HAUNTED WIRRAL: The panther of Storeton Woods

In this latest tale, Prim and Gareth come face-to-face with a mysterious big cat.

IN the early 1970s, a huge black cat was seen on Rest Hill Road, Storeton.

Witnesses compared it to a black panther, but what would such a big cat - which usually lives in a tropical forest - be doing in the middle of Wirral?

Some believed the 'panther' had been nothing more than an exaggerated report of someone’s overfed black moggy, but there were more reports, by reliable witnesses, such as the doctor driving to work who almost ran into the panther on Marsh Lane.

Some of the more open-minded wondered if the unidentified oversized feline belonged to that clowder of elusive big cats that included the Surrey Puma and the Beast of Bodmin.

The reports dwindled, but then one sunny Saturday September afternoon, 14-year-old Bebington girl named Prim Jones took a walk to Storeton Woods to meet her boyfriend, 15-year-old Gareth.

She'd only been seeing him for two months and had met him as she and a friend had been watching a huge waste timber blaze at Storeton Quarry.

Prim and Gareth had recently started to meet up in Storeton Woods on Saturday afternoons to walk hand in hand, but today, Gareth was nowhere to be seen.

What Prim did see on this day froze her to her marrow - it was that giant black cat she had heard people talking about - the so-called panther and it was standing straight ahead on the path, about 50 yards away.

Prim had ailurophobia - an intense phobia of cats; she couldn’t even go near small domestic cats - but this one was huge; it was turned sideways and excluding the tail, it looked as if it was about eight feet long.

It turned its head to face the frightened teen, and time seemed to stand still; the birdsong of Storeton Woods ceased, and Prim felt her stomach turn over. She turned, and walked slowly back the way she had come and expected the wild beast to land on her any moment.

She heard a man’s voice shout: "Don't be scared! He won’t harm you!" 

Prim glanced back once and saw a bald man in a sheepskin coat. He had a moustache, wild staring eyes and was leaning out from behind the trunk of a tree, about thirty feet away.

Prim decided to run, and for a few moments heard nothing but the padding of her baseball boots and her heavy panting and then heard the roar of what sounded like a lion and a man's voice shouting something.

Prim reached her home in a terrible state, and her mother chided her and said: "Why can’t that Gareth come here instead of you meeting him in the woods?

"You could have been raped and murdered today; you’re not to go anywhere near there again, Prim, or I'll tell your father." 

Later that day, Gareth turned up as Prim was having her tea and the girl’s mother said, "You're a right one, aren’t you, eh? Telling Prim to meet you in Storeton Woods and then not having the decency to turn up.

"You know what happened to her, today?" 

Prim appeared behind her mother in the hallway and said: "Mum, it's alright, stop picking on him." 

"Why, what happened?" Gareth asked.

Prim’s mother stormed away from the door and the girl told her boyfriend what had happened.

"I'm sorry", said Gareth, "I was picked for a five a side footy game and I forgot I had to meet you." 

"You forgot?" Prim was both upset and angry at Gareth.

She said: "Oh, well, never mind" and slammed the door on him.

On the following day as the family gathered around the table for the usual Sunday roast, Prim’s mum said: "I've told your father what happened, and Mrs Sexton next door told me a strange man has been seen prowling around Storeton Woods, so don’t even think of going there with that dumbbell boyfriend. 

"Yeah, keep away from there," said Prim’s father at the head of the table, "go the park or the pictures if you want to go out dating." 

"Did the man have a sheepskin coat on?" Prim asked: "The man they saw in the woods?"

"I don't know, but he must be up to no good," said the teen's mother.

"A girl got grabbed by a man in those woods last year, and he nearly had her. Just stay away from them." 

That evening at 8pm, Prim was in her bedroom when a small stone hit the window.

She saw Gareth in the street below so she opened the window.

"Meet me at the woods tomorrow evening at half-six." 

"I can't go there – " Prim whispered but Gareth walked off as a policeman approached on his beat.

Prim said she was going to a friend’s house after she had her tea on the following day, and at 6:20pm she found herself nervously walking along a path through Storeton Woods when a man came out from behind a tree.

It was that man she had seen on Saturday.

"Don't worry, love, I'm not going to do anything to you," he said.

"I'll scream," said Prim, and then, she saw that gigantic black cat again.

It came from behind some bushes, and it looked terrifying, yet somehow beautiful, with its smooth coal-black satin coat and green eyes.

"He's a big softy," the man said, nodding to the cat, "and he likes you.

"I think in a previous life you knew him; he belonged to a wizard." 

Prim whimpered as the panther rubbed its huge head against her legs.

The man continued: "The wizard left here years ago, so this cat is lonely. I’ve got to move to London to look after my sick brother.

"Please, love, can you take care of the cat till I get back?

"He'll show you where he comes from – another land, and the doorway to that land is in this wood." 

"Prim!" Gareth shouted in the distance, and the cat ran for him.

Prim saw her chance and ran away.

She later met Gareth and he said the huge cat had vanished as it pounced on him.

Prim never went to the woods again, and to this day she wonders if what that man told her about that fearsome cat was true.

*Tom Slemen’s Haunted Liverpool 34 is out now on Amazon.