Magical Mystery History Tour

by David Gourley

There was a time when I would have found the idea of having a weekend break in Liverpool ridiculous. The city did after all have, in the eighties, a rather poor image. This was in the wake of the Toxteth riots, the era of Derek Hatton and the Militant Tendency. Liverpool seemed to be a no-hope city, associated in the public mind with poverty, unemployment and bolshie trade unions. From my perspective as a resident of Surrey, Liverpool, as far as I could see, was the pits, to be ranked somewhere down with Lagos and Calcutta in the worldwide scale of cities one would love/hate to visit.

However, on a weekend break in Cheshire, a couple of years previously, Cathy and I had ventured into Liverpool, driving to West Kirby on the Wirral Peninsula, and then continuing on the underground railway into the centre of the city. Our specific purpose was to visit the Slavery Exhibition, part of the Maritime Museum in the Albert Dock complex. This was a moving experience and there was not time to do much else, once we’d looked round the rest of the Museum. 

But we had been struck by how different the city was from what we had imagined. For a start it has a handsome city centre. Then there is the Pier Head, which, with its three adjacent buildings, (the Royal Liver, Cunard, and Docks and Harbour Board buildings), provides one of the finest townscapes in Britain, one that inspired the architecture in the Bund, main thoroughfare in the sister port of Shanghai. The Albert Dock redevelopment is also very impressive. There was, we realized, a lot we hadn’t done in our short visit.

So, when we spotted, last year, an offer of a weekend break staying at the city’s Adelphi hotel, we decided to go for it. Nowadays this hotel is probably best known for being the subject of a TV docusoap. I’m not sure this did the Adelphi many favours but they mention it in their brochures. Whilst we were there the main star of the show, the formidable general manager, Eileen Downey, was on holiday but Brian, the affable catering manager, was around. We had in fact known about the Adelphi long before the TV documentary brought it to the nation’s attention. It is a historic place, a grand building which is one of the former railway-owned hotels, where people would stay overnight before sailing first-class to New York.

As this was a city centre holiday, we decided to dispense with our car and try our luck with the railways. I am a very strong critic of the way in which John Major’s government broke up the railways - and a critic of Tony Blair’s government for having done all but nothing to rectify the situation, with the railways if anything having got still worse. So it surprises me to find myself writing in complimentary terms about Virgin Rail. Generally rail travel in Britain is very expensive but there are bargains to be had. I ascertained that, if we booked ahead, a return from Euston to Liverpool could cost as little as £20. We decided to treat ourselves to first class, the cost still being only £60, a good deal less than an ordinary standard return.

Euston, that prime example of sixties brutalist architecture, pioneered the notion that rail passengers (or “customers” if you must) ought not to be mollycoddled, so should not be provided with seats. So it was a pleasure indeed to escape from the crowded concourse into the first class lounge, where we could sit down and enjoy complimentary coffee and newspapers. I was pleasantly surprised to find, on the train journey itself, that our fare included a complimentary breakfast (available only on weekdays). It was a good breakfast too, full English, served on decent china. It would be good to record that, as this was Virgin Rail, we arrived late in Liverpool - but honesty forces me to admit that we were right on time!

The Adelphi is just a stone’s throw from Lime Street Station. My verdict would be “nice hotel, shame about the staff”. On a subsequent holiday, we met a former British Rail manager who had been involved in the selling off of the railway hotels, imposed for ideological reasons by the Thatcher Government. He said that in the BR era, these hotels had been noted for the pride taken by staff in their jobs.

There was scant evidence of this in what is now officially called the Britannia Adelphi. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. The attitude of reception staff can vitally affect how one perceives a hotel. We were greeted, if that is the right word, by a young woman who barely looked at or spoke to us, let alone smiled. Whilst checking us in, she broke off to answer a phone call. That might have been unavoidable but courtesy might have dictated something along the lines of “I am sorry about that”, rather than carrying on exactly as before without even a glance in our direction.

This was not the last of our unsatisfactory experiences in this hotel but we did not of course let this spoil our weekend. We headed off straight away to the two Cathedrals, which are located a short walking distance from the city centre. Both were built in the 20th century. I am something of a traditionalist when it comes to cathedrals, so I do not, for example, much like the uncompromisingly modern one in my own county of Surrey, at Guildford. But Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral is magnificent and awe-inspiring. It is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of 20th century architecture in our country. It is huge and we spent a fair bit of time there. We ascended the Tower and here we were rewarded with fine views over the city, and across the Mersey to the Wirral (we had excellent weather throughout our stay).

The other side of Liverpool’s poor image in the 1980s was the close partnership in the city between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, and their respective bishops, David Sheppard and Derek Worlock. Together they worked to improve the lot of Britain’s inner cities in general and of Liverpudlians in particular (annoying in the process Mrs Thatcher). Yet this had once been a city noted for its sectarianism: “this could have been like Belfast,” a guide in the Anglican Cathedral told us. As if to underline this new spirit, the Anglican Cathedral was built by a Catholic and the Catholic one by a non-Catholic.

 The Catholic Cathedral is a short walk away. We needed rather less time to look round here, for it is of a more simple design and there are no towers to climb. It is more obviously modern, its Anglican counterpart having a traditional feel, for all that it is very recent. There is a memorial to Derek Worlock, who died a few years ago. David Sheppard now lives in retirement in the Wirral. Both these men, I feel, demonstrated what Christianity is really about. Their successors carry on their good work, though their public profile is not as high.

We spent so much time in the Cathedrals that there was little time left for further exploration of the city. We spent it in the pedestrianized shopping area. Cathy wanted to find a John Lewis. The nomenclature here is confusing: there is a Lewis’s store here but it has nothing to with the John Lewis chain. We were puzzled. A passer-by put us straight. John Lewis trade here as George Henry Lee - not exactly a name that trips off the tongue.

The day was spent doing what might be thought of as rather touristy things - and we thoroughly enjoyed it! First we made for Pier Head where we boarded one of the legendary ferries for a round trip. Nowadays these are run mainly for tourists but there is still a functional purpose, as there are two stops, on the other side of the river, respectively serving Wallasey and Birkenhead. The ferries were originally run by the councils of these once proudly independent towns, which nowadays are subsumed into the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. I have only been under Birkenhead i.e. on the metro, never actually in it. I have always imagined it to be a bit of a dump but apparently Hamilton Square, in the town centre, is a rather fine example of Victorian architecture. It was formerly the custom, on returning to Liverpool, to play a few bars of the Gerry and the Pacemakers classic Ferry Across the Mersey. This had ceased - apparently the staff had got fed up with hearing it. But because of complaints from disappointed visitors, Gerry is to be reinstated - and quite right, too!

We had lunch in the Maritime Museum. All too often meals in tourist establishments are overpriced and of indifferent quality, but here lunch was good and reasonably priced, and the service was friendly. We then headed for the Beatles Museum. This is in another part of the Albert Dock complex and we managed to get ourselves lost. This turned out to be a good thing for we stopped at an information point to get directions and the lady there told us that we could go on a Magical Mystery Tour to see parts of the city associated with the Beatles. We would not otherwise have known about this. There was still time to visit the Museum though we had to rush round somewhat. This was a pity as it is worth visiting, not just because of one’s specific interest in the Beatles but because, for someone of my age, it affords an opportunity, more generally, to wallow in nostalgia.

The Tour starts outside the Museum. When I saw the psychedelically painted bus I at first wondered whether this was really an “us” kind of thing to do! But the tour was fascinating. There was good banter between the driver and guide, themselves involved in the city’s music scene and acquainted with the Beatles, or at least some of them.

 We were now to find that Liverpool not only has a handsome centre, but it also has some very pleasant suburbs - areas such as Wavertree Village, Allerton and Woolton, where the Beatles grew up. Queens Drive, where Brian Epstein lived, is rather grand. So much for the image of Liverpool being hemmed in by ugly estates and dilapidated tower blocks such as the once notorious Piggeries. There are of course parts of the city, still, that have very serious problems but one doesn’t get to see them on this tour - the Beatles had essentially middle-class upbringings.

We really did have our photographs taken alongside the road sign in Penny Lane, nowadays painted on as the sign would otherwise be sure to disappear quickly. We then travelled the length of this thoroughfare, at the end of which is the “shelter in the middle of a roundabout” (nowadays a bistro named after Sergeant Pepper); the barbershop where the fireman who never wore a mac in the pouring rain rushed in; and the bank, a Lloyds TSB for the record, from where, presumably, he rushed. All this was indeed below, on this fine sunny day, “a blue suburban sky”. This gently satirical song about suburban life in the sixties somehow recalls more innocent times. Maybe most in my age group have their own Penny Lane, though it might not be called that, and it might not be in Liverpool.

The tour was fairly comprehensive, taking in places where the Beatles lived, including the fifth Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died before the group became famous. One can now go inside Paul McCartney’s onetime abode in Allerton, though we had to be content with seeing it from the outside. The house belongs to the National Trust and is being preserved, in a somewhat novel departure for them, as an authentic fifties residence.

The tour finishes in a hostelry back in the city centre, in the nicely preserved Cavern District; the eponymous Club, where the Beatles and others found fame, had once shut its doors but is thriving once more. There was time, just, for a quick visit to Chinatown, now guarded by a fine new arch presented by the city of Shanghai.

If our Saturday had had a ‘Beatles’ theme, rather a fun thing, Sunday’s was to be rather more sombre, the Slave Trade.

We started with a Slavery Walk, from the Maritime museum into the City Centre. Various buildings or streets associated with the slave trade are pointed out. Our guide, partly of African ancestry herself, had devoted much time to researching this subject and, very understandably, had strong feelings. The Slavery Museum, which we afterwards revisited, is a form of atonement by Liverpool, which, like Bristol, once derived considerable prosperity from the trade. There are streets which are named after men who presented themselves to their fellow citizens as good Christian gentlemen yet who took part in the Slave Trade. The Mayor of Liverpool had lately issued a formal apology for his city’s part in the slave trade. Some may regard this as a form of political correctness, but I would not agree.

The Museum was no less moving or thought-provoking this second time round. The Slave Trade is a dreadful blot on our country’s history - it might almost be said that it is our equivalent of the Holocaust. Countless died on the cruel transAtlantic journey alone. It is all too easy, even now, to think of slaves only en masse but the museum, with its authentic accounts by actual slaves, enables us to see that each captive was an individual, a sensitive, frightened, maybe very intelligent individual.

Today, Africa is generally regarded as something of a mess, politically. It is true that that the history of post-independence Africa has not, for the most part, been happy. This has a lot, in my view, to do with the fact that, even now, the continent is paying the price for the enslavement of so many of its people, and the resultant weakening of its societies.

After this, there was little more to do than have another good lunch in the Maritime Museum, pay a quick visit to the nearby Museum of Liverpool, and make our way back to the Station. Again, honesty obliges me to admit that the Virgin service ran on time!

First published in VISA issue 43 (November 2001)