Where The Land Meets The Sea

In my seventieth year, one of my most abiding memories from my childhood, from the mid-fifties to the end of the sixties, is of our habitual family trips to the city. It lies 53.4 degrees north latitude, by 2.9 degrees longitude, and is situated in the northwest of the United Kingdom. It is a maritime city, famed all around the world for a great many things, its seafaring character and staunch independence, but most especially for its musical and football contributions to the world, in the latter part of the last century. Welcome to the ‘Pool of Life’, as the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung called it, or the Great City of Liverpool, as it is better known.

My family is of Irish descent on both sides, which is no doubt why I feel a great sense of Irishness deep within my heart and my soul. I was of course born as an English person. However, even as a mere toddler, I felt somehow, intuitively, more connected to the Irish than to the English. It’s all in the DNA.

My father was an electrician on the docks, servicing electrical systems on whatever visiting ships happened to be in port. And often my father would take us down to the legendary River Mersey, to see the big ships coming and going in and out of port. Sometimes my mother would take us to the pierhead near where the Mersey Ferries plied their route across the River Mersey, to holiday destinations like New Brighton, Moreton, and West Kirby on the Wirral Peninsular.

What these visits instilled in me was a sense of curiosity and adventure, in equal measure. I was curious to know about Ireland, across the Irish Sea, the place of our origins. I also felt a very strong urge to explore all of the places around the world where all the big ships came from.

Seeing ships from places like the Americas, Asia, and the Antipodes, always seemed to pique my curiosity. I wanted to know what it was like in India, Australia, and the United States. How were the lands, the cities, the people? Were they just like ours and us, or were they totally different? All I knew was that I had developed a burning desire to travel the world, just like my forebears before me, be they Irish or indeed English.

As regards my Irish ancestors, I have the feeling that they had been part of the mass exodus of immigrants trying to escape the Great Irish Famine of the nineteenth century, which killed about one million people.

They had most probably travelled across the Irish Sea to Liverpool to catch a ship to the exciting New World of America on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And no doubt, having insufficient funds for the onward leg of the long journey, they had to take what work they could in Liverpool. And there they decided to stay and settle down.

Liverpool has always been a cosmopolitan city with a Chinese quarter, an Irish quarter, and a mixed neighbourhood of people from all over the African Continent and the Caribbean. In Liverpool, all are welcome to stay. And the Irish contingent, like all the other ethnic minorities, certainly wasted no time in making themselves at home. And it is that rich melting pot of cultures in the city that helped to make it such a vibrant place to be.

I am quite proud of my Irish and English heritage and the role they have played in the development of culture in the modern world. People like the Irish writer Samuel Becket, who wrote a groundbreaking existentialist play, Waiting for Godot, in his second language, French. And of course, no story about Liverpool can go without paying homage to the Beatles who helped to make the world a more civilized place with their joyful message of peace and love in their music.

All of the contributions made by the pantheon of great, multinational, intellectuals and artists, casually congregated in Liverpool, to the creation of a rich and diverse tapestry of voices of Merseyside and beyond, have been woven into the fabric of what we call modern society all around the entire planet.

Of course, Liverpool has had more than its share of struggles, not least of all during the Second World War. And it would be true to say that not a single Liverpudlian family got through it unaffected. However, if there is one word to describe the Liverpudlian’s character it is resilience. The determination to get through whatever life threw at them, come hell or high water.

***

I once read a book by Virginia Woolf called ‘To The Light House’, a novel about a family of eight children (just like my family) one of whom, James Ramsey, harbours a desire to visit a lighthouse. The visit is promised for the very next day, only for James’s father to thwart the idea, expressing his feeling that for certain the weather will not be clear. I remember similar times in my childhood when I asked my mother “When can we go to America, Mum?” only to hear her say “When the weather is clear.” Of course, she was merely deflecting my attention away from the truth of the matter. Travelling to far-off foreign places was totally out of the question on economic grounds. We could barely get by living on the very edge of poverty, let alone travel the world. Long-haul international travel was most certainly not for the likes of us working-class, third-generation, Anglo-Irish plebs.

I never for one moment thought about my mother and father having their own unfulfilled dreams of a better life. Whatever dreams they had, they had to be put on indefinite hold, for the sustenance of their eight young children. However, I did promise myself that when I grew up I would indeed travel the world, to all four corners if I could ever manage it.

All that being said, at the tender age of ten, I did unwittingly still manage to take myself off on an adventurous journey, almost all alone, across the country. And although I never got to see any lighthouse, I did manage to get my very first sense of total and utter freedom.

To begin with, my journey to freedom was all the result of some half-baked idea from my elder brother and one of his friends. The plan was to cycle to some coastal resort, not too far away in North Wales, on the other side of the River Mersey. We set off on a Saturday morning with little more than a sleeping bag, a chocolate Mars bar, an orange, and a silver shilling in cash.

My mother, as per usual, ordered my brother to look out for me, to make sure I didn’t come to any harm. “Yeah yeah,” he said, begrudgingly. The simple fact of the matter was, he did not really want me along for the ride. I have no doubt his plan was to lose me as soon as he possibly could in the hope that I would just trudge off back home. Or even better, from his point of view, would be if I got abducted, sexually abused, and murdered. You see he always very strongly resented not being an only child. Anyway, I am happy to report that that life-ending scenario is most definitely not what happened.

We cycled the few miles to Runcorn Bridge, which crossed the Mersey at its narrowest point downriver. As I came downhill off the bridge, on the rickety bike I had borrowed from a neighbour without permission, I came to a roundabout. I stopped to see which way my brother and his friend had exited the junction, and I could not see the slightest sign of the two renegades.

Looking back, I guess it was at this point I really should have turned around and gone back home. It was a fair few miles, but I still had lots of energy and for sure I would have got home before dark, safe and sound. However, that would have been tantamount to admitting defeat, and I was determined that the adventure had only just begun, with or without my brother and friend.

I saw a sign that said Runcorn New Town, Chester, and North Wales. So I guessed that was the road they must have taken. I was wrong. I pedalled my way uphill to Runcorn and saw no sign of my two carers. However, I did see a sign for Chester and Wales. I did not know that the sign was taking me onto an expressway, which was like an intercity highway, from which bicycles were forbidden.

As I cycled along with the fast traffic I imagined that I was making my way to America, and I was loving it. I figured all I had to do was get to Liverpool and go down to the river to sneak aboard a cruiser and nobody would be any the wiser. My brother and friend could go to hell, I didn’t need either of them. If it was uncool to have me tag along, who was I to cramp their style?

After a few miles, a police car pulled alongside me and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, and where was I going. I told them I was headed for America. One of the policemen raised his eyebrows and smirked at me. The other told me I had to get off the Expressway immediately. They showed me the parallel road I had to take to get to wherever I was going and left me to my own devices. It is amazing that was all they did considering I was a ten-year-old, skinny, vulnerable child.

Within five minutes I was on the parallel road and cycling with all my might, to at least get to Chester before dark. However, my energy disappeared long before the daylight did and I had to stop for a rest. At this point, I made a change of plan. As any would-be world adventurer knows, sometimes shit happens and you need to do something different. In a sense of infinite wisdom far beyond my tender years, I decided to ditch the bike behind a nearby tree and hitch a ride. Lo and behold, within five minutes of thrusting out my arm with my thumb pointing up, a car stopped and the middle-aged male driver told me to jump in. I did so without a second thought. Never for one moment did I think about the risk of what I had embarked upon. I did not feel the slightest sense of danger.

The driver told me that he was going to Chester and that he could drop me off at a gas station, just outside the city limits. And that was exactly what he did. Good man.

I went into the gas station shop and bought a small bottle of cold lemonade, I then asked the cashier if he knew of anywhere I could sleep as I had run away from home. He was a young guy and told me that there was a Ford Anglia wreck out back and I could sleep in there. He promised to keep an eye on me throughout the night, which I knew he did. That was a darn sight more than my elder brother had ever done for me. He usually gave me a good punch on the nose and told me to piss off.

I slept fitfully in the wreck, but at least it was warm and dry and still had the seats in it, allowing me to make myself comfortable. As I dozed in and out of sleep I dreamt of America. I was quite excited at the prospect of going there. I dreamt of the sunny weather of California, the music of the Beach Boys, the great-looking cars…

I remember thinking to myself that whatever happened from here on, it beat hands down the truly miserable life I had at home and at school. I was the runt of the litter, a human punch bag for just about anybody to beat up any time they felt like it. This was sheer bliss in comparison. That staunch sense of independence I mentioned was in my blood and was no doubt inspired, in part, by my personal circumstances.

The next morning I climbed out of the wreck and went to thank the young cashier. He gave me a free bar of chocolate. Then I went outside with the next part of my plan in place. I would hitch a lift back to where I had ditched the bike and then ride the rest of the way home. The adventure was over, or so I thought.

Of all things to stop to pick me up was a tour coach heading out of the city. I told the driver I just wanted to collect my bike from behind a tree and I would tell him where when we got there. Suddenly he came up with what I thought sounded like a great idea.

“Ok, we can stop to get your bike kiddo, but…..how would you like to stay on board for the day? I’m off to do a pick up of some passengers around a small country village and take them to see the illuminations at Blackpool. Do ya wanna come with us?”

Are you kidding? Jeez! I had always wanted to go to Blackpool to see the lights. Ok, it wasn’t America, but hey, it would be absolutely awesome all the same. “Yes sir,” I replied with great enthusiasm.

“Ok, well when my inspector gets on board I will tell him you are my Nephew along for the ride, ok? So if he asks you, I am your uncle Alf. Got it?”

“Yes sir.”

Within ten minutes we reached the tree where I had left the bike, it was still there. The driver placed it in the underfloor coach compartment, and off we went. “To infinity and beyond Buzz, well, Blackpool, on the way to infinity.”

Blackpool was a very popular, coastal holiday resort, about seventy miles from where I lived. And although I had never been there, I had heard all about it. As well as the illuminations, there was a massive fairground, a lovely beach, and thousands of Kiss Me Quick hats. Oh boy, the adventure was well and truly back on.

Halfway to Blackpool, we called into a service area. Everybody got off the coach and went into the restaurant to dine. The driver told me to grab a table and asked me what I wanted to eat. The company that ran the service area fed coach drivers free as an incentive and thank you for bringing in a bus full of paying customers. The driver told me he would put me down in the visitor’s book as a second driver so as to get my meal free as well.

Ha, promotion, I love it. From undesirable younger brother to runaway vagabond, wannabe international stowaway to defeated adventurer, coach driver’s Nephew, to second-in-command coach driver. What a life. This was what I was talking about, respect.

The driver then completed the trip to Blackpool and parked the bus, right next to the fairground. He gave me a little money for a couple of rides and sent me off to leave him to have a sleep on the coach. He told me to be back by five o’clock and not a minute later or he would have to leave without me.

After having the time of my life at the fairground I made my way back to the coach, and got there just in the nick of time. Once everybody was aboard, we set off back home taking the illuminations route. Who needed a lighthouse when you had miles of the equivalent of Las Vegas, all lit up?

Then it was a two-hour drive back to where we came from, and still, I had a long way to go. I was feeling tired of the monotony of the run along the highway and felt myself drifting off into a doze. As I sat back with my eyes closed I heard a radio from the driver’s section of the coach. I heard a country and western song by some unknown artist. He sang…

“Oh, my name, it means nothing. My age it means less. And I come from nowhere, somewhere way out west. My mother and father, I don’t even know. Where did they come from, where did they go?”

That in some way summed up pretty much how I felt. A lone cowboy out on the range. It kind of felt good to be a nobody, to just travel amongst strangers, almost unnoticed.

Eventually, the driver dropped me off as we came off the highway, right next to a road that would take me fifteen miles up the Wirral Peninsular to Birkenhead, on the wrong side of the River Mersey. I set off and soon got into a steady rhythm.

It took me an hour or so to get to Birkenhead, which was where I came to my next problem. I had no money for the ferry over to Liverpool. I just managed to slip past the cashier and jumped on board the very last ferry, the Royal Iris. Amazing, I might just as well have been on a ship to America. I was absolutely elated. I was also quite proud of myself for surviving what had been a very sticky situation.

On the Liverpool side of the river, I got off the ferry and was now faced with the problem of getting home, about seven miles away, just outside the city limits. It was now totally dark and getting late. Ok, I thought, shit happens, etc, etc…

I sat on a riverside bench trying to figure out what to do next. A flock of seagulls were noisily wheeling around in the dark sky above me. For some spurious reason, I wondered why you never see lots of dead birds lying around on the ground. I wondered to myself, do birds never die? Maybe they live forever for hundreds or thousands of years. Or maybe they went to some special place to pass away. That still puzzles me to this day.

I felt the cold blow and a spatter of rain coming off the Irish Sea. It was time to move. So I went to the bus terminus and told the driver I was lost, didn’t have any money, and didn’t know my way home.

“No problem kiddo, just let the air out of your tires for me. You cannot normally get on board with a bike, if I let you get on I could lose my job. But it will be ok if it looks like you’ve had two punctures.”

I could not believe my luck, to meet so much kindness from perfect strangers. That’s what Liverpool people are like. They really will do anything to help you out if you are in a fix.

I got off the bus about a hundred meters from my house and pushed the bike the short distance home. My elder brother was sitting on the wall waiting.

“Where the hell did you get to?” he demanded.

“Blackpool,” I said triumphantly. “Oh, and thank you for waiting for me yesterday, selfish swine,” I snarled.

“Liar.” he spat. “You have not been to Blackpool, never, ever, never!”

I just chose to ignore the idiot and went inside. Later on, I asked him about his weekend. From what he told me it was something of a disaster. They got caught in a storm and ended up wet through and had to trundle off back home.

He never did explain to me what he told my Mum about where I was when he turned up without me. I presume he lied and told her I would be along anytime soon. I laughed out loud to myself when I thought of all those hours he had to wait for me, not really knowing if I was dead or alive.

If it was dead, he would have had to do some explaining about how he came to lose me in the first place. Knowing him, he would have told her a pack of lies. And it is sad to reflect, that to this very day, he still tells anybody who will listen the most appalling lies about me and how badly I treated him, even though he is five years older and a great deal bigger than me.

And so my life of adventure had in the end got off to a good start. And I could hardly wait for the next, exciting chapter, setting off from where the land meets the sea.

Reflecting back some more, I realize that although my tale is to some degree so very British, leaving behind my home country to explore the big wide world. I think it also has an element of the American pastoral quest about it, even though I knew nothing about that trope at that time.

Like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield, I travelled to seek a better world. And perhaps, like Finn and Caulfield before me, my quest had been a journey to look for meaning, an understanding of other people, to hear the authentic, sincere voice of global humankind, as well as an escape from phoney people like my big brother.

What I learned from that very first solo sojourn into the wider world was resilience and spontaneous inventiveness, to resolve unforeseen problems on the fly. I also developed a degree of fearlessness about the difficult, suddenly occurring, circumstances that often visit us right out of the blue. In short, I learned to be brave. I also learned how to connect with my imagination and put it to fruitful use. And it is those deeply personal characteristics that served me very well indeed and saved my precious ass many a time over the ensuing sixty years.

I am also happy to report that I have in many ways, throughout my life, managed to maintain a great deal of empathy for other innocents abroad like my childhood self, as I undertook my journey through life well into my senior years. And always, I have tried to emulate the wonderfully kind people I met on that first step toward America that I took all those years ago.