Haunted Wirral: The mysterious case of the Tickler

In this latest story, Tom explores a mysterious case of The Tickler...

I’ve had to change a few names in this strange story for legal reasons, but the rest is, to the best of my knowledge, true – and very eerie.

One gloriously sunny Saturday morning in the late summer of 1990, a pretty 20-year-old Claughton lady named Jane Maple was about to set off to the church to marry her childhood sweetheart, 21-year-old Robin Newstead, when the vicar who was due to marry Jane telephoned her.

She couldn’t take it in at first.

"Jane my dear," said the Reverend Wickham, "I’ve had to call the wedding off as there’s been mistake regarding the banns."

"The what?" asked a shocked and puzzled Jane.

"The banns dear," the clergyman replied.

"The banns are a legal notice of any wedding that’s due to take place, and I read them out on three Sundays in a row at the church. If anyone knows of any reason why the marriage shouldn’t be taking place, it gives them time to object. It’s the law."

"Well, didn’t you read these banns out Reverend?" asked Jane, with sorrow welling up in her throat.

"Yes I did," said the clergyman, "but the Reverend Blackburn didn’t, and by law he should have done because the banns also have to be read in the parish where the husband-to-be lives. I checked with the Registrar and I’m afraid Blackburn didn’t do his job."

"So, will you marry me and Robin as soon as this matter has been sorted out?" asked Jane, and began to sniffle.

"I’ve already pencilled you in for next month," said the Reverend.

"I didn’t know about the banns not being read until I received a telephone call from a woman about an hour ago. She threatened to inform an archbishop if the wedding wasn’t stopped."

"Who was this busybody?" Jane asked, her sorrow turning to anger.

The vicar didn’t know who she was.

Jane asked Robin if the anonymous caller had been some old flame of his, but he said, "Don’t be daft – I’ve been going with you since we were at school. It’s been some nosy parker putting her oar in."

The wedding went ahead in September, and after the honeymoon in France, the couple moved into their new home – a beautiful semi on Prenton’s Lorne Road.

Robin landed a job at a building society, and while Jane looked for work she enjoyed the role of a housewife.

She was in the kitchen one dull afternoon, baking an apple pie when she happened to look out the window.

She saw someone in a strange mask who wore what looked like a wedding veil, peeping over the fence at the far end of the back garden.

The weird snooper naturally startled Jane, and she saw the person duck down.

She later told Robin about the incident and he said it had probably been one of the neighbour’s children playing a prank.

Around this time, Robin bought two bicycles and convinced Jane to go cycling with him on weekends.

Despite constant drizzle, the couple cycled half a mile to Birkenhead Park, and when they had a rest near the park lake, Robin drew his wife’s attention to something bizarre.

"Look at that," he pointed to two garments hanging from the branch of a tree.

The couple cycled to the abandoned dresses – and saw that they were an expensive ivory wedding gown and a pale blue bridesmaid’s dress.

"Who on earth would leave a perfect wedding gown and a dress on a branch?" Robin asked, and Jane, who now had the feeling she and her husband were being watched, said, "Let’s go home."

On the following day around three in the afternoon, the sun was out, so Jane put out her washing in the back garden – when the terrifying figure of a tall thin man dressed in some short-skirted version of a wedding outfit, embellished with striped orange and black tights and workmen’s boots, climbed over the garden fence.

His face was covered in thick white make up and his nose was red, giving the impression of being a clown.

He picked up a pair of garden shears and in a high-pitched voice he told Jane he’d kill her if she ran.

She froze and screamed, but the weirdly-attired trespasser was soon upon her.

He tied her hands behind her back, threw her onto the floor, and began to tickle her ribs.

He tickled Jane at some length until she threw up, and a neighbour saw the strange scene and climbed over the fence.

He chased the bizarre and obviously unbalanced man, but the sinister assaulter vaulted over the garden fence and got clean away.

The neighbour said it had almost been supernatural the way the weirdo had vanished.

Jane was so terrified of encountering the outlandish figure again, she got her sister to stay over with her each day while Robin was at work, and thankfully, she never saw the maniac again.

She wondered if her attacker had been the one who had called the church to have her wedding cancelled; the assailant had sounded female, even though he was obviously a man, and had he been the one who had left the wedding gowns at Birkenhead Park?

Jane read further reports of even more wedding gowns being left at the park over the next three years, but that mystery, like the identity of the tickling assaulter, remains an enigma.

Haunted Liverpool 29 is available now from Amazon