In the 1970s, a Birkenhead man set out late one night to visit his critically-ill mother, who lived in Kensington. He drove through the Queensway Tunnel, and when he emerged in Liverpool city centre, he instantly encountered a thick fog which made driving hazardous. Being in a hurry, the driver threw caution to the wind and accelerated through the streets, almost coming to grief several times, and he was even pulled over by the police when he reached Brownlow Hill. Still, the motorist picked up speed once the police had cautioned him, and when he reached the district of Paddington, he took a wrong turn that cost him his life in a very horrific manner. Instead of turning left where Mount Vernon Road forks into Irvine Street and North View, the hasty driver continued straight on – into the oncoming traffic of a one-way street. He hit a lorry which smashed into his Ford Cortina and threw it over a hundred yards down the road, so it ended up on its side by Paddington Comprehensive School. The motorist survived the crash, but was trapped in his crumpled car, which suddenly burst into flames. Horrified bystanders watched the man scream as the flames roasted him alive. His face bubbled and dripped like melted plastic, and the accident victim stared wide-eyed in horror at the reflection of his fiery death in the rear-view mirror, which hung close to his face. Throughout all this, the jammed car horn sounded, and didn't stop until the trapped motorist was dead. Two teenaged girls who were returning from their friend's house on Smithdown Lane saw the man's shocking death from close quarters, and suffered nightmares as a result for many years. Whenever those girls caught a whiff of roasted meat from a barbecue, they would instantly recall the tragic death they had witnessed in Paddington.
About a year after the accident, again in a fog, the ghostly image of the blackened, crumpled Cortina was seen by several people (including two prostitutes) in the Paddington area one night around midnight. Then there were sinister reports from people who said they had encountered the ghost of the car crash victim. One motorist waiting at the lights on West Derby Street, mere yards from the scene of the accident, said he saw the figure of a man in his nearside mirror, apparently walking between cars. He was like a blackened skeleton with melted clothes upon him, and his face was grossly disfigured, blackened and red-raw. The fog added to the uncanny atmosphere of the encounter, and the motorist became so scared when the ghost approached his vehicle, he jumped the lights. Drinkers from the Mount Vernon also reported seeing the sickening phantom of the roasted car-crash victim one night, standing at the junction of Mason Street and Irvine Street. The man was holding his blackened face, which was hanging in shreds of skin, and motorists who were morbidly curious enough to slow down to get a better look at the apparition, said the ghastly ghost's face would cycle through many weird expressions as they watched. Another witness, who passed the figure on foot, said she thought it was a living person who was bent over, apparently looking for something by Paddington Comprehensive, until she saw the terrible injuries from a blaze on the figure's face and torso. She ran off in shock when she realised it was the ghost she had heard her sister talking about a few nights before.
One evening in 1979, two drinkers leaving the Bear's Paw public house, not far from the fatal car smash, saw a man wandering in the road, groaning, with his shirt and trousers melted into his flesh, and smoke pouring from his back and head. The man's face was extensively burnt so that his features were barely discernible. The two drinkers went to go to the man's aid, and one of them said he'd phone an ambulance. The man in the road suddenly started grinning, and his eyes were seen to light up. The drinkers soon sobered up and fled.
Sometimes, when its foggy, they say that a phantom car horn is heard in the Paddington and Kensington area, always at the same time, around midnight, and some believe its the horn of the ghostly car that crashed by the school all those years ago. If you're driving in the Paddington area tonight, keep your eyes peeled, especially if its foggy...

Copyright Tom Slemen 2010. All rights reserved.