HAUNTED WIRRAL: The eerie story of 'Dead Danny'

In this latest story, Tom tells the eerie tale of 'Dead Danny'...

I’m intrigued how some people die and are heard from no more.

They do not give the slightest indication from beyond the grave or crematorium incinerator that they are still there, surviving in spirit form – even to the closest loved ones who have been left behind with shattered lives.

And then there are cases I have investigated where the apparent spirits of the departed have haunted complete strangers, and these person-centred hauntings can be the most frightening.

There was a case many years ago in Victorian Neston where a well-dressed but unusually small boy of about five approached a policeman in tears, saying he couldn’t find his mama.

The hysterical child calmed down a little as the policeman asked him his name.

"My name is Johnnie Jinty," the boy replied in a well spoken voice.

The policeman smiled and stooped to look at the tearful lad. "Well Johnnie, you have an unusual surname, so we’ll soon find your mother."

The constable offered his hand to the boy and said, "Let’s go to the station."

"May I have a piggyback?" the tiny boy asked, then sucked his thumb.

"Ha! Come on then, laddie!" said the crouched policeman and the boy climbed up his back and sat on the lawman’s shoulders with his little hands gripping the helmet.

When the policeman reached the station, he realised the boy was some sort of ghost, because he was now invisible and yet he could feel his slight weight on his shoulders and could hear him giggling.

Try as he may, the police officer could not remove the clinging boy from his shoulders.

No one at the police station could see or hear the child and the policeman ended up being seen by a Dr Russell, who diagnosed the ‘phantom piggyback boy’ as a symptom of Dementia praecox – a long-defunct term for what we now know as schizophrenia.

The policeman was dismissed from the force and ‘regained his sanity’ two years later when the boy climbed down and left him.

Many of the older folk of Neston claimed Johnnie Jinty was some sort of demon or ghost who’d been encountered in the area for years, but whatever the entity was, it is typical of a person-centred haunting.

In the last case, the being was unknown to the persecuted victim, but in the following account, the supernatural entity was well-known to the person it continually harassed – it was a former best friend.

In 1960, two best friends Danny and John – both aged eighteen – were passengers in a car driven by Danny’s father when it crashed, not far from Birkenhead Park.

The driver almost escaped without a scratch but the teenagers were badly injured, and Danny later died from his injuries.

About a week after Danny’s funeral, his grotesque-looking ghost started visiting John in his bedroom.

On the first visitation, Danny appeared as John was listening to his pop records, and the apparition wore the same black blazer, polo neck sweater and drainpipe trousers Danny had worn on the day of the crash, and his raven hair sported the same Brylcreem quiff – but his face, which had been so handsome, was almost the face of a skull, and his blue eyes stood out starkly in their black sockets.

The ghost said: "John, I’ve come back because of our blood brother oath – remember?"

Danny was referring to the day when both friends were 14.

Danny first cut John’s palm with a penknife then cut his own palm and they shook hands so their blood would mingle and by that ritual they would become bonded brothers forever.

"Danny – you’re – you’re dead," gasped John, trembling as he backed into the record player.

The needle got stuck in the groove of the single which was appropriately 'Shakin’ All Over' by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

John fled from the bedroom and when he told his parents about Danny’s ghost they thought he had imagined it because he was still upset over the loss of his best friend.

But Danny visited night and day and followed John everywhere he went, and no one but John could see him.

Danny didn’t want his friend to have a girlfriend so whenever John would start seeing a girl, Danny would appear and stroke the girl’s neck and she’d scream after she experienced an icy sensation.

Danny also claimed he could cause serious diseases in these girls just by touching them.

By December 1963, things reached a head with this unearthly situation. John met a beautiful girl of eighteen named Rose, and John just knew she was the one.

He warned 'Dead Danny' as he mockingly called his deceased and obsessed friend that he’d tell a priest about him if he came anywhere near Rose – but on the first proper date with Rose at a Birkenhead pub, John was shocked to see Danny appear.

The persecuting ghost sat behind Rose and put his hand on her shoulder and the girl said, "Ooh! Just felt a cold shiver – like someone walked over my grave."

"Let’s go over by the fireplace, love," said John, and he led rose away from his jealous dead ‘friend’.

On the following day John visited the priest of his church – a man who had known Danny – and he told him everything.

The priest dedicated several Masses to ‘moving Danny on’ and the ghost paid a final visit to John in tears, apologised for wanting to stay with him, then vanished, never to return.

Tom Slemen’s books are available from Amazon.