HAUNTED WIRRAL: Bebington's ghostly boy

In this latest tale, Tom explores the mystery surrounding Bebington's ghostly boy...

The most terrifying ghost is the one which follows you about.

Ghosts that haunt specific places are bad enough, but you can get away from them by simply leaving the haunted location; with a person-centred haunting it can be almost impossible to get away from an entity, and this type of ghost plagued a Wirral woman many years ago.

It all started on perhaps the happiest day of her life – her wedding day – at a certain church in Bebington in 1968.

The woman, 25-year-old Barbara Holt, stood beside her intended husband Lewis Dempster in a beautiful creamy white floral lace gown, covered in silvery pearls, and she wore an ivory Juliet cap upon her perfectly styled Titian-red hair.

She was the very picture of elegance, and Barbara’s parents surveyed their daughter from the front bench with a mixture of pride and sadness, whereas the bride’s friends Moira and Patricia were washed out with jealousy; they both longed for a wedding such as this.

The church was packed, and in the middle of the marriage ceremony, the vicar said to the bridegroom: "Will you, Lewis Dempster, take Barbara Holt to be your wife?"

"I will," said Lewis. He sounded a little tense and nervous.

The vicar continued to question the bridegroom: "Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," said Lewis.

"You better! She’s beautiful!" came a child’s voice from somewhere in the packed pews.

There were stifled chuckles, sharp intakes of breath, and the nettled vicar saw a boy – aged about seven or eight – standing about seven feet away to his left in the transept of the church.

He wore black shorts, grey school pullover, and this little outspoken imp had a cherubic face and a head of golden hair.

"How dare you interrupt this marriage service," gasped the vicar, and he turned to the congregation and asked, "who does he belong to?"

People looked at one another and shrugged, and then the vicar noticed that the cheeky child had apparently left the church.

After the service, at the wedding reception people mentioned the amusing interruption by that kid, but no one seemed to know whose boy he was.

Barbara and Lewis honeymooned in Paris for just a week, and then they came home and settled down to their brand new married life at a house on Bebington’s Acres Road. Lewis worked as a bus driver and Barbara got a job as a secretary/shorthand typist at an insurance company over in Liverpool.

Six months into the job, the personnel manager – a 45-year-old man named Leo – started to make romantic overtures to Barbara, and at first she made it clear to Leo that she was a happily-married woman, but Leo persisted, and one evening in the car park as they were getting ready to go home he hugged her from behind and started to kiss her neck.

She turned and kissed him back and she burned with guilt at first, but at some point Barbara was overwhelmed by Leo and she ended up going to his home – which happened to be in Woodhey Road - half a mile from her own home.

And so began the affair.

She told Lewis she was going out with her friends at work one evening and he believed her, but Barbara spent the night with Leo, and as they lay in bed at midnight, embracing one another with just the light of the moon streaming into the bedroom, they both heard a noise; it sounded like faint footsteps.

A head popped up at the bottom of the bed, making the couple jump. It was a child, mostly in silhouette, but Barbara could make out his blond hair.

"I thought you loved Lewis!" said the boy, sounding upset, and for a moment Leo thought the child was some trespasser – but then the boy vanished into thin air.

Barbara screamed and Leo clicked on the bedside lamp, then gingerly got out the bed and switched on the ceiling light.

He looked about, thinking the boy might still be there, and then he went onto the landing and Barbara followed close behind in a terrified state.

She suddenly recalled that blond boy who had interrupted the wedding service – and went cold; that’s how he knew who Lewis was.

She had to go home to her husband. Leo begged her to stay but Barbara went home, and Lewis asked her how the night had gone.

Barbara said it had been a damp squib because it hadn’t been the same without him.

That night she clung to Lewis in bed, as she was scared the ghostly boy would appear again.

On the following morning back at work, Leo visited Barbara at her office in the firm and talked about the ghostly boy.

She told Leo the affair was over and that she had been pressured into it by him in the first place. Leo left in a huff. When Barbara returned home around 6pm, Lewis said, "You’ll never guess who passed me on the street outside before, love – that boy who interrupted the wedding."

Barbara shuddered when she heard this.

That evening as she was looking for a dress in her room she caught a glimpse of the boy, hiding in the wardrobe and she stopped searching for the dress and fled from the room.

He haunted her for weeks, and the last time Barbara saw him was on Town Lane as she passed the gates of Bebington Cemetery one sunny afternoon.

He stood there for a moment, then waved.

Why he chose to haunt Barbara remains a mystery, as does the ghost’s identity.

Tom Slemen's books are available from Amazon.