The sad spectre of Smithdown Road - A true and scary story

- THE SAD SPECTRE OF SMITHDOWN ROAD -

Tom Slemen's True Ghostly Tales

The following spooky incident happened in Liverpool, England in the early 1990s, and was even reported in the Liverpool Echo.

One morning, around 4 a.m., a 24-year-old man named Alan was walking home from a pub in Smithdown Road. There had been a stay-behind at the pub because the landlady had become engaged, and Alan felt quite drunk. He was walking along near Sefton General hospital, which is situated in Smithdown Road. Alan noticed a girl standing on the pavement outside the hospital near a bus stop. She wore an incredibly short dress with a revealing top, and had long blonde hair. She looked about 19 or 20, and Alan assumed she was waiting for a taxi. She just stood there, shivering, stamping her high heels with the cold.

"You're not on the game are you?" Alan joked, attempting to chat her up.

The girl smiled and shook her head. "I'm dead cold." she complained.

Alan saw his opportunity, and he took off his denim jacket and offered it to the girl. He said, "Who said chivalry was dead?"

The girl took it and said, "Ta mate." And then put it on. It looked ridiculous on the girl; it was about three sizes too large for her.

"Waiting for a taxi?" Alan asked her.

"No. Waiting for my boyfriend." said the girl, and looked down Smithdown Road, squinting as she looked intensely for a sign of her fiance.

Alan's heart sank. He thought, 'Just my luck. She's going with someone.'

The girl said, "Oh he does my head in you know; I've been waiting here for ages. He always does this."

"Does what?" Alan asked.

"Says he's gonna pick me up and then doesn't turn up." said the girl.

"Get another boyfriend who's more reliable then." Alan said, giving her the hint.

"Nah, I love Tony." said the girl, and she smiled and seemed to be thinking about her absent fellah.

"But does he love you?" said Alan, and he burped, then said, "scuse me."

"Oh I suppose he's not coming." moaned the girl, and with a worried look, she said to Alan, "I wonder if something's happened to him?"

"No, he's probably with some girl. We fellahs are only human y'know, despite our alien appearance." said Alan, trying to cheer her up.

The girl tutted and walked along. Alan walked with her, looking at her legs and her figure.

She was a real stunner. "What's your name?"

"Jodie." said the girl.

"Ooh, Jodie Foster eh? My name's Alan. My mates call me Alan Ladd."

Jodie smiled and walked on. Then she bowed her head as if she was gonna cry or be sick or something. She ran into Toxteth Park Cemetery.

Alan surmised she was either gonna be sick with drinking, or she was going to powder her nose. He wanted to relieve himself too after all the drinking.

After about 10 minutes, Alan shouted into the darkness of the cemetery, "Jodie! Jodie? Are you okay?" And he crept past the gravestones looking for her. There was no sign of the girl. He expected to find her on the ground, out cold with drinking, yet she hadn't appeared drunk. By now it was almost dawn, and the sky was getting paler by the minute. Then he thought he saw Jodie. "You had me worried there girl. Eh?" It wasn't Jodie. It was his Denim jacket, draped over a gravestone. "What's she playing at?" mumbled Alan. Then he saw Jodie's face, on the gravestone. A photograph of Jodie to be precise. And underneath the oval photograph the inscription said she had been born in 1970 and had died tragically in 1990 - just six months back. Alan was terrified by now. He ran out of the cemetery in Smithdown Road and didn't stop running until he reached his home almost a mile away. He fell down on his doorstep when he got home and his trembling hand inserted the key in the Yale lock.

A week later, he told his two best friends about the ghost he had tried to chat up, and Brian, one of Alan's mates said his sister had been a friend of Jodie. Brian told the sad story. Jodie had arranged to meet her boyfriend near the bus stop at Sefton General hospital on Smithdown Road, but something tragic happened. Jodie had a hole in her heart and didn't know. She collapsed near the bus stop and died. People tried to help her and took her into the hospital but there was nothing anyone could do. Jodie's parents phoned her boyfriend and told him the bad news, and he vowed he'd never drive up Smithdown Road again, he was that upset. And to this day, he never drives near the road.

On the following night, Alan and his mate Brian walked to Jodie's grave and placed a bouquet of carnations on it, as Brian's sister said carnations had been Jodie's favourite flowers. As the lads walked away from the cemetery, Alan glanced back, and he saw Jodie waving. The ghost is still occasionally seen by motorists driving up Smithdown Road in the early hours of the morning. As recently as 1996, a taxi driver stopped for the girl one morning at 3 a.m., and when he looked around the pavement was deserted...