Liverpool Days

George Harrison-Beatles Museum-Liverpool
Paul McCartney's House
Street where Paul McCartney Lived
Cavern-Liverpool
Docklands-Liverpool
George Harrison's home
John Lennon's home
Strawberry Fields
Terry and Dallas-"Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes...."
John Lennon-Beatles Museum
Beatles Town




July 23

Went out to Heathrow about 7.30am to meet Dallas. She arrived from Hong Kong around 9.30am –great to see her. Maurie and leigh arrived from London soon after and we picked up a rental car and set out for Liverpool. This was an interesting experience with Maurie driving a manual Vectra like a rally driver and a few navigation difficulties. Finally we headed in the right direction with Dallas and Jude navigating with unhelpful suggestions from myself-well, I thought I was being helpful. We ended up in the Cotswold area and had lunch at Chipping Norton, a little village Dallas and I have been through a couple of times before. Back on the road we headed for Liverpool on the M6. Arriving in Liverpool and trying to follow instructions as to how to find our accommodation proved tricky, but relative cool was maintained, especially by the driver and we finally arrived at the right place. We are not quite sure what pathway we took, and we have continued to find a different way to the apartment each time we move away from it by car.

This evening we walked into town for dinner, walked down to the dock area and the information centre to sort out a few things to do over the next few days.

July 24

This morning we wandered into town for breakfast and had a wee wander around the developments at the dock area. Liverpool has made a great job of redeveloping this area with apartments, shops, bars and restaurants.

At 11.00 we set out for Knowsley to meet Dave Roscoe , Director of the “:Schools for the Future” project. We spent about five hours with him as he discussed the project and shared a lot of very useful information with us. The programme involves building seven new schools (“Centres of Learning”) and developing a new curriculum and pedagogy at the same time that will be implemented in this area. It is a huge, ambitious project. Through their own work they have come up with a curriculum design that looks a lot like the NZ Curriculum, but have developed interesting new buildings that are a mix of flexible space and more conventional areas. In the process of developing the design they took a group of students around a range of buildings in Liverpool, businesses and other new projects, and asked the children what they liked. The two things the kids wanted most was to be treated like VIPs and to have comfortable furniture.

This was a great session and he has given us many useful resources, which I am sure we can use back in NZ.

We set off back to Liverpool and a slight concentration lapse had us back on the motorway towards London! However, this was quickly rectified after a 20km trip down the motorway and a turnaround on the first off ramp.

Arrived back at the apartment about 6.00pm, another route, without further trouble.

We had a few pre dinner drinks at the apartment and then dinner at a reasonably priced Italian restaurant.
Meeting with Dave Roscoe-Director of Future Schools Project-Knowsley

July 25.

This morning I tool some written material and stuff I did not need to the post office to send back to NZ rather than carry it all around Europe for the next five weeks. Like everything in England, postage was expensive, and I just about decided to not send it.

After breakfast we caught the tourist bus for a trip around Liverpool. This was a quick way to get a look at the city and to find out a little about it. There are an amazing number of very fine old buildings that reflect the early wealth of this city, which in fact was the second largest and wealthiest after London. Sadly many are blacked with time and pigeon poop. Some are now being restored and they look great. There is a lot of modern architecture and horrible 70’s stuff that reflects little effort to blend with the more classical style of the older architecture, and so stick out like a sore thumb.

After this trip we took the “Magical Mystery Tour” trip that took us to the areas where the Beatles grew up and based many of their songs on. We saw the homes of all of the Beatles, Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane and other sites such as schools, churches and church halls that formed part of their lives. It was interesting, a chance to look at different suburbs outside of the city a bit, and to see a bit more of the city. The tour guide was amusing and kept us well entertained.

After we returned from this trip we took the ferry across the Mersey, which took us down the harbour with an interesting commentary of developments, historical sites, and sites that no longer exist. It is a huge harbour and easy to see why there was so much wealth here, including being the major centre for the slave trade to America.

Next stop was the Beatle museum, truly a Beatles’ day. It is unusual that such an old city with so much history, is getting its tourist bucks from modern history-probably the only city in the world I can think of that is doing this. This museum on the dockland development is very interesting-well researched and excellent commentary and displays.Night out in Liverpool

We also visited the Cavern, rebuilt on the original site of the Cavern where the Beatles played along with all of the other Merseyside bands plus many more including the Rolling Stones, Bo Didley, John Lee Hooker and hundreds more. It continues to have live bands playing every night. Lots of statues, design work and pictures of the Beatles all around this area.Catholic Cathedral-Liverpool

We had dinner in a pub on the docks and then walked back up through town to our apartment. All of the Liverpool Institute of Arts graduates are in town tonight as they had their big graduation today. Lots of partying going on. Paul McCartney has put millions into LIPA to keep it going, soAnglican Cathedral-largest in the world

he apparently is at each graduation ceremony and so is somewhere in Liverpool tonight.

We have arrived back at the apartment, taking a breather and thinking about heading into town for a while, though Dallas has fallen asleep on the sofa, so not sure if this will happen.