Merseyside is of course home to the vibrant busy city of Liverpool, set on the River Mersey. Nearby is Birkenhead and Warrington (another busy town that’s actually in Cheshire). The area has a strong maritime history, but also a sad one being involved in the Atlantic slave trade.
Not just urban, there is plenty of green space. Although recently locals were up-in-arms when the council banned dogs from many parks. Never argue with a Scouser! There is also a boycott of several years against The Sun newspaper (which has lost millions due to wrongly blaming the football fans for the Hillsborough disaster). When a 2016 inquest exonerated them, it was one of the few papers not to carry this as front page news. Boris Johnson was also criticised for approving comments when editing The Spectator, with his subsequent apology described ‘as obscene as the previous editorial’.
You can visit Ireland by boat from Liverpool. It takes around 8 hours, as an alternative to the shorter trip from the North Wales port of Holyhead. It’s a much shorter route (under 3 hours) to visit the Isle of Man, a stunning island, with the oldest parliament in the world.
Liverpool is most famous for being the birthplace of The Beatles, the world’s most successful rock band. Drummer Ringo Starr is lauded as a drumming genius, and his techniques are studied in music school. Ringo himself almost died as a child and was left with such severe food allergies, that he’s never tasted onions or a curry!
