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News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.

Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.

Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.

We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.

And it is our mission to redress the balance.

By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.

Who’s a hero?

A horse, a horse: Stonewall Jackson at Manassas

Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.

When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.

And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.

Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.

Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.

And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.

And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.

I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.

And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.

And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.

The extraordinary ordinary

In the name of dog: Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh

Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.

Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.

Gay giants

And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.

Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.

Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.

With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.

While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.

Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.

Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.

And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.

All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.

Redressing the balance

Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.

With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.

So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.

Those we can identify with and look up to.

And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.

And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.

And to celebrate the test event nightclub gigs for 6,000 people in Liverpool the past weekend Rainy Days and Songdays gives you our Mersey mix.

Across the Universe, The Beatles:

And the original and the best sung dreamily by John Lennon.

I’m sure the weekend’s DJs could put some bass and drums beat on this.

But I’m happy enough with George’s tanpura and Ringo’s skins.

I dare say Stefanie Hempel can do Across the Universe on her ukulele.

On der Beatles tour in Hamburg too but this is one she prepared earlier

Of course no trip to Liverpool would be complete without a trip to The Beatles Story on Albert Dock.

And pictures outside the Cavern Club, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.

Of course there is no shortage of Beatles tours around the city but we’d recommend The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour of course.

People around every corner

Gerry and the Pacemakers, Ferry Across the Mersey:

There are iconic river trips, and ones personal to me, and we’ll deffo return to this.

But a ferry across Liverpool’s River Mersey is certainly right up there.

It became a favourite attraction to show visitors in our time living in Liverpool.

While Gerry’s other anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone is for ever associated with football team Liverpool FC or the great Celtic in that other great British port city Glasgow.

Real Liverpool

You To Me Are Everything, The Real Thing: As important in their own way to Liverpool at their time in the Seventies as The Beatles were in the Sixties.

The Real Thing were the first all British black band to make it and in those days that was a challenge.

Of course good music has no colour and travels across the world and time.

And it is the soundtrack of the Whiskey Muhle in Söll in Austria.

Power of Frankie

The Power of Love, Frankie Goes to Hollywood: And, of course the Eighties in Liverpool and across the UK belonged to Frankie.

I’ll leave the grinding of Relax to the Liverpool gay nightclub scene, great song though it is.

And the political zeitgeist theatricality of Two Tribes to the boxing Reagan and Chernenko (ask your parents).

It’s the Three Wise Men from the East on the video which gets me every time. It’s the camels you see.

That takes the Biscuit

Dickie Davies Eyes, Half Man Half Biscuit: Birkenhead, Liverpool’s wee brother across the Mersey.

And where the Ferry docks is colloquially known as the One-Eyed City.

Because it always has one eye on Liverpool.

But Birky on the Wirral punches above it’s weight (sometimes literally, it can be rough) with its musical output.

It spawned synth gods Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, The Teardrop Explodes and the wonderfully inventive alternative cult band Half Man Half Biscuit.

The Birkenhead quartet have given us some of the most unforgettable song titles in pop…

All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, Trumpton Riots, and my own fave, Dickie Davies Eyes.

Dickie Davies was an Eighties British TV sportscaster.

With a grey flash in his bouffant black hair and a manicured moustache not unlike my own at the time.

And different coloured eyes, like David Bowie had.

And I was giddy with excitement when I got the opportunity to interview him when I lived in Aberdeen.

HMHB were geniuses in channeling popular cultural reference points.

And celebrated Dickie in a pastiche of the Kim Carnes’ song of the tune, Bette Davis Eyes.

Of course I remember nothing of my interview with Dickie… I was too busy looking at Dickie’s Eyes.

Sit back and enjoy… Rainy Days and Songdays Mersey Mix

Tag: https://www.visitwirral.com/explore/towns-and-villages/birkenhead

Dragging up the statue debate