Sunday

It was an early start from Ballinakill to make our 1025 Ryanair flight to Manchester. Our hosts had packed us a breakfast to go, so we were full of fruit, yoghurt and muesli bars by the time we reached Dublin airport. Our entire process of dropping off the hire car, bag drop and flying to Manchester was seamless. We’d read poor reviews of Ryanair, but they were excellent. The flight was less than an hour.

You might be wondering why we flew to Manchester and not directly to Liverpool; the flights to Liverpool were either at 0600 or late in the afternoon. This way, we could catch a train or bus to Liverpool and still arrive in daylight hours. Interestingly, the train was going to cost us 38 pound each, as opposed to the bus, which was 12 pound for the three of us. We took the bus – one hour, no stops.

We found our apartment easily, (cobblestones again! our nemesis) just at it started to rain, and hauled our luggage up four stories. After unpacking, we did a quick trip to Tesco for supplies and settled in the for evening. All three of us exhausted from a long day.

Monday

Magical Mystery Tour by Rod

 Hamish and I were most excited about this tour, visiting several significant Liverpool landmarks synonymous with the history of The Beatles. Our host, Neil, was a wealth of information, with a multitude of facts, numbers and dates rolling off his not-too-Scouse tongue. He was funny, too. My favourite comment went something like “Paul, at 76 years, played 47 songs over 3 hours, without a break! To compare, Justin Bieber manage to play for 1 hour 10… too long.” We stopped at George’s birthplace, as well as the houses where the other 3 grew up, along with Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.

I was quite emotional at various times, since The Beatles have been such a big part of my life. As a bonus, we got to see a couple of streets where they film Peaky Blinders. (Set in Birmingham but filmed in Liverpool.) When the bus finished its trip we were able to wander into the Cavern Club, or so we thought. Who knew there was a Cavern Pub right across the road! Ten photos and a video later, we realised our error and dropped into the real thing, which was much busier and more atmospheric.

We found our way back to the ticket office at Albert Dock to meet Belinda. From here we continued “B Day” by visiting the Beatles Story museum, where Hamish and I heard and read much of the same information we had already digested on the bus. This is what we call recapitulation in the trade. It was still music to our ears. We must have remained excited, since we spent 60 odd pounds in the souvenir shop; something that my Scottish blood does not normally tolerate. All Beatled-up and aglow, we walked back to our apartment to enjoy a laid back afternoon.

Western Approaches Museum by Belinda

Whilst the boys were off on their Magical Mystery Tour, I walked to the former site of the Western Approaches Command Centre. This former top-secret site was set up during WW2 to increase safety of shipping (both military and civilian) after huge losses of merchant ships and men. It also served as a secret training base for naval commanders learning how to out-maneuver German U-Boats. Staff (many of them young females) coded and decoded messages, plotted aircraft and shipping, and followed naval battles. Their mathematical accuracy enabled search and rescue missions to be directed to the site of downed planes or sunken ships, ultimately saving lives.  Being three levels underground, it’s not hard to imagine the stress and excitement that would have been associated with working in such an environment.