WELCOME to my first mini-blog giving a taste of the forthcoming Fizz & Ships maritime themed wine-tasting with my great friend and viticultural expert Jane Clare at The Grand Southport’s Princess Grace Suite, on Friday 21 August 2026. The Grand is the perfect venue as its art deco style is synonymous with luxurious ocean liner …
LOVERS of Liverpool’s history despaired when construction of Everton FC’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium in the working Bramley Moore Dock was a major contributor to losing the hard won and highly prized UNESCO World Heritage Site status. But in a bizarre and unexpected twist, the new waterfront stadium, sitting like a giant misshapen toffee in …
THE fate of the famous former Mersey Bar lightvessel Planet hangs precariously in the balance as her time laid-up in Sharpness Shipyard in Gloucestershire looks set to be running out. Coincidentally, as shown in the main photograph, the ‘red’ Planet (turning pink) lies alongside another Mersey veteran, the last Wallasey ferry, MV Egremont, and the …
WHAT makes Liverpool so special? Well, it’s people like pensioner, the late Jack Stamper (left, with his wife Eileen). Jack’s unrelenting tenacity meant that there is a Pier Head memorial to the world’s second worst maritime disaster which occurred 85 years ago this month. This was the horrific sinking of Liverpool’s Cunard liner HMT Lancastria and …
HEARING about the tsunami of cash, covid and council planning problems that almost sank actor-entrepreneur Philip ‘Tinhead’ Olivier’s plans to turn an old Mersey ferry into a stylish floating city bistro, I remarked he must have balls of steel, to which he replied: “No – brass balls which I’ve had to pawn!” His Daffodil project …
ONE of the defining images of transgender pioneer April Ashley – arguably Britain’s first supermodel – looks limpidly down from the Hay-on-Wye castle walls during its Literary Festival. Although the giant photograph oozes early ’60s glamour, there is also a tiny hint of Scouse street humour in the slightly upturned smile that reaches deep down …
IT’s both deeply depressing yet slightly reassuring to read of the profoundly distressing fate of one of the greatest ships of all time, the mighty SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever built. In a move worthy of Britain’s own abysmal ship preservation achievements, it’s revealing to find that the Americans are equally hopeless. …
Today, 11 April 2025, marks the 113th anniversary of the final port of call of White Star Line’s flagship, RMS Titanic, before heading out across the Atlantic (as in the last known photo above, by Kate Odell). Four days later she met her infamous demise after colliding with an iceberg and sinking on 15 April …
I’ve finally crossed the threshold of Windermere Jetty Museum having been unable to accept an invitation to the official reopening five years ago, but driven past countless times since. My last visit was 25 years ago in its previous incarnation as Windermere Steamboat Museum (a better self-explanatory title as it’s not a museum of jetties). …
THE closure and sale of one of Liverpool’s landmark buildings, the 30 James Street – Home of the Titanic Hotel and former headquarters of the world famous White Star Line, is deeply disappointing news. This is the second time the hotel has gone into administration in two years after conversion from offices, when it was …
