Kindred Spirits
Horror Stories - Kindred Spirits
This is a weird, but touching story which allegedly took place in the Dingle area of Liverpool, England in the early 1980s. The case has been investigated by a staggering number of paranormal investigators, and yet the tale has had no publicity at all - until now. It is the story of a lonely old bachelor named John Blythe.
John Blythe was born in 1907 in Aigburth district of Liverpool. Even from an early age, Mr Blythe realised he could see things his four older brothers and two sisters couldn't see. One of his earliest memories was a smiling, kind-looking man with a long beard rocking his cradle. Years later, when he was seven, John Blythe saw a portrait of the bearded man in his mother's bedroom, and he was told that the man was his granddad who had died in 1902 - five years before John had been born. In other words, a ghost had rocked John's cradle.
At the age of 13, when John's school friends were discovering the opposite sex, John told his puzzled mother that he had sent a love letter to the beautiful auburn-haired girl across the road. John asked his mother if she knew the girl's name. Mrs Blythe said that there was no girl living in the house opposite, just two old brothers. It soon transpired that the love-struck teenager was infatuated - with the ghost of a girl who had committed suicide at the house across the street forty years before. Almost every day John would go missing for hours, and return late each night, all dewy-eyed, telling his parents that he had just walked Emily home.
John's intrigued parents asked the boy where he had been on his 'date', and their blushing son told them that he had been walking hand-in-hand with Emily around the Palm House in Sefton Park. Mrs Blythe was naturally worried about her son's tales, and rather than believe that he was courting a phantom, she surmised that he was just confused and fantasising the episodes he'd mentioned. But one day, John Blythe came home in tears. He said that Emily would be 'going away' soon because her house was to be demolished. John said that Emily wouldn't be able to live in the new house that would be built over her one. And sure enough, just under a year later, the house facing John Blythe's was condemned and knocked down. John was devastated, and almost starved to death because the heartbroken teenager refused to eat.
Around this time, an elderly man who heard about John's so-called imaginary girlfriend confirmed that a girl named Emily Webster did once live at the house that stood facing the Blythes house. The girl in question hanged herself from the stairs after discovering that her fiancee intended to marry another girl.
During the Second World War, John Blythe served in the Irish Guards, but refused to shoot at the enemy. Whenever he confronted the German troops he would fire over their heads. He was almost discharged from his platoon because the sergeant thought he was insane when private Blythe threw up his arms after saying there were Germans closing in all around. Minutes later, over two hundred bodies of German troops were found scattered in the next field. Blythe said that he had mistaken the bewildered ghosts wandering the field for living German soldiers. Blythe's eerie comments naturally put the wind up the other platoon members, and his sergeant told him to shut up about his weird experiences in future.
John Blythe continued to live in this world and the next one for the next forty years, and was often misunderstood and sneered at because of his talk about the 'invisible society' of kindred spirits that was all around us. He finally moved into a terraced house in Colebrooke Road in the Dingle area of Liverpool, and at this final residence old John Blythe happily settled down with his family; a family of assorted ghosts, that is.
John's nephews and nieces regarded their old uncle as an eccentric but loveable soul, and constantly advised him to move into sheltered accommodation. But Mr Blythe said he was happy with his 'spirit-wife' Deliah, who had departed the world of the living in 1900. The other members of Mr Blythe's adopted phantom family were Edward Goode, a refined top-hatted Victorian gent who was fascinated by the television set and the telephone, and Mrs Ludwig, an old German maid who had also lived at the house in the 19th century. There were two other family members, and they were the 12-year-old twins Thomas and Alice, but they were always moving backwards and forwards between this world and the hereafter for some reason.
John Blythe's living nephews and nieces obviously assumed that there uncle was going senile and making all the tales of his spirit family up. But something later took place which made everyone have second thoughts about the family of ghosts. In March 1980, John Blythe tripped and fell down the stairs at his Dingle home. He lay unconscious at the foot of the stairs with blood dripping from a gash to his forehead and a badly-broken arm. He most probably would have died there, if someone hadn't telephoned Mr Blythe's nephew, Steven.
Steven's phone rang incessantly at 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, and when the young man answered, an excited, well-spoken voice said: "Please send help. I beseech you to send assistance, for Mr Blythe has suffered a terrible fall at his home."
Steven thought the call was a prank, as he didn't recognise the caller's voice, and so he said: "Who is this?" And the caller replied: "My name is Edward, and I live at Mr Blythe's address. Please come at once or he will not be long for this world!"
Steven said: "Look, if this is some - "
But the caller hung up.
Steven hastily got dressed and drove from his Knotty Ash home all the way to the Colebrooke Street house. He hammered on the knocker but could get no answer. He pushed back the flap of the letterbox and saw something that he was to remember for the rest of his life. A concerned-looking man in a black outdated suit and a long top hat was crouched over a man slumped at the foot of the steps. Steve saw that the man on the floor was his Uncle. Nearby two twins were giggling and pointing at the inert-looking Mr Blythe. They were a boy and a girl of about 10 or 12 years of age, dressed in matching royal blue satin outfits embroidered with pearls.
Steven shouted "Hey! What's going on. Open the door." And he stood back and waited. But the door never opened. Steven looked through the letterbox - and saw that the top-hatted stranger and the twins were nowhere to be seen. Mr Blythe's nephew backed up and charged at the door. He did this three more times, and the neighbours of the adjoining houses came out to see what the racket was about on this sunny Sunday morning. When they learned that Mr Blythe was unconscious, the neighbours also put their weight behind the door, which finally yielded.
An ambulance was called for, and Mr Blythe was taken to hospital. In his hospital bed, the old man asked his nephew how he had known about the fall down the stairs. Steven said that a mysterious man named Edward had telephoned him. Mr Blythe gave a broad smile, then said: "He finally did it then."
"Did what?" one of the old man's niece's asked.
Mr Blythe tried to explain. He said: "Mr Goode was always trying to use the telephone. He was absolutely intrigued by the workings of it, but he used to hold the receiver upside down and couldn't dial properly. He must have called you."
Sadly, Mr Blythe passed away in his sleep on Christmas Eve of that year. Strangely enough, the sounds of a woman laughing were heard in his bedroom that night when his nephews visited him. Perhaps it was Mr Blythe's spectral wife Deliah, overjoyed because her husband had crossed over to join her in the spirit world. And here's the strange epilogue to this incredible story.
In 1996, one of Mr Blythe's niece's phoned up a certain highly-rated medium being featured on a local Liverpool radio station. She asked the psychic if there was anybody on the "other side" with any messages for her. The psychic said "Your uncle John is over there. He said something about a house in the Dingle and that he's with his wife Deliah and the twins. The funny thing I'm picking up is that these people go way, way back."
Mr Blythe's niece was absolutely shocked at the medium's comments.
The radio psychic then said: "Who's Edward? He keeps saying something about a telephone."
John Blythe was born in 1907 in Aigburth district of Liverpool. Even from an early age, Mr Blythe realised he could see things his four older brothers and two sisters couldn't see. One of his earliest memories was a smiling, kind-looking man with a long beard rocking his cradle. Years later, when he was seven, John Blythe saw a portrait of the bearded man in his mother's bedroom, and he was told that the man was his granddad who had died in 1902 - five years before John had been born. In other words, a ghost had rocked John's cradle.
At the age of 13, when John's school friends were discovering the opposite sex, John told his puzzled mother that he had sent a love letter to the beautiful auburn-haired girl across the road. John asked his mother if she knew the girl's name. Mrs Blythe said that there was no girl living in the house opposite, just two old brothers. It soon transpired that the love-struck teenager was infatuated - with the ghost of a girl who had committed suicide at the house across the street forty years before. Almost every day John would go missing for hours, and return late each night, all dewy-eyed, telling his parents that he had just walked Emily home.
John's intrigued parents asked the boy where he had been on his 'date', and their blushing son told them that he had been walking hand-in-hand with Emily around the Palm House in Sefton Park. Mrs Blythe was naturally worried about her son's tales, and rather than believe that he was courting a phantom, she surmised that he was just confused and fantasising the episodes he'd mentioned. But one day, John Blythe came home in tears. He said that Emily would be 'going away' soon because her house was to be demolished. John said that Emily wouldn't be able to live in the new house that would be built over her one. And sure enough, just under a year later, the house facing John Blythe's was condemned and knocked down. John was devastated, and almost starved to death because the heartbroken teenager refused to eat.
Around this time, an elderly man who heard about John's so-called imaginary girlfriend confirmed that a girl named Emily Webster did once live at the house that stood facing the Blythes house. The girl in question hanged herself from the stairs after discovering that her fiancee intended to marry another girl.
During the Second World War, John Blythe served in the Irish Guards, but refused to shoot at the enemy. Whenever he confronted the German troops he would fire over their heads. He was almost discharged from his platoon because the sergeant thought he was insane when private Blythe threw up his arms after saying there were Germans closing in all around. Minutes later, over two hundred bodies of German troops were found scattered in the next field. Blythe said that he had mistaken the bewildered ghosts wandering the field for living German soldiers. Blythe's eerie comments naturally put the wind up the other platoon members, and his sergeant told him to shut up about his weird experiences in future.
John Blythe continued to live in this world and the next one for the next forty years, and was often misunderstood and sneered at because of his talk about the 'invisible society' of kindred spirits that was all around us. He finally moved into a terraced house in Colebrooke Road in the Dingle area of Liverpool, and at this final residence old John Blythe happily settled down with his family; a family of assorted ghosts, that is.
John's nephews and nieces regarded their old uncle as an eccentric but loveable soul, and constantly advised him to move into sheltered accommodation. But Mr Blythe said he was happy with his 'spirit-wife' Deliah, who had departed the world of the living in 1900. The other members of Mr Blythe's adopted phantom family were Edward Goode, a refined top-hatted Victorian gent who was fascinated by the television set and the telephone, and Mrs Ludwig, an old German maid who had also lived at the house in the 19th century. There were two other family members, and they were the 12-year-old twins Thomas and Alice, but they were always moving backwards and forwards between this world and the hereafter for some reason.
John Blythe's living nephews and nieces obviously assumed that there uncle was going senile and making all the tales of his spirit family up. But something later took place which made everyone have second thoughts about the family of ghosts. In March 1980, John Blythe tripped and fell down the stairs at his Dingle home. He lay unconscious at the foot of the stairs with blood dripping from a gash to his forehead and a badly-broken arm. He most probably would have died there, if someone hadn't telephoned Mr Blythe's nephew, Steven.
Steven's phone rang incessantly at 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, and when the young man answered, an excited, well-spoken voice said: "Please send help. I beseech you to send assistance, for Mr Blythe has suffered a terrible fall at his home."
Steven thought the call was a prank, as he didn't recognise the caller's voice, and so he said: "Who is this?" And the caller replied: "My name is Edward, and I live at Mr Blythe's address. Please come at once or he will not be long for this world!"
Steven said: "Look, if this is some - "
But the caller hung up.
Steven hastily got dressed and drove from his Knotty Ash home all the way to the Colebrooke Street house. He hammered on the knocker but could get no answer. He pushed back the flap of the letterbox and saw something that he was to remember for the rest of his life. A concerned-looking man in a black outdated suit and a long top hat was crouched over a man slumped at the foot of the steps. Steve saw that the man on the floor was his Uncle. Nearby two twins were giggling and pointing at the inert-looking Mr Blythe. They were a boy and a girl of about 10 or 12 years of age, dressed in matching royal blue satin outfits embroidered with pearls.
Steven shouted "Hey! What's going on. Open the door." And he stood back and waited. But the door never opened. Steven looked through the letterbox - and saw that the top-hatted stranger and the twins were nowhere to be seen. Mr Blythe's nephew backed up and charged at the door. He did this three more times, and the neighbours of the adjoining houses came out to see what the racket was about on this sunny Sunday morning. When they learned that Mr Blythe was unconscious, the neighbours also put their weight behind the door, which finally yielded.
An ambulance was called for, and Mr Blythe was taken to hospital. In his hospital bed, the old man asked his nephew how he had known about the fall down the stairs. Steven said that a mysterious man named Edward had telephoned him. Mr Blythe gave a broad smile, then said: "He finally did it then."
"Did what?" one of the old man's niece's asked.
Mr Blythe tried to explain. He said: "Mr Goode was always trying to use the telephone. He was absolutely intrigued by the workings of it, but he used to hold the receiver upside down and couldn't dial properly. He must have called you."
Sadly, Mr Blythe passed away in his sleep on Christmas Eve of that year. Strangely enough, the sounds of a woman laughing were heard in his bedroom that night when his nephews visited him. Perhaps it was Mr Blythe's spectral wife Deliah, overjoyed because her husband had crossed over to join her in the spirit world. And here's the strange epilogue to this incredible story.
In 1996, one of Mr Blythe's niece's phoned up a certain highly-rated medium being featured on a local Liverpool radio station. She asked the psychic if there was anybody on the "other side" with any messages for her. The psychic said "Your uncle John is over there. He said something about a house in the Dingle and that he's with his wife Deliah and the twins. The funny thing I'm picking up is that these people go way, way back."
Mr Blythe's niece was absolutely shocked at the medium's comments.
The radio psychic then said: "Who's Edward? He keeps saying something about a telephone."
