sorcerer who trained at the foot of John Dee’ Paul quickly gushed like the excitable fanboy he can sometimes be.

“As the tramp fella once again grew older before our eyes and was suddenly wearing a long black coat, he smiled in that disarming way of his and said, ‘I been to the east and I been to the west and I been out where the black winds roar.’”

Turnip told the Chronicle, “Probably sensing we were becoming a bit impatient and frustrated by the tramp fella’s cryptic way of talking, his tall friend gently said, ‘Easy Robert these pilgrims mean no harm. The fates tell me they’re here to find the pot of fabled fairy gold and heal the world, but I could be wrong. They may just want your autograph, or worse, a selfie for social media!’

“Keen to stress we were Gen X, not Z, and possessed a little more dignity, I said, ‘You’re wrong about the selfie but right about the gold and the saving the world part. And if you are Bob Dylan, then I was told by the ghost of Dylan Thomas you’re a secret sorcerer who can help us on our mission.’

“Upon hearing the name of the dead Swansea poet, the tramp who as it turned out was actually Bob Dylan squinted at us like a cornered animal who had spent too long in a hole and said, ‘You spoke to the other Dylan? How is the old fruit?’

“‘He’s dead!’ I replied.

‘Still likes a drink mind!’ Roared Big Tony who had always harboured a profound respect for another man’s alcohol problem.

“‘So the old lush sent you in my direction?’ Said Dylan.

“'That’s about the long and short of it!” I said.

“‘There’s no direction home!’ He warned.

“‘There is with GPS’ Smirked Paul who was greeted with a scowl from Dylan, who added gravely, ‘What do you boys know about the darkness at the break of noon, the crossroads where deals go down, and the lands of no return?’

“‘Plenty!’ I barked, deciding to call his bluff and brass it out.

“After smiling to himself, shaking his head and saying ‘Oh man!’ over and over again, Dylan, who was suddenly wearing shades and a garish polka dot shirt turned to the the tall guy who was stroking his chin thoughtfully, and said, ‘What do you reckon Prez? This guy ready to take the trip and hear the news?’

“‘Is anyone ever really ready Robert? Look back to when Maestro Dee first took you to the far-flung lands. You cannot know the unknowable or prepare for the impossible!”

“‘True! True!’ You speak the wisdom of a founding father. But if this guy seeks to find the pot he’s gotta pay his dues, and that means a rapid initiation into the bright light and the deeper night!”

Turnip explained, at this point, it was getting all a bit dungeons and dragons for my liking and so I just interrupted their Lord of the Rings cringe fest and said, ‘Look boys. If you point me in the direction of the gold, or have a map or something we’ll be on our way because all this talk about deeper shades of night is getting a bit embarrassing.’”

Turnip said, “The next minute, Dylan turned to me and pointed before saying, ‘It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there!’ And clicked his fingers.

“The next minute there was a ripping noise like silk being torn and I fell from a sky full of rainbows into a sea of emerald green swarming with mermaids.

"The last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was Puerto Rico Paul screaming, ‘What the hell have you done with JT?’ While Dylan just laughed like a madman and sang, ‘Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine.’”

The Manifest Trials And Tribulations Of Johnny Turnip is now available on Amazon.