Liverpool: Peter Pan, the Beatles and Paddy’s Wigwam

Last October when we were in Dublin we decided to hop on a flight to Liverpool. For $30 Cdn Ryanair whisked us over the English Channel, and I was still sucking my take-off mint when they announced our arrival at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport. Forty minutes after take-off we were standing under the first tribute to Liverpool’s most famous sons, the Beatles.  The airport's motto: Above Us Only Sky.

The Beatles are saints in Liverpool. A yellow submarine greeted us in the airport parking lot. The bus into town passed by hotels graced with larger-than-life statues of the famous four looking down on our bus just like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Beatles Story at Albert Dock and The Cavern where the Beatles played their first gig feature prominently on the tourist maps and Beatles souvenirs are for sale alongside rosary beads in the Catholic cathedral gift shop.

Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, or Paddy’s Wigwam as it is better known, was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Liverpool. Last time we were here we didn’t have time to check it out. It’s a wild place –the most unorthodox cathedral I've ever seen, more reminiscent of a sports stadium than a church. No sooner was it completed in 1967 that the round concrete monolith with a crowned spire started leaking. They patched up the roof and almost 50 years later, the church is still going strong with 2000 seats and no one less than 25 m from the altar, Below ground, next to, rather than under the cathedral, Lutyens Crypt is also worth checking out - advertised as the crypt of a cathedral that was never built (liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk)

Another reason I wanted to revisit Liverpool was to see their Peter Pan statue. Many people know the 1925 Peter Pan statue in Bowring Park is a replica of a statue in Kensington Gardens in London, England commissioned by JM Barrie.

But did you know that sculptor Sir George Frampton made six copies on three continents? It is my goal to visit all seven (see list below).

1912: London, England: Kensington Gardens

1924: Brussels, Belgium: Egmont Park

1925: St. John`s, NL: Bowring Park

1926: Camden, New Jersey: Johnson Park

1927: Perth, Australia: Queens Gardens

1928: Liverpool, England: Sefton Park

As you can see from the list, Liverpool was the final statue, made three years after Bowring Park’s. It sits next to a Victorian Palm House in beautiful Sefton Park, a double decker bus ride away from Liverpool’s Lime Street Station.

Other things to check out in Liverpool are the canals, the BBC store for Dr. Who paraphernalia and the huge multi-arch Chinese gate on Nelson Street that invites you to Chinatown.  All through the main parts of town, signs indicate which way to walk to various attractions and how many minutes it takes to walk to them. Most helpful.

Liverpudlians are friendly, but good luck with their Lancashire “scouse” accent that plum smacks you in the face as soon as your plane touches down. Luckily for me, my husband was born just down the road in the coal-mining town of Leigh so I had a leg up on our travelling companions who remained gobsmacked every time a Liverpudlian opened his mouth. Check out http://learn-english.wonderhowto.com/how-to/speak-with-liverpudlian-scouse-accent-424288/ to see how you’d get on in this Merseyside town.

Stay tuned for Susan's next Body Parts Blog