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

In this latest tale, a plumber has a terrifying encounter with a 'servant of the Devil'.

IN the summer of 1964, a very strange incident took place in Birkenhead near the junction of Borough Road and Wilmer Road.

It was a sunny Friday afternoon and 21-year-old Harry Evans, a plumber by trade, was on top of the world as he drove Uncle Roger's Bedford Van to a friend's house in Prenton, for he was getting married tomorrow - on Saturday morning - to a 20-year-old middle-class Caldy girl named Sheila.

Harry had told all his friends he wasn't having a stag night because he was scared he'd jeopardise the wedding, and knew a couple of friends were intending to chain him to railings in Birkenhead Park.

This cancellation of the Stag night didn’t go down too well with Harry's mates but he didn't care; he was absolutely in love with Sheila and always put her first in everything nowadays.

Harry was thinking of his wife-to-be when he swung the pug-nosed Bedford van left from Wilmer Street onto Borough Road.

He recalled his sister's mate Irene waving at him from the laundrette on the corner, and then he hit someone.

Seconds before the Bedford whammed into the pedestrian, a horrified Harry had taken in two bits of information; the man had been wielding a huge knife – and he had been chasing two girls who looked like female Mods across Borough Road.

There was an almighty bang.

Harry had tried to swerve left but it was no use. He immediately thought of Sheila.

Tomorrow he'd be in jail instead of at the altar with her.

The girls the man had been running after with the knife had fled into a shop to the left.

They emerged from that shop and ran to Harry, who was gripping the steering wheel hard as he gazed down at the inert body of the man.

All around there was chaos.

Mods on Lambrettas and on foot were laughing and jeering as two policemen came on the scene and Harry knew he couldn't just drive off and peel rubber; there was a body in front of the Bedford and youths were milling about on Borough Road.

One of the girls - the redhead - opened the door of the van and got in and yelled, "Don't feel guilty, you saved our lives! Drive off quick before he gets up!"

Harry gasped back at the girl and watched her blonde friend climb into the van and close the door after her.

The man who had been knocked down was getting up, and he crawled on all fours to get his knife, and then he stood up and bellowed to Harry, "Open the door!"

"Run him down, please!" urged the redhead and Harry swore and said to the girl on the front passenger seat, "Who is he? And why is he after you two?"

"He'll kill us all!" screeched the blonde behind Harry, and the man raised his hand and started stabbing at the window.

Harry reversed the van in blind panic, and smashed the tail lights of a Ford Anglia in the other lane.

He then drove around the mad knifeman up Borough Road.

Two policemen waving their arms for Harry to stop had to jump out the way of the speeding van.

"I don't believe this," said Harry, taking alternate glances between the road ahead and the wing mirror, "he's chasing us!"

The knifeman who had somehow survived being knocked down by a ten-hundredweight van was now gaining on that vehicle as he ran like a cheetah – and Harry could see that knife in his hand, flashing in the sun like a heliograph.

The red-headed girl blabbed out a very strange story about the knifeman being a 'servant of the Devil'.

She and her friend had uncovered some type of conspiracy involving high-ups in society, and she mentioned child sacrifice and much worse, and said the man chasing them was just one of many lackeys who would do anything to protect and cover up the depraved secret society that stretched across the country.

Harry hoped the girls were just students who had become paranoid through drugs.

He told the redhead to fasten her seatbelt and yelled at the blonde to lay down on the floor behind the seat, and then Harry slammed on the brakes – and the knifeman ploughed into the back of the Bedford with a resounding clang.

Harry then drove off and put as much distance as he could between himself and the knife-wielding freak.

He looked in the mirror and saw once again that the man was getting up.

The redhead – who said her name was Fay – asked Harry if he could drop her and her friend off in Thurstaston – near Telegraph Road – and this he did.

He asked them again to explain who they were and what they had uncovered, but all Fay would say was that she and a few others had accidentally uncovered a "huge conspiracy" and would never be safe until they could somehow leave the country.

"If I wasn't getting married tomorrow I'd help you more," said Harry, and the girls thanked him and he wished them luck.

Harry's best friend said the story of the big conspiracy was hogwash.

On Saturday, Sheila stood Harry up at the altar – and she and her family moved from the area and Harry never heard from them again.

Harry became paranoid and wondered if Sheila’s well-to-do family had been part of that conspiracy the girls had mentioned, and had perhaps known about the assistance he had given Fay and her friend...

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