Welcome to Haunted Wirral, a feature series written by world famous psychic researcher Tom Slemen, for the Globe.

In this latest story, Tom investigates the sinister tale of Mump...

In the many years I have spent delving into the shadowy sphere of the supernatural, I have learned that ghosts and demonic entities can somehow become attached to inanimate objects, and what follows is just one story from a bulging folder in my study labelled 'Secondhand Hauntings.'

In the late 1960s a bin lorry trundled into Ilchester Square in Birkenhead, and a refuse collector, known colloquially as a 'binnie' emptied dustbins and the contents of the tenement rubbish chute when something unusual caught his eye.

Among the tin cans and their hazardous rotary-saw lids, fish skeletons, sludgey mire of used tealeaves and the usual heterogeneous waste, the binman – whose name was Roger – spotted a doll of what could only be Humpty Dumpty; it was egg-shaped and had a greenish velvety finish to it, and it had two little arms and legs with tiny black boots – but the face looked positively sinister.

Roger grabbed the doll, which looked about three or four inches taller than a football – about 12 inches in height.

"Hey, I wouldn’t mind that for my girl," said a fellow binnie named Alf, but Roger swore at him and said, "Finder’s keepers, mate!"

Roger was a 40-year-old bachelor, and as he walked home after his job had ended at around 5.30pm, Sharon, and attractive woman in her thirties who lived a few doors away from him, smiled at Roger.

He wanted to ask her out but he just couldn’t get the words out. He felt inferior.

She was a manageress in a factory, and with her looks, she surely had someone.

The binman put Humpty on the kitchen table, and after gently wiping the little amount of grime from him with a tea-towel, Roger located a small lever on a hinge that came out of the doll’s back.

He turned this lever and listened to the whirring sound.

After a dozen windings, the lever wouldn’t budge so Roger folded it into the niche in the clockwork doll’s back and sat it up on the table, waiting for it to react.

The binman’s cat Orangey appeared on the kitchen window ledge, so Roger let it in, but when the feline saw Humpty it hissed and ran out into the yard.

"What’s your name?" asked the doll, and its voice did not sound tinny like the ones produced by the little plastic records found in some dolls; it sounded very realistic.

"Ha! My name’s Roger, what’s yours?" the smiling binman answered, stooping slightly to look at the doll.

"Hello Roger, my name’s Mumpicker, but just call me Mump," said the doll, and it grinned, and showed two rows of badly misaligned teeth.

The eyeballs seemed to be faintly glowing, and the irises were black buttons.

"That’s amazing – the way you can answer back and speak my name," said Roger, and he found himself slightly scared of Mump.

"Roger, don’t take this the wrong way, but you stink," said Mump, and gave a slight, mocking chuckle as he narrowed his eyes.

"That’s not very nice, Mump," said Roger, hurt – and shocked.

"They all think you’re an oddball round here, especially the women," said Mump, and he stood up now as he spoke, and Roger backed away.

"The women think you’re a weird loner and they know you’re always peeping at them from behind your curtains."

"I don’t peep at them," Roger stammered, and felt sweat break out on his brow.

Mump raised his tiny hand and pointed a finger upwards to make a point.

"But if you start getting a wash, start buying some clothes and stop wearing that cap to hide your bald patch, you might get your rocks off."

Roger’s eyes travelled across the kitchen to the toolbox where he kept a lump hammer.

He felt as if this clockwork creep could attack him – and those teeth could obviously inflict quite a bite.

"Don’t you dare, smelly!" the doll growled, and its eyes burned yellow for a moment.

"I’ll bite through your jugular. I’m trying to help you here, you dead loss!"

"What are you?" Roger asked, feeling his heart pounding. He considered running out the house via the kitchen door.

The doll ran to the edge of the table and warned: "If you even try to run, you foul-smelling failure, I’ll jump on you and after I pull your eyes out I’ll bite through your windpipe! I’ve done it before."

The kitchen door opened and in barged Ted, the window cleaner Roger hadn’t paid for over a month.

"Hello Rog, glad you’re in," said an annoyed-looking Ted.

Mump remained stock-still on the table as Roger dashed to the toolbox in the corner.

He opened it, took out the lump hammer, and a startled Ted watched as the binman pointed at the ovoid doll and cried: "That thing’s alive! It’s going to kill me!"

Roger smashed the hammer down on Mump and the doll exploded into cogs, teeth and reddish brown liquid which sprayed the walls of the kitchen – and Ted.

There was a brief screech from the doll, and then more frantic hammer blows and innards resembling minced meat flew out of the egg-shaped doll.

Ted wrestled the hammer from Roger’s hand and slapped him hard across the face.

Through his tears, the sobbing, trembling binman saw bubbles of some red liquid form in the flattened doll on the floor.

They took Roger away, and he was sectioned, and he told his sister everything.

She tells me Roger later died from a heart attack at the psychiatric hospital.

I don’t believe Mump was a figment of Roger’s imagination, and I still wonder just what that thing was...

Haunted Liverpool 29 is available from Amazon.