Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral: The Hoylake Vampiress

THE dwelling on Hoylake's Trinity Road was initially regarded as a dream home by Jenny, a 39-year-old widow from Birkenhead, but days after moving into the red-brick five-bedroom house, Jenny and her ten-year-old daughter Katy found themselves living in a terrifying nightmare home.

Mother and daughter moved into the house in late November 1985.

On the first day at their new abode, a terrific thunderstorm raged over northern Wirral and lightning struck the house on Trinity Road, burning out the burglar alarm.

That night, Jenny was reading a bedtime story to her daughter Katy when the lights went out.

Katy was terrified of the dark and clung to her mother as she went downstairs to tackle the fuse box, which was housed in a cupboard under the stairs.

Jenny rewired the fuse by candlelight and then the lights came back on, but then as she and Katy went back upstairs, they heard thuds which seemed to be coming from the attic; it sounded as if someone was walking about up there.

'Is it a ghost?' Katy asked her mother, and Jenny put on a brave smile and said it was just the wind rattling the window.

Katy was that scared, she slept in her mum’s bed that night, and Jenny hardly got a wink of sleep because her daughter kept clinging to her every time she heard the November gales howling outside.

On the following day, Jenny and Katy went shopping in Birkenhead, and Jenny let her daughter choose the wallpaper that was going to decorate the living room.

When the two of them returned, an old neighbour called and introduced herself and Jenny brought her in the kitchen. They chatted over coffee and biscuits. 

The old woman asked a strange question that set alarm bells off in Jenny’s mind: 'Have you seen or heard anything odd in here?'

'How do you mean?' Jenny asked, yet she sensed the question was about some supernatural history of the house.

'Well, this place used to have a reputation, going back years like,' said the neighbour, and she paused, then added: 'supposed to have a ghostie like.'

As Katy was in her room upstairs out of earshot, Jenny nodded and told the old lady: 'We heard noises in the attic – or is it a loft? I always confuse the two.

'It was probably the wind, but Katy and I are used to living in a flat. It’s strange having so many rooms."

'It's probably all hearsay – the ghost – people exaggerate;' said the neighbour, smiling and she took one sip of coffee then stammered: 'it was in the early 1970s when the story went round.

'There was a big family living here then and they all moved out, and everyone said they’d done a moonlight flit, but then we heard that they’d moved out because they’d seen a nun.'

'A nun?' queried Jenny with a lopsided smirk. 'She'd haunt a convent wouldn’t she, not an everyday house like this.'

The neighbour raised her eyebrows and replied: 'Anyway, Jenny, I apologise for bringing all this silly stuff up; ghosts are a load of rubbish as far as I’m concerned. I’m 77 now –'

'Oh you don’t look it,' Jenny complimented her, and the neighbour continued, ‘but I am, and in all my years I’ve never seen anything remotely supernatural. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, that’s my belief.’

‘I do think something of us lives on,’ said Jenny, and she looked so sad when she said those words. ‘I like to believe my husband is somewhere in the hereafter.’

‘I’m sorry, Jenny,’ said the neighbour, sympathetically, placing her hand over Jenny’s hand on the kitchen table, ‘I just keep putting my foot in my mouth today.’

‘No, its okay, you’re entitled to your own opinion,’ said Jenny, smiling, but her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

That night at 9:30pm, Jenny was in the living room, sitting on the sofa watching the TV when she heard Katy cry out ‘Mum!’ upstairs.

She ran upstairs to see what the matter was. Katy said she had just been awakened by a woman leaning over her, and when she had cried out for her mother the thing had vanished.

The girl said something that unnerved Jenny; she said in the brief moment she had seen the ghost, she had looked like a nun; she’d had on a long black robe with some white parts to it, and the girl thought the visitant had worn a hood.

'You've had a nightmare, love' said Jenny, stroking her daughter's head, 'we did eat an awful lot of pizza earlier, and it’s well known that any cheese – especially mozzarella – can cause nightmares.'

'Mum can I come downstairs for a bit?' Katy asked, 'I won’t be able to get back to sleep for ages now.'

'Yeah okay, come on love,' Jenny replied, and they left the bedroom – and for a moment – Jenny saw a brief glimpse of a figure on the flight of stairs leading to the attic – but the apparition had been indistinct, and Katy hadn’t noticed it.

Jenny put the figure down to stress and imagination. She went down to the kitchen with Katy, grabbed bags of crisps and cans of Coke, then sat in front of the telly.

Jenny tried to watch a film with her daughter but kept thinking of how she had described seeing a nun, and how the neighbour had mentioned the ghost of a nun haunting the house.

At half-past midnight, a very sleepy Katy slept with her mum, and Jenny left the bedside lamp on because her daughter was so afraid of the dark, especially since that incident earlier.

Jenny dozed off around one that morning, and at 2:20am she awoke to see Katy fast asleep.

Then Jenny felt the breath of something on her neck; someone was behind her, leaning over the bed; Jenny was sure of this – it was not her imagination. She slowly turned her head, and already out the corner of her eye she could detect someone leaning over the left side of the bed.

Jenny knew if she screamed she’d wake up Katy, so she bravely faced the thing; it was something wearing the outfit of a nun, only the face was pale and colourless with faintly luminous glowing eyes, and Jenny could see the teeth of the apparition were pointed; she felt the thing was some vampire.

It hissed at Jenny and moved in closer, and Jenny found herself unable to move, as if the thing had somehow paralysed her.

Then, in a flash, a pair of hands shot out from behind the 'nun' and started to throttle her and shake her violently, and Jenny saw it was her late husband.

The vampiric being seemed to vanish into a dark vapour, and Jenny’s husband winked at her before vanishing.

Katy was awakened by her mother sobbing.

Jenny told her daughter she’d had a bad dream, and as Katy dabbed her mum’s eyes with a tissue, Jenny hugged the girl.

She now knew there was a life after this, and her husband had returned to protect her and his little girl from whatever that thing was. The nun was never seen again at the house on Trinity Road.

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