Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral: House of the evil spirit

In this week's tale, a terrifying experience at a condemned house.

I'VE had to change a few names in this strange and terrifying story for legal reasons.

The more mature readers of the Wirral Globe may recall a TV comedy series from the early 1980s called Cowboys – the title of which referred to the slang meaning of 'cowboy' as a dodgy workman of doubtful ability.

The TV sitcom concerned the disasters of a small building firm, owned by Joe Jones (played by Roy Kinnear).

Well, just before Cowboys aired, in 1978, a real-life Joe Jones named Robert Teagin Hunt gathered together five friends and relatives who he believed to be competent tradesmen, and they were Alf the plumber – and electrician, Pete and Mick the brickies (and plasterers) and Hunt’s father-in-law, 70-year-old George – the joiner.

Hunt's 17-year-old nephew Brian was the general dogsbody of the ‘firm’, which was formed one afternoon at the Telegraph Inn in New Brighton.

It was at this pub in 1978 when Robert T Hunt pitched his money-making idea to his employees. He said: "I've bought a detached condemned house up in Bidston, but the thing is, when we’ve finished renovating it, it’ll sell for up to one-hundred grand.

"It's of Georgian influence, standing in an acre of land where the beautiful gardens will be, and it’s got this spiral staircase that gives access to fifteen rooms and when this place is done up, and when we stick a swimming pool in the grounds, there’ll be some offers for this des res I’m telling you. Think you can do it, lads?"

"Condemned?" queried George the joiner, and his eyes darted about to the other doubtful expressions on the faces of his four confreres.

Hunt smiled and assured him: "Condemned sounds bad, but it’s just a term, and I was having a word with Tony in the bookies; he knows the law inside out, and he told me – and this is the gospel – if the owners of a condemned property make all of the necessary repairs, the house can have its condemned status removed."

"I think you need proper advice about this, Bobby," said George the Joiner, "from an expert, and not Tony in the betting shop."

"Look, if you want to make peanuts plastering kitchens and making towel racks, that’s fine, but this is the way to big things," said Hunt, and he showed the sketch he’d made of how he wanted the house done up.

"He hadn’t even consulted an architect. They all had their doubts, but Robert T Hunt promised the five of them a hundred quid each – fifty now, and fifty after the first day’s work was completed."

They all accepted. When they saw the house, which stood on a desolate acre within a stone’s throw of Bidston Hill, the motley group of workmen knew immediately why it was condemned. It was damp, parts of the roof were missing, and there was a sapling growing from what had once been a manhole in front of the house.

"The House of Usher was in better shape than this," quipped Alf the plumber, and Hunt’s nephew said: "Me mum said Uncle Bob should have got planning permission, and she said this place is haunted as well."

Pete, one of the bricklayers, recoiled in shock. "Hasn’t even got planning permission? Then this is illegal! We can't start renovating till he gets that sorted."

"This is going to be a real Goon Show," said George the Joiner, entering the house through a front door that was hanging by one hinge.

Mick the other bricklayer said: "I remember this house from when I was a kid. It was empty then; they used to call it the haunted house. It had a weird atmosphere."

Young Brian, Hunt’s nephew, listened engrossed to Mick’s recollection. Robert T Hunt turned up in a Hillman Imp and went around handing out the little brown envelopes with £50 in four of them; Brian found £20 in his one, as he was classed as an apprentice.

Hunt coughed and announced: "Before you all run off to the pub and the bookies, remember that your receipt of those wages means you are contracted now to be here every morning at eight. Got that?" 

He then explained how most of the building materials would be at the ‘site’ in the morning, along with a cement mixer his brother-in-law had loaned him.

Hunt then took the gang around the interior of the dilapidated dwelling with a feeble flashlight, pointing out what needed to be done over the next few weeks.

The gang heard strange creaking sounds in the house, and, convinced the shell of a building was going to cave in on them, the workforce left, much to the annoyance of Hunt. "The place has stood this long, hasn’t it?" he said: "It's well built, this house."

Brian noticed an old woman standing nearby which gave him quite a shock. She looked as if she was in her late seventies and had short white hair in a bob, and wore a grey calf-length coat and dark ankle boots. To Hunt, she said: "Don’t disturb this place, Mr Hunt."

"How do you know my name?" Hunt asked, thinning his eyes.

The old woman ignored the question and she looked at each of the substandard workmen as she said: "There was an old witch buried under this house, and she was evil – very evil – and a coven had to bury her coffin upside down with iron spikes driven through it to stop her from rising.

"She isn’t dead, just in a type of sleep. Disturb that grave and all hell will break loose."

Hunt forced a false chuckle, and the woman turned and walked off, towards Bidston Hill.

"What a load of baloney," said Hunt, "poor old bat; someone should be looking after her."

The following morning, Brian came running out of the cellar with a huge rusted spike of iron, about five feet in length.

"Hey, Uncle Bob, seen this?" the teenager said excitedly. ‘Could this be one of the spikes the old woman mentioned?"

There was a howling sound around the house, and the brickies, Pete and Mick, were lifted into the air, and Alf the plumber was struck on the chest by a flying brick – and then more bricks, old ones from the house and new ones for the renovation flew everywhere, and the five men deserted the site.

Hunt drove off in his Hillman Imp through the blizzard of bricks. He never returned to that house.

• All of Tom Slemen’s books and audiobooks are on Amazon.