Trampshipman, thanks for taking the time to share your own local knowledge on the subject.
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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