Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
Can't buy me love - Faith, Hope and Charity
By John Williams
A friend of mine, on reading of my childhood visits to the church of Saint Mary of the Angels in Fox street, told me about a remarkable woman, Kay Kelly, who not only took on and beat cancer but is currently engaged in an equally momentous struggle against the Catholic hierarchy who want to close forever Kay's beloved Fox street Friary.
Although I am no longer a practising Catholic the thought of demolishing this beautiful church strikes a note of horror in my hitherto unmoved soul. I mean, I am not a Buddist but I shuddered when the Taliban dynamited the world's largest statue of the religious leader.
Let's face it, if all the monuments erected by religious people were destroyed because the founders were long since dead then there would be no Parthenon, no Pyramids, no Taj Mahal.
Even a certified agnostic like myself would be forced to recognise the beauty of the Friary's interior. Some of which date's back to 14th century Rome, at which time Liverpool consisted of a fisherman's hut, a hopeful cat and a simple minded traveller looking for Goodison Park.
Intrigued by Kay's monumental struggle I delved more and discovered that the Friary had been founded by the wealthy daughter of a local shipping magnate, who, incidentally, was a Protestant. As I read further about the origins of the benefactor I discovered that she had later become a nun...at which point I was abruptly reminded of the few stories my mother and grandmother had told me about their education by nuns.
My Grandmother's memory of nuns was clouded with vague disappointment. It must have been sometime around 1905 that my Gran's world collapsed. Well,when I say collapsed, I mean when her balloon was well and truly deflated. She told me that she had been in class, singing along with her fellow pupils, observed intently by Sister Marie, who was attempting to form a choir during what was, I suppose, an early version of Pop Idol.
Anyway, my Gran was singing away like a good'un when she became aware that Sister Maria, head cocked to one side to hear the better, was looking in Rose Anne's direction. My Gran, thinking that she was the object of admiration and a certainty for the choir, sang louder and so you can imagine her shock when Sister Maria, performing a fair imitation of a striking cobra, reached out and took my poor Nin by the ear and led her into the corridor making it clear that Rose Anne's singing voice left a lot to be desired!
I can still see my Nin crying with laughter as she related the story.
My mum's story was just as 'traumatic' as she too had been educated by the nuns in Leyfield convent school and her abiding memory of the place concerned a cake, pink icing, a wolf-pack and an irate nun.
It transpired that my mum's class were involved in making sponge cakes and that each pupil had been offered the choice of using white or pink icing. My mother, characteristically individual, chose white while everyone else plumped for pink. After the cakes were iced the girls were told that they could take the cakes home as long as they brought them back to school for the Sister Superior's inspection the following day.
My mum took the cake home and basked in her mother's praise. However, on waking the next morning she discovered that a pack of hungry wolves, thinly disguised as her twin brothers Frank and John, had partially consumed the cake, leaving a gaping hole in one side. In an effort to quell my mothers tears my Nin packed hastily cooked bunloaf into the gap and re-iced it.
All went well at school where, because of its rare colour scheme, my mum's cake drew admiring glances. Then the sister superior, no doubt drawn to it for the same reason, attempted to pick up my mother's cake but when she felt the weight of the bunloaf stuffed 'sponge cake' hastily dropped it back onto the desk. You can imagine my mum's dismay!
I digress. Amy Elizabeth Imrie, later Mother Clare Imrie, was a nun in a class of her own. Born to a British couple in Guyana she was adopted by a rich man in Liverpool after her mother's death. Her life style is difficult for ordinary people to imagine as her adopted father was fabulously rich, being a partner of Thomas Ismay and co-owner of the White Star Line, the company that owned the ill fated Titanic.
Now, it is possible to make all kinds of speculations as to why Amy decided to embrace a religious calling rather than enjoy the sybaritic existence of a rich man's child. She lived in an age of revolutionaries, and most certainly witnessed first hand the appalling poverty of many Liverpudlians, but then so did many of the sons and daughters of other rich men. Whatever the reason she chose the path of devotion and while she left no children of her own, thousands of babies were christened at the beautiful font of the church that her generosity created.
My own mother regularly prayed in the Friary and while I have no way of knowing whether or not her prayers were ever answered I do hope that there are people out there who will help hear Kay Kelly's prayers, and that the church of Saint Mary of the Angels be resurrected. For more detailed information about Kay Kelly's campaign click here