LJMU Research Online Gandy, RJ The Aintree Spectres http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/13985/ Article Citation (please note it is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from this work) Gandy, RJ (2020) The Aintree Spectres. Fortean Times (FT399). ISSN 0308- 5899 LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LJMU Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of the record. Please see the repository URL above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. For more information please contact [email protected] http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/ THE AINTREE SPECTRES There have been sightings of hooded, torch-brandishing figures in a field in Merseyside going back to World War II. But who or what are these Klan-like apparitions? Robed occultists? Scouse Klansmen? A secret Evangelical society? ROB GANDY investigates the strange case of the Aintree Spectres… ollowing my LEFT: Witnesses describe Strange Stories from hooded and robed figures Southport article carrying flaming torches, (FT370:42-45) I bringing to mind the Ku was contacted by Klux Klan in the US – but FGlen Preston (pseudonym) this was in Aintree, not in September 2018 Alabama... about some bizarre and frightening events that deceased) were driving had taken place over home from Fazakerley a number of years just around 9.30-10pm one outside the village of October or November Aintree, in the Merseyside night in the early 1970s borough of Sefton. The after their father had village is adjacent to –and collected their mother gives its name to – the from bingo. They crossed racecourse which annually Bull Bridge and saw, in hosts the famous Grand the same field to their National. 1 If you travel right, a dozen or so men north up Bull Bridge holding burning torches Lane and cross the River and wearing robes, some Alt at Bull Bridge on to with pointed hoods. They Spencer’s Lane, you will were standing in a circle, see a field immediately to as if involved in some the east (before Spencer’s sort of magical gathering. lane crosses the M57 The parents did not stop motorway). This was the for a closer look, but saw location of the following the group clearly through AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES strange events, which were the car windows. It was witnessed by members of fully dark at this time and Glen’s family and others. 2 Glen’s father later said that it would have They were wearing been impossible for the group not to have THE FIGURES IN THE FIELD been seen by the many dozens of people who Having missed the last bus one early Autumn used the road. Despite this, his enquiries night in either 1967 or 1968, Glen’s older greyish robes with over the next few days as to whether or not brother Jeff (pseudonym), then in his late anyone else had seen the group were met teens, was walking over Bull Bridge heading pointed hoods and with blank looks. He had quite expected it to for the family home on Spencer’s Lane. It be the talk of the village and was perplexed was 11-11.30pm and the night was clear. This marching in line by the fact that seemingly no one else had was in the days before the M57 motorway seen it. He later wondered if perhaps it had had been built (the local stretch only opened been some sort of Hallowe’en event, but in 1972) and there was no street lighting to abreast in line, like soldiers. Understandably, seemed to think that the date would have dispel the total darkness. It was at this point Jeff was frightened and ran to his home to been either too early or too late for this. that Jeff noticed lights to his right, about 150 get his father out of bed. They went to the Sometime later, quite by chance and yards away in the field. What he saw was a upstairs back bedroom window and could unprompted by Glen, the father of one of his group of roughly nine men carrying bright, still see the torch-lit procession over the friends (a security guard at the BICC works burning torches and walking along the bank fields. Jeff was very scared, mainly because in Melling), told him of seeing the same, or of the River Alt, heading away from him, he did not know who or what the procession a similar, strange gathering while travelling southeast towards Fazakerley. They were was, and decided to sleep on his parents’ that stretch of road on his moped during the wearing greyish robes with pointed hoods, bedroom floor. early hours of the morning. similar in shape to those worn by the Ku There was a sequel to this strange Of course, perhaps all the witnesses had Klux Klan (KKK), and marching two or three sighting. Glen recalls that their parents (now seen was a group of people with lighted 36 FT399 www.forteantimes.com LEFT: Looking from the Bull Bridge over the River Alt; the field is clearly visible to the left of the picture, the roofs of nearby houses to the right. torches and robes messing about in a field. above. Her testimony was as follows: witnesses naturally inferred a paranormal However, in the late 1980s, Glen’s father was source, but what is striking is how long Jeff chatting to an old friend of his over a drink It was about 7pm one evening around Preston saw the spectres for on the night in at the Horse & Jockey pub in Melling. His Christmas 40 or so years ago, which would question; for Jeff to run home the best part friend had long since emigrated to Canada, place it in the mid to late 1970s. I was in our of 700m (2,300ft) and wake his father and for but was back in the country revisiting family car with my husband and young daughter them to then see the procession would have and friends. The conversation turned to the travelling back to our home in Melling, having taken many minutes. Paranormal events subject of the supernatural, and so Glen’s been to see my mother-in-law in the Fazakerley usually tend to be quite transient and short father started to relate his sighting of the area. It was very dark and it was misty. in duration. The fact that the spectres all group with torches and robes. Before he had We crossed Bull Bridge on to Spencer’s Lane behaved like people dressed up – rather got very far, his old friend interjected, saying when immediately to our left, and close to the than performing fantastical feats or fading that he knew exactly what he was going to road, we saw a group of people all dressed in from sight in a ghostly way – suggests a flesh- say. He went on to relate that he had seen light outfits that looked like those worn by and-blood explanation. But given that the exactly the same sight when cycling back the Ku Klux Klan! There were around half a field is so large and open, and also close to a from a dance late one night, but he had dozen of them (although it might have been busy road and housing, any group of people observed the event from the Leeds-Liverpool as few as four or as many as eight – it was undertaking the activities described would Canal on the other side of the field. difficult to judge in the circumstances and surely have expected to be readily observed Significantly, the time when he had seen the given that we passed them at a normal driving and challenged, not least by the police and/ torch-bearing group had occurred during speed of around 30mph). Their appearance or the farmer whose field it was. If it were the early stages of World War II when strict was very scary, and a bit spooky, and they some clandestine or magical group, then how blackout procedures were in force – which looked as though they were getting ready to do did the participants get there, as in none of was well over 40 years earlier. something. My immediate reaction was ‘What the events described was there reference to are they up to!?’ None of them appeared to be a series of cars parked at the side of the road MAPPING THE MYSTERY carrying anything, and there were definitely no by the field? If any group was undertaking Naturally I was keen to establish whether lights or torches. Naturally, we did not stop to some magical ritual, then there must be there were other witnesses to these types investigate, as we were very, very frightened. something particular and special about the of events, and my friends at the Champion I am a lifelong resident of Melling and was field for them to (a) keep returning and (b) newspaper 3 included a piece in the Aintree in my 30s at the time. I have seen nothing like place themselves at such risk of observation.