Liverpool Central Library

There's nothing like a good catchy name for making something memorable. Having been brought up in Liverpool and been involved professionally many years ago with the Library, Museum and Art Gallery which were three joined or adjacent buildings on William Brown Street owned by Liverpool City Council I knew the three edifices simply as The Musuem, The Central Library but always the Walker Art Gallery. I have discovered over the years since that one only has to mention "The Walker" in art circles and someone in the company will know it well.

The Central Library had a magnificent circular reading room called The Picton Reading Room. Most of the Library has been completely revamped in recent years to bring it into the digital age. However, the magnificent Picton Library remains, as always, a haven of peace and tranquillity in the modern world. 

Liverpool University had many libraries open for studying in but when I was there the beautiful new Arts Library with it's adjacent lawns had just opened and I wrote many an essay seated looking longingly at students basking in the summer sun outside.  Later when I was studying at the Liverpool Polytechnic (a mass of dislocated buildings in the city which had been the College of Commerce and the Technical College etc) there was no library that I can recall and I often retired to The Picton instead.

The Picton Reading Room from William Brown Street

The Picton: no pen and paper these days

The Picton: a better idea of its magnificance

The incredible, and beautiful, interior of the new Central Library

Jon (now John) Sergeant

Many many moons ago in a previous incarnation when I was a young officer in the department of the Town Clerk of Liverpool (for those who live outside Britain or are younger than about 50, that was the legal and administrative department of local government) I was at a luncheon sitting next to a young (and ferociously bright) Jon (now John) Sergeant who was a reporter with the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo. It was an inspection of some of the Corporations assets.

The other day I came across his book 'Give Me Ten Seconds' published in 2001 which I read some years ago. Coincidentally I also came across a photograph taken after the luncheon when the Liverpool Corporation bus which was taking everyone on the inspection broke down.

So the ferociously bright Oxford PPE graduate witnessed some of those who would become Liverpool's great and good (and me) push starting a Leyland Atlantean double decker bus.

Thankful Thursday

Today I was thankful for a very small thing:  the ability to spend the afternoon in the garden doing some last-minute re-potting and sorting of the plants into their place for the winter whilst I'm away in NZ.  It's not all finished but the majority of the work is done and the garage has been sorted as well so that the Nighthawk can be put into it.  Of course it doesn't stay there for the whole of the six months.  Dave takes it out for a run occasionally just to keep everything ticking and to make sure nothing seizes up.  Mind you so far as the battery is concerned ever since I invested in a CTEK MXS battery charger, which remains attached to the battery whenever it is garaged, the old problem of the alarm draining the battery no longer applies.

Being thankful for that doesn't make for an even vaguely interesting post though so I thought I'd post a few pictures from CJ's and my Liverpool visit to the gardens and recreation area adjoining Liverpool One.

Doesn't everyone play table tennis after shopping? 

Entertainment for the littlies (and their parents/grandparents)

This reminded me of days in Berlin where chess-in-the-park seemed common

Relaxing in the sun (everyone seems to be wearing Tilly Hats now)

If You Like Ice Cream

Then what better way of buying one in Liverpool than from a Really Old Van?  The first is a Bradford and the last a Citroen and I the grill of the middle one is reminiscent of the old Ford Popular but I'm not 100% sure.

Liverpool One Water Feature

When CJ and I went to Liverpool in August Cj showed me Liverpool One: a 42 acre (170,000 m²) redevelopment of underutilised land in Liverpool city centre. It is a retail led development, anchored by department stores Debenhams and John Lewis, with additional elements including leisure facilities (anchored by a 14-screen Odeon cinema and 36-hole adventure golf centre), apartments, offices, public open space and transport improvements. The completion of Liverpool ONE has significantly boosted the local economy as well as lifted Liverpool into the top five most popular retail destinations in the UK.  Liverpool ONE is the largest open air shopping centre in the United Kingdom and the 10th largest overall.  Despite all this I wasn't overly impressed with the fact that much of the retail sector was open to the elements.  Like them or loathe them covered malls are much more comfortable places to spend a day without having to go from freezing wind-swept open air wearing winter clothes to hot shop wearing those same clothes.

However there were some lovely open spaces including this charming water feature:

What's In A Name?

How important names are.  Not just to us as individuals but to marketing as well.  When I was a lad, and  long before, one of the most prestigious jewellery shops in Liverpool was Boodle and Dunthorne. Today I see that it has altered its image and has become simply Boodles.  Frankly to me Boodle and Dunthorne oozes quality and a certain 'something' but Boodles is just, well, Boodles and, frankly, could well be anything.  That's probably just me though.  

I do like the little touch whereby the BD is retained intertwined within the first O of Boodles.  The stainless steel superlambanana is rather classy too (insofar as anything quite so whimsical can be called classy).  I think, by the way, that the chap in the photos is the shop's security chap.  The days of the top-hatted doorman are gone.  You can, however, still find morning-coated, top-hatted security people at the Argyle (Jewellery store) Parade in Glasgow.

Thankful Thursday

On 1 September (I'm just catching up) Meike aka Librarian wrote in her post about an annual walk with her Mother entitled This Beautiful Country "It is, I think, a beautiful country I live in, and I am glad about that - while I never got the point of patriotism (we don't, after all, choose the place where we are born, or the family we are born into, do we?), I appreciate very much living in a country of peace and prosperity, where I do not have to fear for my life every time I leave the house (as is sadly the case in many countries all over the world, not just in Syria)."

As I read it I realised that those words could have come out of my own mouth.  As a person who came from a city where so many identified themselves by their ancestry eg Liverpool Welsh, Liverpool Scots, Liverpool West Indian, Liverpool Chinese and particularly Liverpool Irish.  The one thing I never heard a reference to was Liverpool English. (When I was very young I don't recall anyone from the Indian sub-continent living in the City: they tended to inhabit central Lancashire towns).  The point being that it was a very eclectic and cosmopolitan society in which to be brought up.  I then moved to Scotland where I have spent the majority of my life and now spend my time divided between Scotland and New Zealand.

So what place is there for patriotism in my life?  There are two things that have caused and that are causing unpleasantness and unhappiness from taunts in the classroom to death in wars: nationalism and religion.

Today I am thankful that I live in countries where there is peace and a relative tolerance of both these things and, despite the terrible consequences of the current economic situation for many people, where there is relative prosperity.  I wish that it could be so for everyone.  

I’ve Fallen in Love – Again!

You’d think I’d have more sense at my age wouldn’t you.  But no.  When we were walking round the Lady Lever Art Gallery my eyes alighted on a face of beauty and mystery; a face that I would never understand but would always feel was there just waiting to be understood.  Of course it’s not the face itself but the expression on the face that tells the story – or withholds it.  The person who created this face understood people. 

I was so busy standing in front of the sculpture marvelling at the depth, the pathos, that I didn’t take in the sculptor’s name.  When I got back to CJ’s and looked at it again I knew the name.  Of course.  Jacob Epstein.  How much controversy has he created in his works.  When I was a young man, perhaps even a child, Epstein created Liverpool Resurgent which became a Liverpool landmark but which, when it was first placed on Lewis’s Corner (Lewis’s was a famous Department Store which started in Liverpool) caused huge controversy.   However it soon became part of Liverpool and a well-known local meeting place as immortalised in the 1962 song "In My Liverpool Home" by Peter McGovern: "We speak with an accent exceedingly rare, Meet under a statue exceedingly bare"

All this is, of course, just a rambling aside which I fancied you might find interesting.  For me Deidre will remain loved but I will only be ably to dream of what she might have been thinking as I stood in front of her and gazed into those eyes.

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

CJ and I went to the Walker Art Gallery last Friday.  I was involved professionally with the Gallery many many years ago but it had probably been about 20 years since my last visit.  So far as I can recall much had changed but much remained the same.  One of the big changes was the general ambience.  It is much more relaxed now than it used to be.  For one thing non-flash photography is allowed so long as it’s not of ‘special’ exhibitions (where, presumably, artist copyright still persists).  For me that made it so much more interesting.  Unlike, I understand, most people I do not easily carry images in my memory (I remember things by word) and therefore it is wonderful to have those images available.

Top Left: Liverpool Central Library  Top Right: Crown Court (St Gorges Hall)

Bottom Left: Walker Art Gallery  Bottom Right: Originally the North British Hotel

Taken from the same spot (the Waterloo Monument or Wellington’s Column is adjacent too)

Inside the Walker Art Gallery

Although not accurate in fact this detail from Benjamin West’s Death of Nelson has always been a favourite of mine because of my fascination with Nelson and his era of naval warfare.

The eyes of the lion in this Stubbs (who is probably Liverpool’s most famous artist) didn’t just spook the horse.  They spooked me too.  I though the lion had an almost human look about it.  What a terrible thing to say about such a noble beast.

This door opened onto another interesting subject for me because the exhibition behind it included at John Moores Exhibition Number 6 Peter Getting out of Nick’s Pool the painting by David Hockney.  I had been at the opening of that exhibition in 1967 and the painting could not be described as one which I liked.  However I discovered on Friday that there were only two others being exhibited that I liked better than it.

One painting which caught my eye was Two Windows/Two People by Maurice Cockrill.  Although Professor Dr Maurice Cockrill is a renowned artist and poet with long connections to Liverpool his art is not generally to my taste at all but this example absolutely fascinated me.

Perhaps the most amazing of all the modern exhibits was this huge and detailed painting by Ben Johnson entitled Liverpool Cityscape which can be viewed interactively on the Walker Art Gallery’s website here.

CJ and I were only able to spend a relatively small part of the day at he gallery because there were many more things we wanted to see in the city of our birth: a city I have seen very little of over the last few years and with which I now have absolutely no connections save for the past.

What Is It About Percussionists?

Many years ago when I was a wee slip of a youth in my late teens I started to go regularly to the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall to see the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. At that time there were two percussionists: John Ward (I hope that my memory is not letting me down) and Jean Webster. I was completely captivated by the musicians' skills and particularly, for some reason, by Jean Webster. What was really strange was that when I watched the Proms the other night one of the National Youth Orchestra's percussionists was remarkably like Jean Webster (though her hair was longer). Or was it just my imagination?

As an aside I wonder if Jean Webster was one of the longest serving percussionists with any orchestra in the UK? She retired as principal percussionist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 2000s so she must have been with them for about 40 years. That's quite a long time in any one's life.