Topic: Liverpool ports waiting on government cruise decision

Hi Delboy

Let me say, from the outset, what a pleasure it is to receive an in-depth airing of both personal views and informative content, which is a refreshing change from some of the one or two liners common with some members who are given to impatiently dismissing subjects in that fashion.

I detect, from some of your phraseology, an air of 'resigned acceptance' that L'pool has not got a cat in hell's chance of becoming a full blown cruise terminal, and you are not alone in that.

Reference has been made to the euphemistic thirty pieces of silver as reward for betrayal or the sacrifice (sale) of one's soul, presumably to the Devil, or in this case, the 'strings attached' EU funding of Liverpool's docks improvement.

In Christianity, the most infamous recipient of that tainted reward for betraying his 'master' to those adamant in seeking to put him to death, was named Judas Iscariot, who after a remorseful realisation of the enormity of his disloyalty, ended his own life.

In politics, a modern counterpart could be Nick Clegg who, unlike Judas, did not sell his own soul for thirty pieces of silver, in his case, apart from saving the Tory Party losing face, his reward was appointment to Deputy Premiership at the expense of the soul of the Liberal Party and its 'successor,' and his 'qualifications' for HIS personal advancement? a good acting performance on a televised knock-about between him, Gordon Brown and David Cameron (he of glib-tongue, broken promise and U turn) as for Gordon, well!!??

I neither wish nor advocate a similar fate as that suffered by the infamous Judas, but I do predict that at the end of Mr Clegg's temporary tenure of political influence, i.e, the next General Election, his final 'reward' will be banishment into the political wilderness.

You made a reference to the former deputy leader of L'pool city council, Derek Hatton who, post political career, carved-out a rewarding alternative one on the back of his notoriety, in PR I believe, sounds about right.

Liverpool as you may know, is regarded as the City of Comedians, and most 'Scousers' will confess that you need to be one in order to live there, but it occasionally can produce a clown, the most recent one being Mr Hatton who I remember, during a televised Labour Party conference, indulged in a slanging-match with Neil Kinnock who accused him of delivering redundancy notices by taxi.

Liverpool comedians of some fame, include a diminutive and spectacled Anglican Cathedral chorister, who later became Arthur Askey, together with Ted Ray, Jimmy Tarbuck and dear old Ken Dodd of Knotty Ash, (yes, it exists) the only man to crack the HM Revenue and Income 'Enigma Code,' protected his hard-earned stash - laughing all the way to the Bank, and created a standing joke out of his fiscal nightmare by boasting that he and HMRI still 'kept in touch' and exchanged Christmas cards.

As regards the 'writing-off' of Liverpool, an inconceivable action surely, and to reiterate that which I have recently commented on, the river Mersey is not solely dominated by Liverpool and its dock facilities, though together they are significant.

The river is multi-industrial and a dividing line between two separate Counties, Lancashire (Greater Merseyside) and Cheshire and, as you progress up-river or inland, you will encounter a diversity of industrial activity including chemicals (ICI) Runcorn, soap manufacturing, oil refineries, industrial estates, additional minor dock facilities at Bromborough, Rock Ferry, New Ferry, Ellesmere Port and so on, far into rural Cheshire and last, but by no means last, down river, BIRKENHEAD, a major port in its own right.

This has a complex of docking facilities going as far back in history as Liverpool, who once specialised in handling exotic spices and a diversity of imported/exported cargo, it is directly opposite Liverpool but part of the Wirral Peninsular in the county of Cheshire, it is served by a simple combination of national motorways more or less directly to the docks, Birkenhead does not suffer the same road traffic congestion as L'Pool, maritime industry includes the nearby Cammel-Laird shipbuilders, although now a shadow of what it used to be, but nevertheless still in existence and testament that the Mersey is deep enough to launch a ship, and in days gone by, Big Ones!

I am not aware of any 'conditional' grants awarded to Birkenhead docks and that they are perfectly entitled to pursue an application for turn-around cruise facilities if they can prove that they are capable of providing this, can afford it and are able to attract sufficient interest and investment from any interested cruise operators - I imagine that certain technical/tidal difficulties applicable to L/Pool will also apply to B'Head, although hopefully without a Langton Dock syndrome, and with the knowledge that it would be difficult, if not impossible to handle super-cruisers of 100,000 - 150,000 tonnes, but can handle cruise ships such as the former QE2 and the preponderance of the more average size work horses of the cruise industry.

I anticipate your next observation, relative to additional distances and sea days to popular destinations, in comparison to departures from Southampton and a traditional 14 night cruise - sometimes 16+ nights for eastern med ports.

There are advantages for Mersey departures such as north Atlantic, New York and western destinations, but not for Baltic and Fjords.

One disadvantage is the necessity to sail around the Isle of Anglesey, which adds quite a few additional miles to a southerly course, as the ability to use the Menai Straits would significantly reduce the mileage, but unfortunately they are un-navigable, a great pity since this would have included a vista of Telford's magnificent suspension bridge, a first cousin to the one spanning Bristol Gorge.

I feel sure that entrepreneurial skills and a determination for success can overcome the additional mileage/length/fare obstacles existing with competitively priced fares, or special discounts, or reduced length of cruise, or Friday departures - Monday returns, to attract potential passengers.

One way or another, an alternative to the escalating stranglehold which Southampton has over any other competition, must and needs to be broken and for starters, under-rated Birkenhead could be the answer.

The sun is now well over the yard-arm and food & beverage call me away.

With sincere good wishes

Gordon

Hi jc

And long may it reign/rain

Gordon

Hi Crosby Blue

An additional 124 miles to Liverpool eh, well that's nowt on a big ship, and you would have the benefit of passing Mona's Isle (Anglesey in English) Ynys Mon (in Welsh) and of course the panoramic backdrop of Snowdonia, and as regards losing time off work, well if you can afford cruising in these austere times, you won't miss a couple of days pay, assuming that you are fortunate enough to even have a job.

To reduce the journey time around Anglesey there is a possible solution, an expensive one, which would require blasting a channel through the un-navigable Menai Straits, leaving enough space to pass beneath Telford's magnificent suspension bridge, and affording an even closer view of Snowdonia.

Your second point about vessel size not being an issue, (except for super resort ships of 100,000 - 150,000 tonnage,) you are probably right except that the real issues facing Liverpool are, jealousy, maintaining a monopoly (Southampton) vested interests and protecting profits oh! and a paltry £9m 'strings-attached grant to L'Pool from the EU so long as they posed no competitive threat to S'Ton in return.

A more practical alternative to Liverpool's blighted aspirations of becoming a fully 'turn around' cruise terminal, is the lesser-known Birkenhead docks, which are a well organised and comprehensive facility in their own right, and although smaller than Liverpool's extensive and lengthy adaptation of the river Mersey, Birkenhead is more compact, has adequate room for expansion, is well served by the motorway system by a combination of M6 > M56 > M53 the latter leading directly into dockland, branching off M53 to A41 leads directly into Birkenhead town centre.

Sight-seeing options from B'Head, cosmopolitan shopping mecca, historic, cultural, musical, religious (two Cathedrals) home of the 'Beatles' city of Liverpool.

The ancient, former Roman Garrison, more sedate yet visitor attractive County City of Chester, which still retains most of its ancient city walls, unique Tudor double-deck shopping 'rows,' an instantly recognisable Victorian town-clock which surmounts the Eastgate walls and is reputed to be the second most famous clock in the world after London's 'Big Ben.' Nearby is the 5 star 'Grosvenor Hotel,' named after the Grosvenor family, whose present family head and title holder, Gerald, Duke of Westminster lives with his family at nearby Eaton Hall, ducal seat of the Grosvenor dynasty. An ancient red sandstone Cathedral, an ornate and elaborate City Hall, a modern indoor market specialising in local produce including, of course, Cheshire cheese and other fare from just across its border with north Wales, which is not discernible, apart from the river Dee, and is otherwise a natural coagulation. Of course there are modern famous-name shops and including the extensive Grosvenor Shopping Precinct, again named after the Duke whose development company built it. Returning to the ancient theme there are many old inns still in existence (and use) including one in Northgate Street, where the famous German composer Handel lodged prior to his departure to Ireland, for the premiere of his famous oratorio "The Messiah" and yes, you heard correctly, sailed from the Port of Chester, which preceded the (then) non-existent Port of Liverpool, which succeeded Chester when the river Dee silted up, mind you, we are talking about the 1700's.

For the music buffs.

There is a locally well-known story about a rehearsal of 'The Messiah'which Handel convened in the nearby Cathedral close to his lodgings this 'rehearsal' did not involve the resident choir of men and boys, but a hastily assembled mixture of traditional 4 part voices, Soprano, Contralto, Tenor and Bass, the leading Contralto apparently being a noted vocalist of some distinction except, that is, by Handel, who berated her in his thick gutteral provincial German accent, in broken English, she and the rest of the singers, speaking with a rural Cheshire dialect, intonation and regional variation.
I feel quite sorry for her and the other sopranos' for, when next you hear it sung, in one particular chorus, the demand on them is quite severe, which includes an escalating voice pitch almost off the scale and likewise for the men, particularly the bass section, the final chorus 'Amen' consists of that one word, Amen which requires 'fitting to the notes' like spaghetti at times resulting in long phrases such as, a-a- aaa- a-a- men in boring monotony in allegro (quick walking pace) tempo, - not his most inspirational composition and, like the rest of the oratorio, 'The Halleluia Chorus' at which rendition, it is said, prompted reigning Monarchs' to rise from their seat and stand in fervent acknowledgement of this famous religious anthem to end all religious anthems.

The disastrous rehearsal may be considered by some as the first premiere of the work.
Chester Cathedral has a very accomplished choir and a grand organ, piloted from a balcony cockpit.
My late uncle, Gordon Armstrong Williams, a carpenter, built the modern nave choir-stalls.
I have sung there as part of a combined county-wide choir on many occasions, and it is a thrilling experience.
Most of the city attractions mentioned are contained within a quite small area, i.e, the city walls and are easily accessible on foot as the city centre is predominantly traffic-free with out-of-town free parking, Eastgate Street (Roman via Principalis) is, as the name suggests, the main street and is pedestrianised, it is preceded by Watergate Street, originally at river level at the 'Watergate,' and continues from Eastgate Street to Foregate Street, which is without the city walls.

The guardians of preserving the integrity, traditional, historic character, and fabric of their beloved City are extremely resistant to any plans which would compromise this, the more 'commercial' operations, car showrooms, repairs and other non-traditional retail operations were successfully relocated in a nearby newly established retail park, on land formerly used by a combination of the former Chester City FC ground, and a Greyhound Racing Track, ironically part of which now encroaches on the border with Wales, including the football ground all of which lays in Wales!

A major 'victim' of this policy was the former Cheshire County Police HQ, an unsightly concrete ediface, bristling with flat-rooftop radio aerials, reminiscent of a former USSR KGB building, which lay just within the city walls at a point that overlooks the racecourse.
The ugly building, being within the city walls, was completely out of keeping and, in planning jargon, incongruous with the street scene, in other words, despite its important role, it had to go - and go it went to a more acceptable location in Blacon, a suburb of Chester.

All of which leaves little time left for further explorations into nofth Wales, but that's another story, and another Country.

The purpose of the river Dee now, well from Chester to LLandudno is nicknamed 'Costa del Scouse' due to the preference of former Liverpudlians to live here, originally for reasons of low rates, they have sometimes married local girls, taken over local pubs, influenced the local dialect and occasionally enriched our society particularly with their renowned wit.

Other purposes of the River Dee (unpronounceable in Welsh) reduced to D, the first letter of its correct Welsh name, but the additional letters ee must have been an optional extra, is still fished for Salmon and, season permitting, cockle-picking.

A more recent and important role is that adapted by British Aerospace Division at their Broughton Factory, which is located in adjoining Flintshire County of North Wales.

The factory is quite famous for actually building various famous aircraft for several owners including, Vickers-Armstrong (Wellington & Lancaster bombers, De-Havilland Aircraft Corporation, Heron, Dove, Chipmunk, Venom, Vampire, and Comet.

The present owners are B Ae who specialise in the manufacture of wings for all models of the Airbus fleet from where, prior to the introduction of the A380 mega-jumbo, wings for the smaller aircraft are flown to France in a specially constructed aircraft nicknamed
the "Beluga" which, in appearance, is like a twin-engine cargo-carrying A380, which takes off from the runway, about 1.5 miles down the road from us, with a great roar of its engines, laboriously struggles aloft causing us sometimes to involuntarily duck our heads, its that low.

The A80 wings for France, posed a problem, the Beluga not being big enough, meaning back to the drawing board and the answer that they came up with, - the river Dee, which flows relatively near to the extremity of the airfield.

The plan, which became a reality, uses a specially constructed 'trailer' to convey the wings to another specially constructed barge onto which the wings are loaded, the barge then makes its way nearer to the mouth of the Dee, to be re-loaded onto a bigger sea-going vessel for onward conveyance to a port in France, presumably near to the factory in France.

"A stupid arrangement" says big 'gob' presenter of TV's Top Gear, "Why not build the wings where the rest of the aircraft is made," says he, forgetting that part of it is made in Germany, plus its a Franco-British consortium (though little else is) and the present arrangement for wing manufacture protect British jobs.

I'm all in favour of his suggestion of consolidating the manufacturing process, but not in the anti British manner he seems to prefer, I would like to see the whole process moved to Broughton which has a long history of aircraft manufacturing in war and peacetime, the skills and technology are passed from fathers to sons and mothers to sons and daughters and their grandparents, who were employed at Broughton during the dark days of WWII, still hold the record for constructing a Wellington Bomber, from scratch to test flight, in under 24 hours, this record stands unchallenged and unbeaten, even by the Yanks, and a TV documentary is often shown of this achievement and features some of the actual construction team, many of whom have since passed away.

The final accolade for Broughton, which brings many a tear to the eye, is that the famous Lancaster Bomber that is part of the Battle of Britain Memorial flight, was built at Broughton, and on a previous attendance at a display in Anglesey, the return route to its home base obliged it to fly over Broughton, but the pilot, in an emotive gesture of homage, caused the aircraft to descend to an altitude commensurate with that required of the Dambuster Lancasters in order to successfully drop Barnes-Wallace's bouncing bomb, in this case our Lancaster was precariously lower, over-flew the entire length of the runway, waggling her wings in salute and to the astonishment of the workers who were fortunate enough to witness this performance.

Gordon, apologies for the length, I just can't help it.

Hi Gordon

Just for you, I took these photo's at my local Air Show.

Yes wonderful, Delboy, that's the baby - I can just make out the City of Lincoln insignia. Mind you, they do tend to doll her up as the mood moves them, sometimes even to the extent of different livery on either side. Apparently the old girl never dropped a bomb in anger as she was born too late to be assigned to an operational bombing unit - but certainly has made up for that by flying the peacetime flag for the UK and making a few hairs rise on the necks of those who enjoy hearing the distinctive throb of 4 Rolls-Royce Merlins on well-nigh full throttle.

Mavis, my wife, was a former nurse at the Broughton factory, which had an extensive surgery staffed by a Sister and 5 nurses and visits from senior medical officers from the Hatfield factory who were flown up on the daily shuttle.

Recruitment to the factory usually gave preference to offspring of existing or previous employees whose various skills and knowledge were passed on from generation to generation and the whole area is noted for light engineering technology.

Son Paul, who is obsessed with all things aeronautical, particularly warbirds, although having engineering skills and qualifications, did not follow his Mother's connection with the then De-Hav's, nor fancy working in a closed factory environment.

In her days, prior to making Airbus wings, they were still making some attractive peacetime aircraft including the 'Dove' which prompted me to say that an appropriate theme song would have been, "O for the wings of a Dove"!

Regards and thanks

Gordon (2588417 LAC Williams G R)

Why is it everybody in this blog keeps going on and on about how much liverpool received from the EU, when Southampton has and
keeps on getting millions and millions in dock upgrades/approach road upgrades, but they fail to mention that!!!!!!

QUOTE:

Why is it everybody in this blog keeps going on and on about how much liverpool received from the EU, when Southampton has and
keeps on getting millions and millions in dock upgrades/approach road upgrades, but they fail to mention that!!!!!!

The Port upgrades where all paid for through private investment no public money was used & as for the millions for the road upgrades what!! road upgrades i have not seen any road upgrades in years in Southampton but they certainly need some! Southampton is getting nothing from the government or the E.U, So don't assume that as Liverpool is getting nothing from the Government that Southampton is.

QUOTE:

Why is it everybody in this blog keeps going on and on about how much liverpool received from the EU, when Southampton has and
keeps on getting millions and millions in dock upgrades/approach road upgrades, but they fail to mention that!!!!!!

Hi- it's not a battle between Liverpool and Southampton, but between other ports who have also paid into L .through taxes, on an understanding that nothing would threaten their status. It's more a matter of- we promise to use this money for a) and not for b).....oh, sorry, we now want to use your money for b) instead.
Jo.