My book, Secret Liverpool is a pocket-book guide to the hidden and little-known places off the usual tourist trail. I wrote it for people who are interested in heritage and are keen to find out more about the city. It is aimed at the keen city stroller but can be enjoyed from the comfort of your armchair.
Secret Liverpool
After 3 years of proper research and many interviews, I came across fascinating stories which help the reader see these places and objects in a different light. There are over 150 ‘places’ to visit and scores of fascinating characters; here are a few remarkable women I came across;
Lottie Dodd - born into a wealthy family on the Wirral, Lottie is without doubt Britain’s greatest sportswoman: the only woman in history to hold the British Tennis and Golf Championships, she also won the archery silver medal at the 1908 Olympics, represented England at hockey and was one of the first women to complete the Cresta Run and pass the Men’s Ice Skating test... and nobody’s heard of her.
Liverpool University campus contains several first-rate sculptures including Barbara Hepworth’s Squares with Two Circles and Mitzi Cunliffe’s The Quickening. Hepworth is now recognised as one of our greatest artists and Cunliffe is best known for designing the BAFTA Mask.
Rabindra and Amrit Singh are Wirral based ‘Twindividuals’ who share the same genes and a love of Indian miniaturist art. Working together on the same canvas they have produced some stunningly intricate paintings including the Liverpool 800, commissioned by the City Council to celebrate eight centuries of Liverpool’s heritage. It can be found in St George’s Hall.
Florence Maybrick was at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the 19thC. Accused of poisoning her oddball husband, the judge appeared to be more convinced by the affair she was conducting with Maybrick’s buddy than the very flaky forensic evidence and she was convicted. During the trial she lodged at Lark Lane Police Station. Her cell survives as a tiny ‘two-minute wonder’ in what is now a community centre.
On Bidston Hill, in the shadow of the Lighthouse, Observatory and Windmill, lies a stone carving to a Sun Goddess. Thought to be a representation of the Viking goddess Sunni, she had the daily task of towing the sun from one horizon to the other in her horse-drawn chariot.
Secret Liverpool by Mike Keating is available now. Published by Jonglez Publishing