WELCOME to Haunted Wirral, a feature series written by world-famous psychic researcher, Tom Slemen for the Globe.

In this latest tale, a party becomes terrifying after the arrival of two gate-crashers ...

MANY years ago I met a well-known actor at the BBC Radio Merseyside studios, where I was about to present a programme on local mysteries.

The actor - a household name - was due to be interviewed by a DJ about a science fiction convention he'd be attending, but as he waited in the reception area he got talking to me, and learning that I had a longstanding interest in the paranormal, he told me an intriguing and weird story about a supernatural incident which allegedly took place at Port Sunlight in the 1960s.

The actor had been present at the scene of the paranormal occurrence.

I researched what I was told and this is what I managed to glean about the unearthly event.

I've changed a few names for legal reasons.

In the summer of 1966, Graham and Frances Marshall, a couple in their twenties, bought a cottage in Port Sunlight and decided to hold a house-warming party.

The couple were both actors who worked in television, radio and theatre, and many of the thirty guests - all people in their twenties and early thirties - also worked in showbiz.

The party started at 7.30pm. Around half-past-ten, two scruffily-dressed men in their thirties, said to have been beatniks, gate-crashed the party and started handing out purple hearts pills and cannabis joints.

One of these gate-crashers, who gave his name as Anton, told the bemused revellers: "Hey people, let go of your square middle-class morals and be a little hedonistic.

"Take your clothes off and discover free love with one another."

The party-goers remained "repressed" in the eyes of Anton and his friend, but as the night wore on and more and more alcohol – and other recreational substances – was consumed, the merrymakers began to let their hair down a little.

By two in the morning the party had degenerated into a veritable orgy, with many of the guests dancing in the nude, and the beatnik Anton then took things further when he cleared a coffee table of drinks and snacks.

He placed twenty-six Scrabble tiles in an alphabetic circle on the coffee table and positioned an upturned wine glass in the centre of the circle.

The record player was turned off and Anton invited thirteen guests to participate in operating the makeshift Ouija board.

Thirteen index fingers were placed one on top of the other on the inverted foot of the glass and people outside the circle looked on with a mixture of bemusement and fear at the "sitters" engaged in the Ouija session.

Anton then looked up at the ceiling and solemnly intoned: "Spirits beyond, we invite you to speak to us through this glass!

"Please give us a sign that you are here in the midst of our company!"

A hush descended on the room, and a strange noise which sounded like a howling wind, was heard in the chimney place - even though it was a warm summer’s night with not even the slightest zephyr about.

The windows of the lounge were open – admitting the light of a full moon - and the curtains were still.

The howl in the fireplace slowly died away and Anton said to those gathered around with their fingers on the glass: "You must not ask the spirits about health – your health or anyone else's health - and you must certainly not mention whether someone will die.

"Also, you must not mention that deity of the Christians, you know, the one that begins with a capital G and ends in d. So remember that, folks, when you ask your questions."

Everyone seemed scared, and the sitters looked at one another, stuck for questions, until a very tipsy red-haired girl dressed only in her underwear asked out loud: "Will I ever marry?"

Straight away the coffee table vibrated for a few seconds, and then the wine glass slowly spelt "N-O".

"Why not? That's mean!" said the girl, and Anton warned: "Don't be flippant with the spirits, love."

The glass moved steadily about, and at first no one could read what was being mysteriously dictated, so the glass traced the words out again: "dead 21 bye bye".

The red-haired girl swore and backed away from the coffee table.

"I'm not going to die at 21!" she cried, and fell back onto the sofa. She had just turned twenty.

"Quick!" yelled Anton, "She's broken the circle! Someone take her place!"

"Tell me a secret!" said a drunken young man taking the redhead's place.

As soon as he placed his index finger on the glass it slid about and said: "Judy is having a baby".

There was a sharp intake from a girl named Judy, and her boyfriend turned to her and asked: "Are you? I've only been with you for a week!"

The glass then spelt out: "A killer is among you bad man".

"Who is this killer, spirit?" an intrigued Anton asked, and someone shouted, ‘What a load of baloney! Spirit, you’re an idiot!’

The glass started to vibrate – and then it exploded into shards that cut most of the thirteen sitters.

The coffee table lifted up into the air and threw itself at the man who had called the spirit an idiot.

A grandfather clock shot across the lounge and people stampeded out the room in panic.

A chair 'walked' along the floor and pandemonium broke out.

An upright piano in an upstairs room launched itself out the window, along with a chesterfield and the partygoers – many of them half naked – ran to their cars outside the house.

Some people were pushed through windows by invisible hands.

The couple who owned the house ended up moving elsewhere after that Ouija terror because something kept pushing them down the stairs.

The house is still haunted by shadowy figures to this day.

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