World Heritage Sites
Listening to the warm-up to the Grand National today on Radio 5 this morning, it struck me that none of the UK’s historic racecourses are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Liverpool city centre is but surely one of Aintree, Ascot, Epsom and Newmarket should be listed.
After all Newmarket and the Heath have been associated with horses since the time of Boudicca. Newmarket is actually a corruption of New Horse Market. And every thoroughbred horse can trace its ancestry back to the small town in West Suffolk.
And when it comes to other places that should be listed, the Forth Bridge is rightly on the provisional list, but Joseph Balzalgette‘s historic London sewers are not!
Hope Street
When I was in Liverpool in the sixties, there was much more religious tension than there is today.
Part of the reason, was the leadership of the two great churchmen; David Sheppard and Derek Worlock. They are commemorated in this joint statue in Hope Street.
The Sheppard-Worlock Statue
Note how you can see the Anglian Cathedral in the picture. From behind, you can see the Roman Catholic one at other end of Hope Street.
The Sheppard-Worlock Statue from Behind
Incidentally, Derek Worlock was a coeliac. I have a feeling that rulings by the current Pope would mean that he couldn’t be ordained as a Catholic priest today. Religion should be about inclusion and tolerance and not the reverse.
A Very Emotional Day
Looking back on Thursday, I can now see how it was a very emotional day for me. But not in a dark and unhappy way, but more in a celebration of the happy times I have had in the past, and what despite the loss of my wife, C, and our third son, and the stroke, I can do in the future. Was I loosing the unhappy shackles of the past?
I think that truth be told, I was very worried about the lecture. But I was given a warm welcome and I have been told it went well. It is not for me to say, but I hope that I’ll do some similar things in the future.
The walk around Liverpool in the sun, brought back many happy memories of the first few years of my life with C.
If there was a blot on my day, it was that I behaved in a rather silly and almost rude way with the celebrity. I apologise to them unreservedly. I’ve also paid a self-imposed fine to Comic Relief.
So would C be proud of what I accomplished on Thursday?
She told me to be strong and carry on many times, as she lay in bed dying.
So at least I have done that!
The Bombed-Out Church
Liverpudlians always know St. Luke‘s as the bombed-out church.
Urban Strawberry Lunch now use the church as an event space, with music, films and other events.
When I go to Liverpool, I always walk up past St. Luke’s and pay my respects to all those who died in the Second World War.
I know C felt this was one of her favourite places and although I didn’t shed a tear this time, I did think of her when I passed. It may not be as well known as Coventry, but to me this church is an important memorial to those who died.
Coffee in Bold Street, Liverpool
I had a coffee in Starbucks in Bold Street as I walked around the city.
Starbucks in Bold Street, Liverpool
I have a feeling,that this building was a coffee shop in the 1960s, called something like La Bussola. There is nothing to indicate this and the helpful staff didn’t know anything.
However there is a plaque from a Merseyside Heritage Society saying that it was a very good restoration of the building.
Dedicated To All the Lonely People
Eleanor Rigby is one of the Beatle’s most famous songs and one of the few songs, with its own sculpture.
Eleanor Rigby, Stanley Street, Liverpool
The sculpture was created by Tommy Steele, who is better known as a rock-and-roll singer and musical performer. He gave the sculpture to the City of Liverpool in honour of the Beatles.
I sat for a few moments with Eleanor and thought of C, who never saw the modern Liverpool.
Around St. George’s Hall and Lime Street
After the lecture and a very good lunch, I walked back down the hill to the station, where I dumped my bag in the Left Luggage and then took these pictures of the area.
Archeecturally as in many other things, Liverpool is the second city in the UK and these pictures tell just a part of why.
A Sign on a Lift
I found this sign by the lifts in the Electrical Engineering building mildly funny.
A Sign on a Lift
I know what it means, but I suspect it does raise a chuckle with many.
Incidentally, these lifts were a butt of a lot of humour, when I was a student as they were always getting stuck. In one case they became a story about Liverpool University’s space program using a lift, launched from Cape Dingle.
UKAS Visit Day
Yesterday, as I walked up Brownlow Hill to the University. I saw this sign outside the Victoria Building.
UKAS Visit Day at Liverpool University
It was all so different, when I went in 1965. I was accepted by the university with no interview and the first time I went to the city was the day I arrived by train after a four and a half hour train journey from London and had to haul my heavy suitcase up the hill to get a bus to my digs.
Yesterday, as I did the same walk, I reflected on how far I’d come in those 46 years. The Catholic Cathedral was now of course finished and new buildings were lining Brownlow Hill.
And there was a welcoming notice on the doors of the Electrical Engineering building!
Welcome Sign
I liked that! C would have been proud.
The Anonymous Widower 