HAUNTED WIRRAL: Liscard's Halloween goblin

In this latest tale, Tom explores the mystery behind Liscard's Halloween goblin...

In May 1962, a mania for walking long distances broke out among the youth of Liscard after the coverage in the newspapers and TV of the 30 Wallasey Boys’ Club members who set out from Chester Town Hall at midnight and embarked on a 29-mile hike to their Wallasey headquarters.

Thirteen of these boys completed the gruelling course and they braved gales in the wee small hours as they took an arduous route that lay on the main road from Chester to Heswall, West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols, Moreton, and then via Pasture Road, Leasowe Road, Wallasey Village, Breck Road, Poulton Road, Gorsey Lane, and Gorsedale Road to the Wallasey Boys’ Club.

After 6 hours and 21 minutes, three Olympian walkers arrived at the finishing line in a dead heat, and they were Rayford Lomax, David Smith and Ken Taylor.

The story of the long-distance walkers was reported in the local and national press, and journalists took the angle of the walkers disproving the stereotypical image of the modern youth as a lazy, decadent yob, and one reader – Alfred - who was moved by the story of the sporting challenge, suggested to his 13-year-old grandson Pete – the leader of a certain gang in Liscard – that perhaps he and his mates could walk even further than their Wallasey neighbours.

"You could all march 31 miles to Wrexham!" Alfred told Pete, engaging the impressionable lad’s attention by adding, "Your photo will be in all the papers and you’ll be on the telly lad!"

Pete’s mum Elsie came home from shopping in Lennon’s supermarket and she went spare when her son excitedly told her about granddad’s idea.

Elsie had words with her father but he persisted with his hare-brained plan, and he started to ‘coach’ Pete and his gang of six friends. With a stopwatch in his hand, the septuagenarian marched the gang from Pete’s home on Hazeldene Avenue to “Granny’s Rock” – a Triassic sandstone outcrop on the recreation ground known as “the Breck”, Breck Road – just under half a mile away.

The gang was supposed to then walk back to Hazeldene Avenue but they became preoccupied with climbing Granny’s Rock – and here something very strange took place.

Pete reached the top of the rock first, and he cried out with fright at something he saw - before falling backwards. He knocked out a fellow gang member as he fell, and broke his leg as a result.

The father of the boy who had been knocked out was at the Fellowship Garage on Pasture Road when he heard about the accident and he drove to Hazeldene Avenue that night and threatened Alfred, calling him a 'Silly old codger.'

The man’s son regained consciousness and told a nurse he and Pete had seen 'a horrible creature' on top of Granny’s Rock which had startled them. When Pete was taken to Wallasey Victoria Central Hospital with his broken leg, he told doctors a 'goblin' with a 'head shaped like a triangle' and yellowish green skin had pounced at him, causing him to fall.

Intriguingly, one of the nurses present said she had heard about a strange creature prowling about the Breck when she was a girl, and her grandmother had told her that in Victorian times, when the Breck was a popular picnic spot, she had seen a 'bogle' – a mischievous evil goblin, according to folklore - near to Granny’s Rock.

After Pete had recovered from his injury 8 weeks later, he started visiting Granny’s Rock out of curiosity, hoping to see the goblin again, and one September evening, he and his friend Norman spotted the thing climbing down the rock.

The 3-foot-tall creature was yellowish green and surrounded by an aura, and it had a tail which writhed like the tail of a cat. It chased the boys as far as Marlowe Road and was allegedly seen by many witnesses.

On the Saturday evening of 13 October that year, the goblin appeared in an alleyway behind Peter’s home on Hazeldene Avenue and was seen by Norman and three of his friends, and they all ran off in fright.

When Pete heard the entity was in his neighbourhood he went out after dark, looking for it, and when he saw it run down an alleyway off Belvidere Road on Duck Apple Night, he went after it alone.

It ran towards Pete, but he stood his ground. The thing halted and let out a high-pitched laugh, then ran off on all fours like a monkey, and vanished down an entry – but then it peeped out at a fascinated Pete and smiled.

The weird entity reappeared on Guy Fawkes Night on the Breck and seemed fascinated at the bonfire the children had built, and upon this night, something quite peculiar took place. Pete was waving a sparkler about, tracing patterns in the air with it by the bonfire when he heard Norman calling his name, but on this night, Norman was in his own garden setting off fireworks.

The goblin was mimicking Norman’s voice, and Pete spotted it by Granny’s Rock.

He ended up befriending the entity, and played 'tick' with it most nights, but on Christmas Eve the unearthly being suddenly waved to Peter, ran off, and vanished on the Breck.

The footprints of the goblin in the snow came to an abrupt end – and Pete never saw his odd friend again. Where the creature came from and just what it was will probably never be known.

Haunted Liverpool 32 is out now on Amazon.