The Witch of the Magazine Hotel

No-one could account for the sudden sinking, but the sailors said they had heard what sounded like a whirlwind whistling in the rigging before the capsizing.

Fortunately, a small vessel from Egremont called the Oonagh, was in the area, and she quickly came to the aid of the five young sailors (none of whom could swim), who were all close to drowning.

A passing coal boat, called the Maggie, which belonged to the Wallasey Commissioners, also joined in the rescue, and the five grateful, but inexperienced sailors were taken to the Magazine Hotel public house, where they were given 'restoratives' – mostly rum and whiskey, and dry clothes.

The evening wore on, and some of the old seadogs at the pub told the green sailors all sorts of tall tales about their own maritime adventures, and night soon fell.

Mrs Newton, the landlady, said the five youths should be going on their way, and seemed very nervous as the witching hour loomed.

To the landlady, an old regular said, 'You've got to give these lads shelter for the night after their ordeal.'

Mrs Newton glared at the oldster, and reluctantly agreed to let the five young sailors share two spare rooms upstairs, and she and a barmaid went to prepare a supper for the lads – a pot of Scotch broth.

While the landlady and her assistant were in the kitchen, another decrepit old regular at the pub said, 'She's not keen on you boys staying here because this place is haunted.'

'Haunted?' asked one of the sailors, named McHale, with a bemused look.

The old man shook his head. 'I don't know who or what haunts this place, but I've heard stories about it for years.'

'It's a witch,' said an old woman named with a prominent stoop. Her name was Norah Shacklady.

'A witch? I don't like the sound of that,' remarked a sailor of 17, named Williams.

He seemed very scared, because he had been taught to respect his elders and he knew the old woman was not the sort to fabricate such a strange story.

'They say it's a witch, but no one really knows,' said the old man, but Norah grumpily insisted it was a witch, and began to raise her croaky voice.

'It's a witch I tell ye! And my mother saw her one morning looking out that very window yonder.'

Norah pointed to the parlour window, then continued, 'She was a Liscard woman – an evil woman – and they say she was tortured and thrown in the river, and left to drown, with stones tied to her. But someone found her body when it was washed ashore down at the rocks.'

The last gaggle of drinkers stopped talking now and listened, along with the five sailors, spellbound, by the old woman's creepy story.

Norah cleared her throat and continued: 'They brought her body in here. They used to hold inquests in here you know; and they thought the woman was still breathing. Anyway, the witch recovered, and told her rescuers she would reward them for saving her from a watery grave, and she used her evil powers to give them power over any woman.

She showed them how to sell their souls to the Devil so they would have 20 years of prosperity -'

At this point, Mrs Newton, the pub landlady stormed in and said to Norah, 'This is all hearsay! I remember the people who had this establishment, and they were God-fearing people! How dare you stain their character, you old reprobate!'

Norah shouted back: 'The men who had this pub were not God-fearing – I remember them! You weren't even born then Mrs Newton!'

'Get out! Go on! Begone with you!' Mrs Newton opened the door and pointed into the moonlit street beyond the doorway. 'Haven't any of you got homes to go to?' The old woman went out, followed by the rest of the drinkers.

Then a strange silence descended on the parlour. The five sailors supped their broth, and then they were shown to their rooms upstairs by Mrs Newton, who led the way with an oil lamp. The sailors tried their best to sleep, but at 3.15am they heard female laughter.

The sailor Williams lit the oil lamp, and was confronted with the huge long shadow of a woman on the wall. The silhouette had raised arms that touched the ceiling, and the laughter which had awakened the men seemed to come from this shadow.

McHale, who was sleeping in the next bed, stared in horror at the shadow, realising it was the witch old Norah had been talking about. The door of the room burst open, and in came the three other sailors who had been sleeping in the room next door.

They had been alerted by the maniacal laughter, and froze in the doorway as they saw the sinister shadow. The witch let loose a stream of swear words that could not be put into print here, and said she wanted the 'blood of McHale' – because the sailor was a descendant of one of the men who had tried to drown her over a hundred years before.

McHale let out a scream as the shadow reached down at him. He felt hands at his throat, and it took the four other sailors – one of them reciting the Lord's Prayer – to drag their friend McHale out of the room. As the sailors grabbed their clothes and rushed downstairs to leave the hotel, the witch said she would kill them all, and admitted that she had overturned their ship in an effort to try and drown McHale.

The sailors left the pub and none of them ever ventured anywhere near the Magazine Hotel ever again.

Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral, and all of his books, are now available on the Kindle and iPad as ebooks.