HAUNTED WIRRAL: Letters from the devil

In this latest tale, Tom explores a tale about letters from the devil...

One pleasant sunny morning in May 1955, a 32-year-old man named Stephen Hughes was out walking his dog before he left for work.

The time was half-past-seven and there was hardly anyone about on Prenton’s leafy Lorne Road – just a droning milk float a few hundred yards away and a man of about fifty walking briskly along the road with a bunch of manila envelopes in his gloved hand.

As the man turned into Alton Road, headed for a pillar box, Stephen said, "Morning," but the man – who had a wild head of grey hair and bulging, angry eyes, just seemed to look straight through the dog-walker.

"A lovely morning to you as well," seethed Stephen, and he saw the man post the bundle of letters into the red pillar box before looking about in a suspicious manner. He didn’t go back the way he came; he looked at Stephen, muttered something that sounded derogatory, then walked on down Alton Road.

Stephen’s dog sniffed at something in the gutter; it was a long manila envelope - obviously one of the missives dropped by that haughty man. Stephen picked it up, and saw it was addressed to his friend – James Lovelock – and the address scrawled beneath the name in green ink was James’s address on Shrewsbury Road, less than 300 yards away.

Stephen considered rushing to the house and posting the envelope through his friend’s door, but he didn’t have time and thought he should let the letter arrive by the official channel, so he posted the envelope into the pillar box and returned home.

He set off for work, and on the following morning, which was a Saturday, he was visited by his friend Mr Lovelock.

"I've had one of those chain letters," said Stephen’s wide-eyed friend. He looked pale and shocked, and he retrieved a folded manila envelope from the inside pocket of his blazer. "Come in, James!" Stephen stepped aside and welcomed his friend into the hallway.

It was a most unexpected visit. Stephen recognised the envelope at once – the very one that arrogant man had dropped on his way to the pillar box, but he read the letter before telling James about the incident.

In green ink on a sheet of foolscap, the letter began with: 'Trust in My Lord with all your heart and He will acknowledge and He will light the way. Mr Lovelock, you are the father of Catherine’s child, but what would her husband do if he knew this? He’s a violent man, as you well know, and I very well might write to tell him of the secret you and his wife share.'

"There’s another one in the envelope," said Lovelock in a broken voice. Stephen then read the rest of the poison pen letter. It stated that unless James made three copies of the chain letter in the envelope and sent them off to three people within 48 hours, the secret about his love child would be out.

"I don’t get this," said Stephen, "how will he know whether you’ve sent on three copies or thrown all this in the bin?"

"I’ll have to send them on, Stephen," said Lovelock, his trembling hand reaching for a cigarette case. Stephen told him about the encounter with the grey haired man on the Friday morning, and suggested tracking him down and dealing him a bit of rough justice, but Lovelock said he’d do as he’d been instructed.

In the following week, people in Wirral and parts of Liverpool and North Wales received chain letters threatening bad luck and death unless they were triplicated and forwarded to further victims.

And then, as luck would have it, Stephen was again out walking his dog when the same wild-haired man brushed past him on the way to the Alton Road pillar box.

This time Stephen hid behind a tree and watched the chain letter author.

He followed him for 500 yards through the streets until he saw him enter a grand old detached house on Palm Grove.

Stephen visited James and convinced him they should go and reconnoitre at the fiend’s property, and hopefully catch him in the act. "We should give him a right thumping, teach him a lesson," suggested Stephen.

"That’s illegal, though," said James. "We’ll wear masks, Jimmy, like burglars, don’t worry," Stephen assured him. A light burned in a window at the back of the house that night, and Stephen ascended a ladder he’d brought along. James looked up the ladder and whispered, "Can you see him?"

Stephen nodded. It was a strange scene he beheld; the man sat at a desk, writing on two sheets with both hands simultaneously at a phenomenal speed, and he seemed to be in a trance, with his eyes rolled back.

Behind him on the wall was an upside-down crucifix – the sure sign of a Devil worshipper in Stephen’s eyes.

Stephen was religious, and he fished the little gold cross on a chain from inside his shirt and held it, then smashed the window with a stone wrapped in cloth.

The man did not react as Stephen reached through the hole and opened the window. Stephen believed him to be possessed. "In the name of Jesus Christ, leave this man, agent of Satan!" He shouted, and thrust out the little cross.

A single flame appeared on the crown of the man’s head, and then his hair ignited, and an orange aura appeared around the man.

He burst into flames, and the heat was so intense, Stephen had to leap from the window, and he sprained his ankle. They said it was a fire, but it was Spontaneous Human Combustion, caused by some spiteful demon which had dictated the letters to that unfortunate man.

The chain letters continued to circulate well into the 1980s.

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