Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral column: A ghostly warning

IN August 1988, Danny and Roger, two men in their 50s who had taken early retirement, ended up living on Barnston Road as neighbours and soon became rivals of sorts.

It was a 'keeping up with the Joneses' type of thing, only instead of competing families it was one-upmanship between two unattached souls.

Danny had been divorced for seven years while Roger was a bachelor who had artfully sidestepped the institution of matrimony.

On this sweltering blue-skied torrid Sunday morning on Barnston Road, the two men emerged from their houses, which faced one another.

The opponents eyed one another like chess pieces awaiting their next move. Danny got behind the wheel of his white Audi Quattro, started the engine and watched Roger from the vehicle. Roger sported his shades as he took command of his blood-orange Lancia Delta Integrale.

This gleaming car, with its ability to vault from naught to sixty-two miles an hour in a scant seven seconds, was a roaring testament to its potency.

When Danny saw his new neighbour blaze a trail of summer dust and smoke down the asphalt of Barnston Road he was gripped by a childish urge to peel rubber and overtake him – an impulse that recalled the carefree days of youth - and that urge possessed every nerve and fibre of Danny’s body and off he went after his neighbour in the Audi Quattro.

Into the heat-shimmering horizon at the vanishing point of Barnston Road, the two cars flashed past the Bassett Hound pub, Roger in the left lane and Danny irresponsibly overtaking him in the right lane, and this road madness only ended two and a half miles later when Roger, sensing there would be a police car waiting at the Brimstage Road junction, pulled over.

Danny overshot him but stopped just in time, because there had indeed been a police car lying in wait close to where Gayton Nursery is now located.

Roger drove off slowly and beeped his horn at Danny, who smiled and waved.

The two men later met up and had a drink at the Fox and Hounds on Barnston Road and both had a heart-to-heart chat about their lives; where they had been and what they were looking for now, and they both jokingly suggested they were looking for a damsel in distress.

It was then that Danny noticed a pretty brunette in her thirties sitting alone in a corner of the pub.

Roger’s eyes followed Danny’s line of sight and upon seeing the young lady he said to his friend: "You're joking; she looks young enough to be your daughter."

"That’s ageist," said Danny, and he went over to the lady and asked her if she was alright, as he thought she looked concerned over something.

"Yes, I'm fine thank you," said the lady with a troubled smile.

Danny asked if he and Roger could join her, and the lady, who said her name was Gabrielle, nodded and said, "Yeah, okay."

Danny introduced the young woman to Roger saying, "Roger, this is..."

"Your long lost daughter," joked Roger and he smiled and nodded to the woman. 

After a few minutes, Danny assured Gabrielle he wasn’t 'trying it on' – he had just noticed she had looked distracted by something.

After a few drinks, Gabrielle told Danny and Roger what was bothering her.

"You'll probably think I’m barmy, but here goes," said Gabrielle, fidgeting with her glass of wine.

"I’ve lived at a house on Barnston Road for three years now; it was originally my mother's house, but it became mine when she passed away.

"Up until a fortnight ago, I had never had any supernatural experiences at the house, and I’ve never been a believer in ghosts – but I’ve been hearing a voice in the night, always in the lounge."

"And what does the voice say?" asked Roger, serious for once; he had been making a joke out of everything in the three-way conversation up until now.

"Sometimes it says, 'Is there anybody there?' and last time I heard it, three nights ago, it said, 'Gabrielle, can you hear me?' And hearing my name being mentioned, it really shook me."

"We – er Roger and I – live on Barnston Road too – not together – " stammered Danny.

"Give it time," said Roger, making Gabrielle smile.

Danny continued: "Look, if you get scared, and you want company, come and see me or him, or we can visit you, whichever you prefer."

"This voice," said Roger, "could it be someone playing a prank? Is it someone who wants you out of there, perhaps? That might be the motive."

"It sounds as if it’s someone actually in the house, Roger," Gabrielle answered, "and I can’t rule out someone messing about, but what would they get out of it? I can’t think of anyone who’d want me out of the house."

"Maybe an ex getting his back on you for some reason?’ suggested Danny, but Gabrielle smiled and slowly shook her head.

"My former boyfriend and I split under very amicable circumstances a year ago, and he lives down in Crewe now. Then there’s the light," added Gabrielle, and she seemed self-conscious, as if she feared she’d sound daft.

But Roger urged her to explain. She said: "Well, sometimes a light appears in the middle of the dining room table when the voices can be heard. I saw it a few nights ago and ran up to the bedroom."

Roger drove Gabrielle home and that evening she asked him and Danny to visit, and they sat drinking coffee, and at 11pm the two men made plans to leave when they saw a light appear in the middle of the dining table.

Gabrielle gasped, "Oh, that’s the light, look."

"What is it?" Danny asked, and Roger told the two of them to stay put and to be quiet.

The light became brighter and resolved itself into a candle, and then the semi-transparent outlines of five hooded old men appeared around the table all holding hands, and Gabrielle went to flee, but Roger told her not too.

She reluctantly stayed there and one of the men at the table said: "Is there anybody there; we are trying to contact you."

"Yes, there is someone there," said Roger, "what do you want? And who are you?"

The speaker at the table asked what year it was, and Roger said: "1988 – why?"

For the next few minutes, the images of the five men faded away and became solid again. The speaker among them stayed hunched over the table, looking in the flame as he said: "We are in the year 2100, and the earth is almost dying. Please tell your leaders of the world to stop burning fossil fuels ..."

And then all of the figures at the table and the candle vanished in mid-sentence.

Roger, Danny and Gabrielle had not heard of Climate Change and Global Warming; it was only 1988 after all.

The "ghosts" were not seen or heard again after that evening.

Danny thought it was all someone’s clever prank, but Roger believed that perhaps five dying and desperate scientists in a grim future had tried their best to send a warning – to save the earth - into the past.

• Haunted Liverpool 36 and all of Tom Slemen’s books and audiobooks are on Amazon.