This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 18/09/07
Does This Train Stop On Merseyside? (*)
Had an interesting day today.
I mentioned last week that I was thinking of going up to see the
Josh Kirby Retrospective at the Walker Gallery
in Liverpool.
This was quite an undertaking for me. As I also said last week, I
don't care for travelling very much. If it were possible for me to just
click my fingers and be somewhere else, and then click them again and
be instantly back home again, I'd be a happy man.
As it stands, however, I view any journey as needing to be planned
out with near-military precision.
Although it's a mere thirty or so miles away, I hadn't been to
Liverpool itself since October 1980, when I went to see a Hawkwind gig
at the Empire. Bearing in mind that it was dark the whole time I was
there, I didn't get to see the place at all - just the bits between the
bus and the pub, the pub and the theatre, and the theatre and the bus.
Add to this my very unflattering prejudices about the place and its
people (developed through sheer hard work over a number of years), and
an extra dimension of uncertainty was added.
Well, nothing ventured...I caught the 07:43 bus (which did
turn up - thank you, Arriva) down to the station. I was there for eight
o'clock, which was a bit of a nuisance, because my train wasn't due
until after 08:30.
Anyway, it turned up a handful of minutes late, but given the state
of the track on parts of the Wrexham-Bidston line, that's only to be
expected.
I'd not travelled on this particular line since 1978, when some
friends and me went the two stops from Gwersyllt to the old Wrexham
Central and got off without paying (well, nobody asked!). I
hadn't gone this far up it since 1972 when, as a boy of ten, I went
with my parents for a day out to New Brighton. Gosh, this is adventure!
We passed through all the village stations - Gwersyllt, Cefn Y
Bedd, Caergwrle, Hope, Penyffordd, Buckley, Hawarden, Shotton, Hawarden
Bridge (which is nowhere near Hawarden; but then Buckley
station - previously called Buckley Junction - isn't very near
Buckley, either), and then on over the border. Neston, Heswall (which
used to be called Heswall Hills way back in the when), Upton
and finally to Bidston, where we had to change trains.
Because we were still a few minutes down, the train from West Kirby
to Liverpool came in just a minute or so after we'd got there, so it
was a quick transfer to Merseyrail for the journey under the river.
Then, at one of the Birkenhead stations (I forget which), an entire
class of ten-year-olds got on. They were OK really, but I was quite
happy when they got off at James Street.
On to Moorfields and then Lime Street, where it was my turn to get
off. As the Wirral line is completely underground, I had to get up to
street level. Lime Street station has the only escalator I've ever come
across which gives you the 'bends' going up, and vertigo going down. I
found my way out of the station, and realised I'd come out on the
'wrong' side. No matter, I went round the corner and found myself in St
George's Square.
This was my first happy surprise. Liverpool city centre is full
of fantastic old buildings of character: St George's Hall, North
Western Hall, the old court building and, of course, the Walker Gallery
itself. I took a few pictures as I made my way up.
Inside the Walker, and having finally found the Kirby exhibition, I
was slightly disappointed to see that photography was forbidden.
Understandable, I suppose, although what they could possibly fear from my
cack-handed efforts I can't imagine.
If you're not familiar with the name, Josh Kirby (1928 - 2001) was
a Liverpool-born artist who worked in many fields, but is perhaps best
known for his work for science-fiction and fantasy publishers. His
covers for Terry Pratchett's Discworld™ are the most famous of
these.
But that wasn't all he did, and the exhibition was happy surprise
number two. The breadth and scope of his work and his talent is fully
on display in this exhibition. He not only did book covers (his cover
for a version of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is rightly
regarded as a classic, and he didn't just work in the SF/fantasy
field), but he did abstracts (these mostly in the early part of his
career), film posters (the one for The Return Of The Jedi is
featured here, plus the one for The Life Of Brian which was too
rude to be used), illustrations for role-playing games, and even very
good jigsaw puzzles.
In all of them, his capacity for detailed and exacting work is
clear, allied with a mastery of composition and use of space. His
colours are quite extraordinary: the explanatory cards in the
exhibition claim that red was his signature colour, but to me a Josh
Kirby means the most remarkable shades of blue, almost like enamel, but
which are clear and bright without any sense of them blaring out at you.
An hour and a half seemed to fly by, and it still seemed too short
a time to go around it, despite my dwelling in front of a number of his
works. It was time to move on, as I had other things planned.
My original thought when planning the trip was that I would move on
from the Walker to the Liverpool World Museum just a few yards down the
road. Looking at their website however, I couldn't see anything there
which would hold my attention for long. I then changed tack: it would
be a pity, I thought, to go to Liverpool without taking a look at the
city's two famous cathedrals, the modern Roman Catholic Metropolitan,
and the more traditional-style Anglican cathedral. So, I did some
research on Google Maps and planned out my route. It can be difficult
to judge the scale of these sometimes, so I wasn't entirely sure how
long it would take me.
So, leaving the Walker behind, I followed my supposed route to the
Catholic cathedral (or 'Paddy's Wigwam' as those incorrigible
Scousers call it - you'll know why if you've seen it). After a short
while, I found that I'd taken a wrong turn very early on, and was
approaching the cathedral from the south rather than the north. This
meant a detour, and this coincided with the exit of hundreds of
students from their classes (the cathedral is in the university
quarter).
Having successfully swum against the tide of the nation's brightest
hopes (oh gods, spare us all!), I found myself sitting in full view of
the frontage of the cathedral, eating my lunch.
It was shortly time to move on. I knew how to find the Anglican
cathedral from there: you just followed Hope Street. That wise
philosopher, theologian and failed chartered accountant Kenneth
Arthur Dodd once remarked upon the fact that the two major sects of
Christianity should have their churches so close to one another, "...and
connected by a street called Hope".
A couple of hundred yards later, I was standing beside my second
cathedral of the day. It was pretty quiet around there, but then again
this church is in more grounds than the other one. I walked around the
outside taking photographs for a while (note that I didn't go in to
either one of them: this is partly out of a lingering sense of decorum,
and partly because I have this totally irrational worry that someone
might try to convert me - and succeed), and then moved on to
check out my final target of the day.
I'd heard about the strange pyramid-shaped tomb someone had made
for himself, and my friend Alex had sent me the photograph he took of
it last week: so, the competition was on!
I knew it was in Rodney Street. My main problem was that my initial
itinerary had not included going right around the outside of the Anglican
cathedral (I'd doubted whether I'd have the time), so I had to work out
my way back up town.
Needless to say that I got slightly lost. My map wasn't very
accurate either, although I did notice that parts of Liverpool aren't
very good for having street names properly signed.
After an interesting and unscheduled stroll through the city's
Chinatown (where the street signs are bilingual - something I never
thought I'd see in England), I found Rodney Street.
(It was here where I encountered my only authentic Scouse
smack-head divvies of the day, but I managed to avoid their attentions.)
Halfway up on the right is a derelict church. There, in the
overgrown churchyard, was the tomb of one W. McKenzie, who had a
pyramid erected probably in order to fulfil his wish that he be buried
sitting upright at a table with playing cards in his hand (he was a
notorious gambler, it seems). It isn't possible to get into the
churchyard itself, but the tomb is so close to the road that it isn't
necessary.
A few snaps of that, and then...well, then I had nothing more I
wanted to do. It was only about 1:10 by this point, and I knew that I
wouldn't be able to get a train for nearly an hour. So, I wandered back
to St George's Square for while. I would have stayed out there longer,
but a hard shower of near-freezing rain came over the city at this
point, and I scurried for the sanctuary of Lime Street Station.
Having gone down the same precipitous escalator I'd come up a few
hours before, I found myself on the platform and discovered that there
was a train for Bidston due any minute. I decided to take it, even
though it would mean a slightly longer wait for my connection to
Wrexham.
An uneventful journey home followed, and I got back in the house
shortly after 4:00.
I'm glad I went. The exhibition was sufficient to override my
innate dislike of cities. Who knows? Perhaps I won't wait twenty-seven
years until my next visit.
