HAUNTED WIRRAL: The Peeping Jane ghost

This week, Tom recounts the creepy tale of the Peeping Jane ghost ....  

At 1am on the Wednesday morning of 17 March 1965, a medical student in his early twenties named Mike was poring over a 1950 edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body in between sips of tarry black coffee.

His burning tired red eyes occasionally swivelled up from the anatomy book to look at the silent moon-silvered streets beyond the window of his third floor flat at Manor Mansions, situated on the corner of Manor Road and Stringhey Road.

He should have been coming home around now from a decent St Patrick's Day drinking spree with a beautiful girl on his arm, but Mike was low on funds and decided to swat up for the coming exams.

At 1.20am the communal telephone in the hallway tinkled.

It usually rang out loud, but this was a gentle ringing, as if there was some electrical fault.

Mike sighed and begrudgingly left his flat to answer it.

He went down three flights of stairs and muttered "Why can't someone else in here answer the bloody thing?" 

Mike knew the answer to that question; most of the students and other young people in the building were still out having a good time.

He picked up the receiver and said: "Yes?" 

"Hello Mike," said a young-sounding female voice "why on earth are you up so late?

"Shouldn't you be sleeping with your lady?" 

"Who is this?" Mike asked, annoyed at the barbed question. It really roused him from his lethargic state.

"Do you have a girl, Mike?" the cheeky anonymous caller enquired further.

Mike detected a hint of humorous mischief in the timbre of her voice.

"Has a drunken idiot named Barry put you up to this, love?" 

Mike queried, for he thought his flatmate Barry – another medical student – was behind the nuisance call.

Barry should have been home at midnight but was still on the town somewhere.

"I don't know anyone of that name," said the girl, then in a childish high-pitched voice she said "Bye bye!" 

Mike slammed the receiver of the payphone down and returned to his top-floor flat.

Ten minutes after this as he was buttering some toast in the kitchenette, he heard a car door slam in the street below.

It was Barry being dropped off by some woman in a Ford Zodiac.

As soon as a tipsy Barry entered the flat with an inane smile on his face, he said: "You should see the big full moon out there, Mike.

"I swear I saw the face on it wink at me, because it knows I've found love at last." 

"I wish you’d try your practical jokes out on some of your layabout friends instead of me," said a grumpy Mike, "it's bad enough burning the midnight oil on my own without annoying distractions from your female friends." 

"What are you talking about?" asked a baffled Barry.

Mike told him about the call, and Barry slowly shook his head as he placed his hand on his chest.

"Mike, hand on heart, I swear I never got any girl to call you.

"I've been with a bird in the Witch’s Cauldron night club in New Brighton since ten o'clock.

"It's been someone you know playing a prank; it certainly wasn't me!" 

Mike recalled the mirthful voice and said: "I've never heard her voice before.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. Had a good night then?" 

"Oh yeah, it was fab," Barry replied, and Mike made him some coffee and cheese on toast, and then Barry went to bed.

Mike stayed up studying and dozed off around four.

On the following evening at 8pm, Barry left the flat to meet Juliet, his new girlfriend.

He said he'd be back before eleven.

Once again, Mike sat facing the window and made notes as he read the anatomy book.

Eleven o'clock came and went, and Mike assumed Barry was staying over at Juliet's place in New Brighton.

He changed into his pyjamas for comfort and continued to swat up.

At precisely midnight the communal telephone made that weak ringing sound again, and Mike hurried down the stairs to answer it.

He expected to hear Barry saying he wouldn’t be coming home, but instead it was that girl again.

"Good evening Mike," she said, "I saw you in your underpants and that pale blue vest earlier; you looked so fetching." 

Mike realised the caller was referring to when he had changed into his pyjamas earlier – so she had to be some local Peeping Tom – or should that be a Peeping Jane?

Before Mike could give her a piece of his mind she hung up.

At 1am, something struck the window of Mike’s flat, startling him.

He got up from his desk and went to the window and saw Barry downstairs.

He'd mislaid his key so he'd thrown a pebble at the window. He’d had an argument with Juliet and had walked home from New Brighton.

Mike told him about the female caller and how she’d described the colour of his vest.

"Mike, I was walking up Penkett Road one evening and I could see you from about 300 yards away at that window," said Barry, "so she's got to be from around here. She might even have binoculars, mate." 

"I don't know, it's sinister," said Mike, glancing at the window "and she might be watching us now." 

"I'll do a strip tease for her," joked Barry, but Mike pulled the blind down.

About ten minutes after this, that blind flew up – and there, floating outside the window, was a young lady in a long white robe.

She shrieked with laughter.

The two medical students fought one another to get out of the flat.

They never returned.

The unidentified snooping spook is said to occasionally look through windows in other parts of Wallasey, and sometimes she rings people in the dead of night to let them know she is watching ...

* All Tom Slemen's books are on Amazon.