Hello Liverpool!

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 710, 9 July 1929, Page 12

Hello Liverpool!

I A COSMOPOLITAN PORT ... GIANT CUNARDERS PUT TO SEA ... A RESEM- ; BLANCE TO THE WAITEMATA. TWO FAMOUS FERRY BOATS (Written for THE SUN by C. T. C. W.) When nobler cities have failed in memory I shall retain Liverpool. After all. was it not there that the great Gladstone was born? It is with regret that I acknowledge I had no idea Gladstone was born in Liverpool until I began reading his liberal biography months after returning to New Zealand. I like Liverpool, for there is something in its configuration reminiscent of Auckland. Doubtless any wanderer from the Waitemata would appreciate a by no means slight resemblance to ! his home port, the difference being i largely of degree. To those of us who have stood on Pier Head, which corresponds roughly to Quay Street from Prince’s to Queen’s Wharf, the similarity of the harbours must have been striking enough. Whoever named our Birkenhead possibly had in mind the Birkenhead on the Mersey. Rela- j tive to Queen’s Wharf and Pier Head their positions are the same. What we are hoping to claim as the most beautiful half-mile in New Zealand has a counterpart in Sea combe promenade. Also on that side is the merry borough of Wallasey—in location, if not otherwise, like Stanley Bay. Wallasey extends a cordial welcome, particularly if you are a man, for has not the Mayor planned charmingly to mate the borough’s lonely Cheshire maids? Of course the great things to see in ‘ Liverpool are the docks—six miles of them on the west side of the river alone —say from Shelly Beach to St. Heliers Bay. An overhead electric railway traverses the whole system, with stations named after the indi- j vidual docks. From the carriage» windows the docks appear to be a succession of vast swimming pools, whose bathers have such names as Rotorua, Tongariro, Montrose, Montcalm. Montclare, Homeric, Carinthia and Franconia. In company with the stately White Stars, flame-funnelled Cunarders and those princely ships of the “Mont” prefix, flying the Canadian Pacific Railway Company’s pennant, you make the acquaintance of nondescripts called in by commerce from the uttermost ends of the earth. See them clearing port on a Friday afternoon! Liverpool pilots have fame the world over, and small wonder. Who would care to have to manoeuvre a giant Cunarder out of a prisoning dock? It Is not nearly as simple as backing the Aorangi from Prince’s Wharf. Ships are admitted through a narrow lock, are perhaps turned round at right angles, edged ahead and astern, swung again and put through an intricate series of evolutions before they can call a voyage completed. Screeching sirens at sailing time are unforgettable music. Never does blatant discord sound more harmonious. A grand thing it is to hear the defiant trumpetings, challenge and acceptance from one line to another; their meaning—“Catch me at sea if you can!” And when the tall ships have undocked they turn lazily cfn Mersey water to make line ahead and so into the tortuous channel that begins the road to anywhere. Once when stepping from the dock gates Mclntyre, a seaman, and I were accosted by six or eight children. Poor, thin little urchins they were, and in their deplorable rags caricatures of life like the Queen Street ragamuffins one tolerates on Guy Fawkes Day. They began to follow us, whimpering in asthmatic voices: “Give us a ha’penny, sir. Give us a ha’penny.” The pathos of it! Of what worth was a ha’penny? One almost wished the little brats had demanded half-a-crown. That would at least buy food. “Give them nothing,” advised the Scot. He was not harsh, but was hardened to this sort of thing. “You’ll have half Bootle at your heels if you start handing out money.” That night Mclntyre and I were looking round the streets when the sailor asked me if I had ever seen women drinking. ‘‘ln here, then,” he said, pushing into an ale-house in a lane back of Lime Street. The tavern seemed a cheery enough setting for a convivial evening, but I have never seen topers tailing their drinking as seriously as did the ten or a dozen women seated on the low benches ranged round the walls. One realised in an instant that the company was there for drinking’s sake and not for any enjoyment that might be had in the foregathering. Some had beer, some had gin and or two wine. Their listless, vacant eyes proclaimed long indulgence. Thought went back to the six or eight grubby urchins. In pursuance of a determination to see everything, I descended into St. James’s Cemetery cringing at the foot of the great cathedral, which will be one of the architectural marvels of an architecturally marvellous England. This cemetery symbolises a death that is Death. One might expect to read Dante at the portal: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Again, St. James’s is the sort of retreat in which one would not be surprised to meet Clarence Darrow seated on an upturned tombstone writing about “The Myth of the Soul.” Huddled marbles, dilapidated, forlorn, black with age strewn drunkenly here, there and all around, sodden earth that had been the bones of forgotten people, broken columns, pagan urns, all played hideously on the imagination. I should have taken it for granted had a ghostly hand given me sackcloth and ashes at the gate for the wearing while a choir of Death chanted the Dies Irae. If you have leisure, Liverpool can show you a world of interesting odds and ends. In choosing to visit the other side of the harbour you will travel by one of the two most famous ferry boats in the world. Everyone speaks in terms of affection of the Royal Iris and the Royal Daffodil, which took part in the attack on Zeebrugge. Before this epic operation the boats were known simply as the Iris and the Daffodil, the “Royal” being approved by the King in recognition of a very gallant performance. In buildings, what finer pile than the Cathedral, or St. George’s Hall, or the Royal Liver Buildings? Then there is that wonder of wonders, the transporter bridge at Runcorn; there is the Aintree course; there is Sefton Park, the Mersey Tunnel, Knowsley Hall, which is the seat of the Earl of Derby, and a dozen and one other points of attraction. If ever I have the good fortune to look in at Liverpool again I shall hunt up the house in which Gladstone was born—No. 62 Rodney Street —and seek a certain tailor’s shop which sold me a suit for six guineas which would have been expensive priced at two!