AL JAY
28-06-2011, 01:35
One Sunday afternoon in April 1962 in Liverpool, England, three children from Erkskine Street converged on the new swing park that was situated next to the Collegiate on Shaw Street. The park had a good sand pit and even a commando net, as well as the usual swings. Marty, Rodney - both 13 - and Rodney's 10-year-old sister Susan, spent a good hour or so at the park until a 15-year-old bully from Everton Brow known locally as Masher turned up and not only threw sand in Marty's face; he also lifted little Susan up by the pigtails on either side of her head. Rodney did absolutely nothing, until he and his crying sister and his friend Marty were about 100 yards away. Rodney shouted names to Masher, and said that he had nits and that his mother had corned beef legs. Masher always got a note off the nit nurse, and his mother had a skin complaint of some sort, hence the name corned beef legs.
Masher had muscley legs and was an amazing runner, and he chased the three children halfway down Islington until his own father bumped into him and collared him. The children ended up on Lime Street and the heavens opened. To escape the heavy April shower, they huddled in the doorway of an old Grade II Listed building that was once the North Western Hotel. Today, the building provides accommodation for students. Rodney leaned against the old door of the building, and it creaked open. Curiosity got the better of Rodney and Marty, and they went in the old derelict hotel, which had hundreds of rooms on its five storeys. Little Susan was very nervous, and thought the place was spooky.
The children crossed the magnificent entrance foyer. They looked at the polished stone columns and veined marble walls. Daylight shone in through a cut glass rooflight window. As the rain hammered down outside, the children went upstairs. Susan nervously held onto her older brother's jumper, but he said: 'Don't worry Sue, this can be our new den [secret hiding place].'
Suddenly there was a flash of lightning through the windows, and the roll of thunder shook the foundations of the old building. Susan screamed, but Marty reassured her, saying the thunder was only 'St Peter moving the furniture about'. By now the children were on the first storey, and they looked into each of the empty rooms with grimy windows, when suddenly, Susan saw the ghost at the end of the landing. He was dressed in a long hammer-tailed coat, and knee breeches. He had square-toes shoes with buckles on, and looked like someone from the early 1800s. But what scared Susan was the way his hair was pointing upwards to a tapered point like a paint brush. And this was the weird part. He was levitating about a foot off the ground with his arms and legs pointing in the air so he looked like the letter X. Susan later told me that when she saw the TV comic Harry Worth perform his levitation illusion in the shop window with his reflection, it reminded her of the the way that ghost looked that day.
Anyway, Susan screamed and her brother and Rodney stopped mooching about and came running out of the room. Susan suddenly couldn't speak, she was so terrified, but she pointed at the sinister figure down the landing.
Rodney and Marty trembled when they saw the weird stranger, and they watched in horror as the figure suddenly pulled something from its belt. They thought it was a knife at first, but it wasn't. It was a huge pair of scissors. The ghost shouted something unintelligible and chased the kids down to the foyer. Rodney and Marty tried to get through the small opening at the same time, they were in such a panic. Poor little Susan screamed for them to get out the way, and when they got outside, they ran up Lime Street and told an old man at a newspaper kiosk about the terrifying encounter, and he said a strange thing. He said, 'That's the Scissor Man.'
Then Susan let out a yelp and started to cry, because she suddenly noticed that one of her pigtails had been mysteriously snipped off. Sure enough, when the police heard the children's weird tale, two policemen went into the derelict hotel, and they found Susan's pigtail on the first floor. It had been cut off.
I have researched this story for a few years, and think the Scissor Man may be the ghost of a mad tailor who had a premises on Lime Street hundreds of years ago. His name was Nearey Spinks, and he went mad after he found out that he wasn't the father of his three children. He was in fact sterile, and the real father of his children was his wife's half brother. It is recorded that Spinks tied to stab his wife and her half-brother with his scissors. Spinks was committed to the old lunatic asylum that was once situated on the plateau where St George's Hall was. There are also records that the ghost of the Scissor Man was active in the 1890s, and I have also received reports of a ghost from students currently staying in the former hotel building.
More to stories to follow...
Added after 10 minutes:
The arrow of time always appears to point in the same direction, from the past into the future, but if the following story is true, it would seem that because of forces unknown to modern science, events of the past are sometimes reenacted, in this case with spine chilling results.
In 1937, a 50-year-old jewellery and clock repair man from Wavertree named George Dickson Phillips moved into a second floor flat at a house in Percy Street in the city centre.
Mr. Dickson Phillips had moved from his Wavertree home after a drunken quarrel with his wife. She owned the house and had sternly given him a harsh ultimatum - if he couldn't kick the demon drink habit, she'd divorce.
For three days the clock-mender struggled not to open the bottle of gin he had purchased, and on the third night he decided to have an early night to resist the temptation.
He switched off the light, sat on the mattress of his bed, and as he was pulling off his boots he saw a light out of the corner of his eye. It was a dim lamp burning in the second floor window of a house across the road in Canning Street.
As the jeweller glanced to the window, he saw a sight which was to haunt him for the remainder of his life.
A woman was sitting at a dresser, gazing into a mirror. Her raven black hair was piled up in a bun. Suddenly, a man came behind her and put a bag or pillowcase over her head and held the woman in a headlock.
The woman seemed to knock over the lamp. The window was suddenly in darkness.
Convinced he had witnessed a murder, Mr. Dickson Phillips put his boots back on and ran downstairs.
He told the landlord, a Mr Creasy, about the scene he had observed, but wasn't believed. The landlord had seen the jeweller carrying the bottle of gin in a brown paper wrapper into his room, and surmised he was drunk.
Mr Dickson Phillips made inquiries at the Canning Street house, but an elderly woman reassured him that nothing was amiss there. In fact, she claimed that the damp upstairs room had lain empty for almost three months.
All the same, the jeweller notified a policeman on the beat, and the constable visited the Canning Street house again. This time the old woman allowed the policeman to have a look around.
The constable emerged some 10 minutes later and apologised to the old lady for pointlessly calling at such a late hour.
The jeweller not only felt embarrassed, he began to question his own sanity, and wondered if the whole thing had been some hallucination. However, the policeman told him an eerie tale. He related that his late father - who had also been a police constable - had told him that over the years, scores of people living in the vicinity of Percy Street and Canning Street had reported seeing a man murdering a woman by suffocating her with a bag at an upstairs window.
Each time the reports were made, the same address in Canning Street was given, and despite a thorough investigation of the premises, no such couple was ever found there.
In the end, the hard-boiled streetwise policemen reluctantly concluded that what people had in fact witnessed was perhaps the ghostly reenactment of a murder of bygone days - but whose murder has never been established.
Incidentally, the jeweller never touched alcohol again after that spooky incident, and was reconciled with his long-suffering wife.
Masher had muscley legs and was an amazing runner, and he chased the three children halfway down Islington until his own father bumped into him and collared him. The children ended up on Lime Street and the heavens opened. To escape the heavy April shower, they huddled in the doorway of an old Grade II Listed building that was once the North Western Hotel. Today, the building provides accommodation for students. Rodney leaned against the old door of the building, and it creaked open. Curiosity got the better of Rodney and Marty, and they went in the old derelict hotel, which had hundreds of rooms on its five storeys. Little Susan was very nervous, and thought the place was spooky.
The children crossed the magnificent entrance foyer. They looked at the polished stone columns and veined marble walls. Daylight shone in through a cut glass rooflight window. As the rain hammered down outside, the children went upstairs. Susan nervously held onto her older brother's jumper, but he said: 'Don't worry Sue, this can be our new den [secret hiding place].'
Suddenly there was a flash of lightning through the windows, and the roll of thunder shook the foundations of the old building. Susan screamed, but Marty reassured her, saying the thunder was only 'St Peter moving the furniture about'. By now the children were on the first storey, and they looked into each of the empty rooms with grimy windows, when suddenly, Susan saw the ghost at the end of the landing. He was dressed in a long hammer-tailed coat, and knee breeches. He had square-toes shoes with buckles on, and looked like someone from the early 1800s. But what scared Susan was the way his hair was pointing upwards to a tapered point like a paint brush. And this was the weird part. He was levitating about a foot off the ground with his arms and legs pointing in the air so he looked like the letter X. Susan later told me that when she saw the TV comic Harry Worth perform his levitation illusion in the shop window with his reflection, it reminded her of the the way that ghost looked that day.
Anyway, Susan screamed and her brother and Rodney stopped mooching about and came running out of the room. Susan suddenly couldn't speak, she was so terrified, but she pointed at the sinister figure down the landing.
Rodney and Marty trembled when they saw the weird stranger, and they watched in horror as the figure suddenly pulled something from its belt. They thought it was a knife at first, but it wasn't. It was a huge pair of scissors. The ghost shouted something unintelligible and chased the kids down to the foyer. Rodney and Marty tried to get through the small opening at the same time, they were in such a panic. Poor little Susan screamed for them to get out the way, and when they got outside, they ran up Lime Street and told an old man at a newspaper kiosk about the terrifying encounter, and he said a strange thing. He said, 'That's the Scissor Man.'
Then Susan let out a yelp and started to cry, because she suddenly noticed that one of her pigtails had been mysteriously snipped off. Sure enough, when the police heard the children's weird tale, two policemen went into the derelict hotel, and they found Susan's pigtail on the first floor. It had been cut off.
I have researched this story for a few years, and think the Scissor Man may be the ghost of a mad tailor who had a premises on Lime Street hundreds of years ago. His name was Nearey Spinks, and he went mad after he found out that he wasn't the father of his three children. He was in fact sterile, and the real father of his children was his wife's half brother. It is recorded that Spinks tied to stab his wife and her half-brother with his scissors. Spinks was committed to the old lunatic asylum that was once situated on the plateau where St George's Hall was. There are also records that the ghost of the Scissor Man was active in the 1890s, and I have also received reports of a ghost from students currently staying in the former hotel building.
More to stories to follow...
Added after 10 minutes:
The arrow of time always appears to point in the same direction, from the past into the future, but if the following story is true, it would seem that because of forces unknown to modern science, events of the past are sometimes reenacted, in this case with spine chilling results.
In 1937, a 50-year-old jewellery and clock repair man from Wavertree named George Dickson Phillips moved into a second floor flat at a house in Percy Street in the city centre.
Mr. Dickson Phillips had moved from his Wavertree home after a drunken quarrel with his wife. She owned the house and had sternly given him a harsh ultimatum - if he couldn't kick the demon drink habit, she'd divorce.
For three days the clock-mender struggled not to open the bottle of gin he had purchased, and on the third night he decided to have an early night to resist the temptation.
He switched off the light, sat on the mattress of his bed, and as he was pulling off his boots he saw a light out of the corner of his eye. It was a dim lamp burning in the second floor window of a house across the road in Canning Street.
As the jeweller glanced to the window, he saw a sight which was to haunt him for the remainder of his life.
A woman was sitting at a dresser, gazing into a mirror. Her raven black hair was piled up in a bun. Suddenly, a man came behind her and put a bag or pillowcase over her head and held the woman in a headlock.
The woman seemed to knock over the lamp. The window was suddenly in darkness.
Convinced he had witnessed a murder, Mr. Dickson Phillips put his boots back on and ran downstairs.
He told the landlord, a Mr Creasy, about the scene he had observed, but wasn't believed. The landlord had seen the jeweller carrying the bottle of gin in a brown paper wrapper into his room, and surmised he was drunk.
Mr Dickson Phillips made inquiries at the Canning Street house, but an elderly woman reassured him that nothing was amiss there. In fact, she claimed that the damp upstairs room had lain empty for almost three months.
All the same, the jeweller notified a policeman on the beat, and the constable visited the Canning Street house again. This time the old woman allowed the policeman to have a look around.
The constable emerged some 10 minutes later and apologised to the old lady for pointlessly calling at such a late hour.
The jeweller not only felt embarrassed, he began to question his own sanity, and wondered if the whole thing had been some hallucination. However, the policeman told him an eerie tale. He related that his late father - who had also been a police constable - had told him that over the years, scores of people living in the vicinity of Percy Street and Canning Street had reported seeing a man murdering a woman by suffocating her with a bag at an upstairs window.
Each time the reports were made, the same address in Canning Street was given, and despite a thorough investigation of the premises, no such couple was ever found there.
In the end, the hard-boiled streetwise policemen reluctantly concluded that what people had in fact witnessed was perhaps the ghostly reenactment of a murder of bygone days - but whose murder has never been established.
Incidentally, the jeweller never touched alcohol again after that spooky incident, and was reconciled with his long-suffering wife.