Aug 19th. Today we visited my uncle Jack and aunt Barb. They drove us around to see the places where my Dad and my uncle lived in the ‘Pool. One of the houses they lived in burned down and they were bombed out of the other one. The latter was near the rail lines, and given Liverpool’s importance as a port city, the rail lines leading to and from the port were bombed on more than one occasion. This house was half a block from the train tracks. Of course all is rebuilt today. The last one we saw was out in a “new development”. I guess the city had built this neighbourhood for low income families that were bombed out, and moved many of them out there with the promise that things would be better there. Not surprisingly they were not. Apparnently there was just one little store (in a bus, if you can believe it) and a pub for the entire neighbourhood, so they were forced to go all the way to the city centre for groceries and other things they needed. It wasn’t a happy area even today, and still had a mobile “food” store parked in the middle, only this time it was a corrugated metal portable building. I’ve always known that things were tough for my Dad, his brothers and sisters and my grandmother, but phrases like “If your Dad’s family were together today, they would have their own social worker” paint a pretty good picture. Apparently my grandfather cashed some tax rebates that my uncle had recieved in the mail (they had the same first and last names) and never told him about it! “Not happy times”, as my aunt Lynn said.
On a happier note, we saw the schools where my Dad went – The Calderstones (same school as John Lennon) and the Blue Coats, a posh school for the brightest students (nice going, Dad!). We went for a nice walk in Calderstones park and went through almost the entire park in search of the 1000 year old oak tree. Nobody remembered exactly where it was, and everyone we asked kind of knew but wasn’t certain. It wasn’t on the map either, but eventually we found it. It is propped up and would have otherwise have fallen down since the middle is all rotted out, but is still alive and producing acorns! Its also not very tall, but its massive! I think that’s the oldest living thing I have ever seen. There were a variety of gardens including a “tree garden” with various types of trees, a rock garden, and a Japanese garden. The Japanese garden was very nice. We also saw some some “wood pigeons” and real English Lavendar which smelled heavenly. By this point we had “walked the legs off” my poor uncle, so it was off home for lunch. We saw John Lennon’s house (outside only) on the way to my aunt and uncle’s place.
After lunch, my uncle told us about when he was at sea. Being a boy in a port city, the desire to go to sea was irresistable. Because he was too young to get a job, his first attempted journey to sea was as stowaway, but he never made it out of the Mersey. Eventually he got a job working for he Royal Mail and went to Panama, Brazil, California, Vancouver (!) and many Carribean islands. He also worked for an oil comapny and visited the Persian Gulf (they were never allowed to go on land though, and he said that was the most boring bit). He had a lot of photos which was really neat to see. He was also the one who brought back the infamous family parrot, which if I remember correctly, swore and would yell “there’s nobody home, go away” when someone knocked on the front door.
My uncle was quite tired by now, so they sent us back to Lynn and Fred’s place, who took us out to see the two cathedrals of Liverpool. On the way we stopped at the Williamson Tunnels, which was closed. We visited the Catholic cathedral first (nicknamed the Mersey Funnel because of its roof that makes it look like an up-side down funnel). There was a wedding going on so we just peeked in the doors, but it was very striking. The “funnel” part is all stained glass and the sun shines through it and lights up the colours like crazy. Due to technical problems, Fred had to go back home and Lynn took us to the Philharmonic Pub, the former gentleman’s club across from the opera. Its open to all these days, including Canadian tourists. The interoir is oak and glass and it even has stained glass windows. And not to be forgotten are the marble urinals in the Men’s WC. Fred caught up with us and we headed off to the Anglican cathedral next.
If there is one word to describe this building, it would be big. Here are the statistics, from their website:
Liverpool Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Britain.
Length: 619 feet
Area: 104,275 sq. feet
Choir Vault: 116 feet
Nave Vault: 120 feet
Height of Tower: 331 feet
Under Tower Vault: 175 feet
Tower Arches: 107 feet
The bells have the highest and heaviest peal in the world.
There are two pipe organs in Liverpool Cathedral. The Grand Organ is the largest in the UK and probably the largest operational organ in the world.
The organ has 9765 pipes.
Like I said, big. And impressive. It took 74 years to build and my Dad says that it was always under construction when he was a kid.
They took us downtown and we visited the library but unfortunately the museum next door was closed. We ran to the central shopping area and bought a gift for Tyler in the Liverpool Football Club store as a thank you for taking care of our mice while we were gone.
After this we went home for supper. Fred asked us what we wanted to do for dinner and since he had been telling us about the “chippy” the entire time, we were curious and wanted to experience it for ourselves. The chippy, or chip shop, appears to be a neighbourhood installment in England. If you go along the main street of any town, you will see about 5 of them, and there is one in every subdivision. They are little walk-in stores that are either take-away only or mostly take-away but have a few tables for eating in. They have a menu of about 100 items, everything from the standard fish & chips to 20 kinds of kebabs, 15 kinds of curries, 50 types of chinese dishes, and so forth. Because we were going around supper time, there was a very large line – everyone who doesn’t want to eat out or cook is at the chippy buying supper! We got fish and chips and mushy peas, although Fred said that they usually buy the fish and make their own chips since the chip shop chips are quite bad. Strange, but true – they were soggy. I experienced this in Harlow too. But the fish was great and it was a very enjoyable meal.
We were taking the overnight bus to London, which left the station at 11:40 PM so we had some time to kill. They showed us videos of the Liverpool Overhead Railway which is gone now. After that, they saw us off at the bus station, but the ride to London is another story.
Before the Liverpool story ends, there is more to say. First of all, its too bad we didn’t have more time to visit. Apparently we were not that far from the Lake District, which would have been really nice to visit. Also, the story behind the Liver birds is unforgettable. I’m very glad I was able to go and visit some of my family there, and seeing the places my Dad lived in, went to school in and played in was really good. I can just imagine him getting into all sorts of trouble in Sefton Park.
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