Trampshipman, thanks for taking the time to share your own local knowledge on the subject.
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It does seem odd that, having been born and raised in the area, you never encountered any local stories about Old Trash (or Guy Trash/Gytrash as mentioned Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre). My original source for the tale came from Peter Underwood's 1984 book
This Haunted Isle and I came on Yo Liverpool having drawn a blank when searching for further Formby specific material concerning Black Dogs (which, as Fortinian and Oudeis point out, are a long standing staple of British folklore. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dog_%28ghost%29).
knowhowe's experience was shocking but not overtly supernatural, so far as I remember him saying. It wasn't until he read my post that he made any connection any local legend. I found no accounts of the legend in Formby pre-dating Underwood's reference but he is generally considered to be a reliable source in matters of folklore and ghostlore (see
http://www.peterunderwood.org.uk/index.htm) so I pretty much took him at his word. Checking the entry I see that he may have got his data from a local newspaper sometime in late October... which might explain a thing or two. From the way you describe you're upbringing, it does seem highly unlikely that you would not have heard of such a legend if there was one in the area. Highly unlikely but, I am willing to believe, not entirely impossible.
merseywail, when I'm writing on matters of folklore, I always do my very best to back everything I'm saying up with as many footnotes and references as possible. I'm always open and honest about where I get my material from and I'm infinitely more interested in the cultural and historical routes of tales rather than turning them into a twist laden yarn. As a result, I kind of resent being lumped in with anyone else who happens to write on similar subjects without you're having actually read my book or any of my articles. I write fiction for a living, I write about local history and folklore as an entirely separate thing.
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