While Winchester Cathedral gets most of the attention, there are at least two other significant historic sites in Winchester. The first is called Wolvesey Castle, and is maintained by English Heritage.
Wolvesey Castle (Winchester, England)
Wolvesey Castle was the home of the Bishop of Winchester during the Middle Ages. It was built in the 12th century and hosted all kinds of special events…including those held for the royal family.
Wolvesey Castle (Winchester, England)
Alas, Wolvesey Castle was destroyed by the “Roundheads” in 1646. I will admit that I didn’t know who these oddly-named Roundheads were. But it appears that they wanted a strong Parliament and a constitutional monarchy, rather than an absolute monarchy.
Wolvesey Castle (Winchester, England)
But it isn’t really necessary to have a keen understanding of the English Civil War to appreciate Wolvesey Castle. Some information is posted at various locations around the site, but I enjoyed just wandering around the ruins and being transported back to an earlier time. While the hours are not too extensive, admission is free.
Wolvesey Castle (Winchester, England)
We ended our last visit to Winchester by exploring some of the “upper town”. Our path took us down narrow streets with cozy “cottages” and past atmospheric pubs such as the Wykeham Arms. The academic vibe was similar to our home town of Kingston, Ontario…albeit a few centuries older.
The Wykeham Arms, on Kingsgate Street (at the corner of Canon Street) in Winchester, England.
Another major site in Winchester is the Great Hall. It was actually part of a bigger complex called Winchester Castle, which was founded in 1067 by William the Conqueror (as Winchester was a big deal at the time). It was the seat of royal power for quite some time. Alas, that castle has also largely disappeared…but the Great Hall remains. It is still an imposing building and hosts a museum.
Canon Street in Winchester, England
The Great Hall also contains the “Round Table.” It is a big wooden tabletop that was later linked to King Arthur and the “Knights of the Round Table”. By the time we arrived, however, the Great Hall was about to close. We decided not to enter (there is an admission fee), leaving us with an important sight to see if we should ever return to Winchester.
The Great Hall (former Winchester Castle) in Winchester, England.
While we missed out on the Great Hall, we still managed to cover a lot of territory during our two afternoons in Winchester. This was partly because we didn’t expect to have very much time for sightseeing during the forthcoming two weeks in Wales. We would have an entirely different focus there!
View from the front of the Great Hall (Winchester, England)
We returned to Shawford for the last time and had a final dinner at “The Bridge.” We loaded up on supplies for our trip to Wales and caught a train out of Southampton early the next morning. Travelling with luggage can sometimes be a burden on British trains, but that feeling was outweighed by the excitement of our impending new experience.
Like many people, the first time I heard about Winchester Cathedral was in the 1966 vaudeville-style pop hit of the same name. It was recorded solely by studio musicians, so little was ever heard of the purported artist (The New Vaudeville Band) again. And for many years, that was really the only thing on my radar about Winchester Cathedral. I hadn’t even given much thought to whether there was a real place by that name.
Different version of cover photo
It turns out that there really is a Winchester Cathedral. And it is really, really big. It dates back to 1079 and is the longest medieval cathedral in the world: an incredible 170 metres long. But is the building formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity and of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and of Saint Swithun in Winchester really worth a visit? If you have time to fully explore it, I think the answer is yes.
Some of the Cathedral’s choristers gather before singing
The Cathedral has instituted a novel pricing system. It currently costs GBP14.90 (about $27.95 Canadian) to get an annual pass, which is the only way to see all of the Cathedral. You could attend a service, of course, but much of what you want to see will be inaccessible. The open cathedral area that you see upon entering is barely half the length of the overall building. And there are many exhibits and things to see in the other half of the building and the various transepts.
One of the side passages in Winchester Cathedral
One such exhibit is the Winchester Bible. It is the largest (936 pages) and best-preserved 12th century bible in England. Looking at it is superficially similar to seeing the Book of Kells in Dublin, although it is not nearly as old or ornate. As it is very delicate, photographs are not allowed. The same applies to the many other rare books on display.
This is where the choristers sang
There are many “chapels” within the Cathedral. One of the most impressive parts is the area where the choristers ultimately started singing. As you can see from the photos above and below, the carvings in the Cathedral are impossibly ornate.
Close-up
Winchester Cathedral is also the final resting place for many ancient kings of England (and/or Wessex). The very oldest range from Cynegils (whose reign started in 611!) to Canute (king of England, Denmark, and Norway from 1016 to 1035). There are many more notables, including various Bishops of Winchester and, more recently, Jane Austen.
Looking back from the previous picture
After viewing the various exhibits, we descended to the crypt. It often floods in the winter, due to the swampy terrain, although this is not as dangerous as it used to be. An English diver named William Walker is credited with saving the Cathedral by helping to restore the heavily-damaged (and underwater) foundation. He worked on it for six years, starting around 1906. It cannot have been very much fun, as disturbed human remains were part of the mess.
Entrance to the crypt
Thankfully, everything looked very dry when we went into the crypt. It is sometimes possible to go on a more extensive tour of the crypt, but this could not be done when we were there.
Inside the crypt
And about those choristers: it is quite something to hear them in a space like this. The Cathedral publishes its daily schedule online, so you can time your visit to hear them for at least part of your visit.
Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral
When visiting the Cathedral, take advantage of the knowledge of the reception staff. We were there on a Sunday afternoon, and they told us when the various parts of the Cathedral would be closed for public access. The closing times are staggered in accordance with the Cathedral’s needs, as it is still a functioning church. This allowed us to focus on those parts first, and finish our visit in the parts that stayed open the latest.
View from just inside the front entrance…but you can’t see all the way back
And, of course, be sure to allow yourself enough time to see everything of interest. Ideally, we would have arrived a little earlier so that we didn’t have to rush through the parts that would close relatively soon.
The unexpected rear portion of Winchester Cathedral: just when you think you’ve reached the end…
We arrived in Winchester on a Saturday morning, It was quite busy, with many vendor stalls set up on High Street. Winchester attracts a lot of visitors: the legendary Cathedral is of course a major attraction, but it is far from the only one.
Probably one of the oldest “Boots” locations (High Street – Winchester, England)
Winchester’s river is called the “Itchen”. Not a particularly elegant name, but it was actually quite peaceful and our walking tour travelled alongside it for quite a while. We learned a bit about geology: much of the area is based on chalk…but did you know that it comes from microscopic, calcium-rich skeletal remains of tiny algae and plankton? The other common material around here (flint) also comes from plankton and sea sponges. You never think about these things on a day-to-day basis…
The River Itchen in downtown Winchester
This was an important Roman town too, although the visible Roman remains are limited to a frankly underwhelming wall fragment. Winchester’s most important period was around the time of the Norman Conquest (1066), when it is was the “second city” of what is now the U.K. That was long after the Roman period, but still quite old.
Jane Austen passed away here (in the 2nd floor room with the bay window)
Another claim to fame of Winchester is Jane Austen. The famous author (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility) spent the last part of her life here. We saw the home (not open to the public) where she died in 1817, as well as the P&G Wells bookshop…where she bought some books and likely other things too. It’s the oldest retail business in Winchester and is “probably” Britain’s oldest bookshop.
P&G Wells bookshop (Winchester, England) – Jane Austen shopped here.
Winchester was a walled city, so it naturally had several gates (Northgate, Westgate, etc.). They looked beyond the compass when additional gates were needed: our tour passed through Kingsgate (pictured below). Retail space being at a premium, there is even a bookshop in the bottom left corner of the gate.
KIngsgate (Winchester, England)
It won’t come as any surprise that an ancient city like Winchester has plenty of elite schools. If you’re an English student with the requisite grades and funds, you may end up studying here for part of your academic career (and perhaps end up teaching here afterwards). I took a number of pictures, but the schools tended to be nestled on narrow streets behind imposing walls. The Bishop’s residence was the best institutional picture I took, and it’s not even a school.
Bishop of Winchester’s Residence
Also on our tour were the ruins of Wolvesey Castle. I’ll be sharing some pictures from Wolvesey Castle in a future post, as I had a hard time selecting just one or two photos. And the same goes for Winchester Cathedral, which deserves a separate post for both its story and appearance. It’s impressive and well worth a visit.
A small offshoot of the River Itchen
Stay tuned for more about those two iconic Winchester sights!
We have some family members living in Shawford, a small community just outside Winchester, England. After arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport, we decided to stay here for a few days before moving on to Wales.
Our dinners at “The Bridge” (Shawford, England)
After we had a small lunch at our airline’s arrival lounge, we took a (very full, very delayed) bus to Winchester and were met 90 minutes later at the bus station by our niece. Their house is about a 15-minute walk from the Shawford train station. And right across from the train station is “The Bridge”, the local pub. That’s where we had our first dinner.
Exterior of “The Bridge” (Shawford, England)
Back at our lodgings, we made some rough plans for our sightseeing visit to Winchester. We slept that night for nearly 11 hours, after only about 3 hours of sleep on the plane the night before.
This purports to be the oldest house in Winchester – built in 1450.
Winchester today has about 50,000 people in the city proper. But, just like my home city of Kingston, it was once much more influential. It was the “capital” of Wessex and even England for many years. It was also the second largest city in England (after London).
High Street in Winchester, England
We started our visit by lining up a walking tour of the old city for mid-afternoon. We did a little bit of shopping on the “High Street”, and even stumbled upon a record fair at a local hotel. I won’t be doing any music shopping after leaving the U.K., because our future destinations on this around-the-world adventure will be even more expensive for music. And I don’t like the idea of travelling so many thousands of miles with large /fragile vinyl records. As a result, we just picked up a couple of CDs.
Guildhall, Winchester – this is where the tourist information office is located
Lunch was just some take-out from a street vendor. We’ll be away from home for far too long to constantly have sit-down restaurant meals. We then returned to the tourist information centre and met our walking tour guide. We were now ready to discover the city’s rich and varied history!
We had dinner here (Winchester, England)
One of the nice things about a walking tour is that you end up in places that you wouldn’t have found on your own…and you can also identify places that you’ll go back to later. It’s easy to find them on your own…you just need to retrace your steps from earlier in the day.
Chicken dhansak and honey murug at Gurkha’s Inn (Winchester, England)
I’ll have more details on the walking tour in a later post. We finished our day with dinner at Gurkha’s Inn, a restaurant featuring Nepalese and Indian cuisine. Ever since Darbar closed in Kingston, I have been searching for a comparable dhansak!
So, today, I will take on the difficult task of ranking the Beatles studio albums from “least best” to “best”. I could probably write an entire post about each album, but I’ll keep my comments as short as possible.
13. Yellow Submarine (1969). This album had only one side of Beatles music, and even then only four of those songs were previously unreleased. “Hey Bulldog” is a good song, but these leftovers can’t hope to compete with their other proper albums.
12. Beatles for Sale (1964). Their fourth album in two years sounded tired. They looked tired on the cover. Even their cover version choices seemed uninspired. “Eight Days a Week” and “I’ll Follow the Sun” are highlights, but this will never be a Desert Island Disc for me.
11. Please Please Me (1963). Their debut album contains three incredible performances: “I Saw Her Standing There”, the title track, and “Twist and Shout”. The rest is generally fine, but they haven’t really found their feet yet. It wouldn’t take long: their second release of 1963 would be much better.
10. Help! (1965). When I listen to this album, I think of the word “competent”. They tentatively explored some different directions here, but I still get the feeling that they are in a bit of a holding pattern. “Yesterday” was ultimately overplayed, but who can complain about the melody? “Help!”, “Ticket to Ride”, and “You’re Going to Lose that Girl” are among the other highlights.
9. Let it Be (1970). Millions of words have been written about this trying phase in their career. I will just say this: despite some acknowledged classic singles, I just don’t find this album as enjoyable as the ones ranked above it. It’s a different kind of fatigue from “Beatles For Sale”, but it is fatigue all the same. Some questionable production decisions don’t help. The “Naked” version that came out in 2003 was preferable in that regard.
8. Magical Mystery Tour (1967). Side two, which collected their recent singles, is mostly brilliant. “Penny Lane”/”Strawberry Fields Forever” may be the best single ever released. How could you call either of those a “B”-side? “Hello Goodbye” and “All You Need is Love” also keep the quality high. But side one is a tougher slog, and keeps this from ranking higher.
7. A Hard Day’s Night (1964). An amazingly consistent release, with all 13 songs written by Lennon-McCartney. And pretty much any of them could have been a single. Indeed, some of them became successful singles for others. The title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and “And I Love Her” are justifiably classics. Maybe the lyrics were still simple, but by now they had mastered the musical side of the equation.
6. The Beatles (a.k.a. “The White Album”) (1968). Some people would rank this a lot higher. And I admit, there is a lot here to like. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Blackbird”, “Dear Prudence”, and “Helter Skelter” are undoubtedly among their very best. But, as a listening experience, this double album might be just a little too long. I think I would have left “Revolution 9” as a B-side or an EP track, and culled some of the undeveloped fragments. “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” came out as a single around this time: wouldn’t they have made an excellent addition?
5. With The Beatles (1963). This starts with the breathless “It Won’t Be Long” and doesn’t let up until “Money (That’s What I Want)”, the fierce closing track. As an album, it is perfectly paced. And despite having six cover versions, they don’t diminish the album at all. Both “Money” and “You’ve Really Got A Hold on Me” achieve the rare feat of dwarfing the Motown originals. And the bass on “All My Loving”…
4. Rubber Soul (1965). This was a significant leap forward from “Help!” and the albums that came before. A couple of soft spots mean that it doesn’t quite make my Top 3, but by and large the songs are outstanding. “In My Life” is a remarkable accomplishment that thankfully hasn’t been overplayed over the years. Any other band would have killed to have this as a single, but the Beatles never bothered.
3. Revolver (1966). My Top 3 is basically interchangeable. If you pitted the individual songs from those albums against each other, I think Revolver might prevail. “Taxman”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Here, There and Everywhere”, “She Said She Said”, “Good Day Sunshine”, “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “For No One”, “Got to Get You Into My Life”, and “Tomorrow Never Knows”…all amazing, and also mostly without precedent. The only reason why I don’t rank it higher is the top two albums hold together as albums just a little bit better. But this is really splitting hairs.
2. Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). It’s very hard for me to rate this album objectively, as it contains “A Day in the Life”…my favourite Beatles song, and possibly my favourite song period. Nothing had ever sounded like that before (or since). And tracks as diverse as “She’s Leaving Home” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” push the envelope of popular music too. By virtue of having a theme (for a couple of songs at least), it just sneaks past Revolver.
1. Abbey Road (1969). It’s definitely the best-sounding Beatles album. And even if the songs aren’t as uniformly great as Revolver, I currently think this is the best Beatles album experience. The huge medley that concludes side two is a stunning suite of music, despite being bunged together from a collection of half-finished fragments. And don’t sell the other songs short: “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something” are my two favourites, and are justifiably famous, but “Oh! Darling” and “You Never Give Me Your Money” are two of the many underappreciated and lesser-known tracks. To me, this album sounds like a band knowing it is going to split up, but is still determined to set the standard even higher…just one more time.
[The copyrights in the album covers lie with Parlophone/Apple Records. And the photo at the very top of the post is a photo of me crossing Abbey Road at that zebra crossing.]
I’ve been doing some cleaning and sorting, after doing some home renovations. What struck me was how many interesting and…unusual postcards I have received from friends over the years. It’s partly my fault: I try to send interesting things to my friends too.
Agadir, Morocco – where you can find the biggest couscous in the world! (1998)
This post, and several more to come in the near future, will include some of the more unusual postcards I’ve received. The first two posts are entirely from the late 1980s and the 1990s. In a nod to Spinal Tap, the photo at the very top shows (of course) Druids at Stonehenge (1997).
Azrou, Morocco – where you can find a police station! (1997)
Another card from Morocco – but I can’t speculate on who these people are, as my friend taped a Moroccan highway toll receipt over the explanation on the back! (1998)
It is impossible to see everything in the world, but having friends send along some highlights and personal impressions is certainly a cost-effective and interesting way to cover places I’ve missed. And in some cases, I received postcards from places that I ended up visiting later.
The card says this is a “Typical Moroccan Souk” – not sure I agree, as I never saw a single watermelon at any of the Moroccan souks I visited! (1997)
I’m not going to name my friends in these posts. But I know many of them read this blog, so it will be interesting to see if these postcards tweak any memories (actual or misremembered) about sending them! I say “misremembered” because sometimes more than one of my friends has been to a particular place. I’m looking at you, Rome and Berlin!
“Attention! You are now leaving West Berlin!” And the card quite rightly asks…”Well…how?” (1988)
As we advance further and further into the digital age, postcards are becoming more and more rare. But I still receive them regularly: a few of my friends share my affinity for postcards, and make a point of sending the odd and the incongruous whenever they travel. They even apologize when the only offerings are generic and conventional. (Or they don’t – see below).
No apology on this one (1988).
Due to this quest for quirks, I suspect that my postcard collection is getting progressively stranger even though postcards are harder to find these days!
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia – one of the few hotels that offers “Noble Lodging” (1998)
Finally…if postcards aren’t quite your thing and you would prefer some more conventional travel content, I will try to include links to previous posts that cover the same territory or theme as the postcards.
This year has been special for Beatles fans. More than 50 years after they broke up, a new Beatles song called “Now and Then” appeared last month. Featuring all four members, it was an unexpected but fitting conclusion to the recording career of this unparalleled band. It was also accompanied by an evocative video that tugged at the heartstrings one last time.
“Mendips” – John Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool
My Beatles journey began in high school, when I discovered my sister’s old Beatles albums. That was 40 years ago, but I’ve remained a fan ever since. And while my collection has expanded to include everything from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Bajofondo Tango Club, the enduring influence of the Beatles is abundantly clear in other favourites such as Crowded House and Jellyfish.
3 Savile Row – former headquarters of the Beatles’ business empire
When I look back, I see that a significant amount of my travel has been Beatles-related. The most obvious trip, of course, was a 2005 trip to Liverpool. While there, we visited the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. But we also visited their early 1960s haunts such as the famous Cavern Club and The Grapes pub. We even stayed at the Adelphi Hotel – the top hotel in town in the 1960s, and the very definition of “faded grandeur” by the time we stayed there. You can read more about this trip in this post from 2015.
Abbey Road Studios, St. John’s Wood, London
Just as memorable was my November 2014 trip to London, England. I attended several great musical events while in London, but I also took an extended tour of Beatles sights. In addition to the Apple headquarters on Savile Row, I saw the Abbey Road Studios where almost all of those great songs were recorded. I even crossed Abbey Road, as you can see at the very top of this post. But I also saw several other places that were less obvious parts of the Beatles story. You can read more about that day in this December 2014 post.
Street entrance to the Cavern Club in Liverpool
London and Liverpool – those aren’t surprising Beatles destinations. But there’s more. On a trip to New York City, we stopped by the “Strawberry Fields” portion of Central Park and the adjacent “Dakota Building” where John Lennon spent the last years of his life. And, like I have on many of my travels, I also found a very rare Beatles-related record as a souvenir. On this occasion, it was a very elaborately packaged Paul McCartney solo vinyl single from a shop in Greenwich Village.
The Weeklings, with string and horn sections, live at Monmouth University’s Pollak Theatre.
On a completely separate trip, I found myself at Monmouth University in the state of New Jersey…for a Beatles symposium! My friend (and fellow Beatles fan) Anthony heard about an academic conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 “The Beatles” album (a.k.a “The White Album”). Well, why not? You can read about that conference in this post from November 2018. Pictured above is a concert we saw at the conference…The Weeklings were brilliant, and played most of The White Album live!
Paul McCartney live in Halifax, Nova Scotia (July 2009)
We’ve seen Ringo Starr in concert a couple of times: once at Casino Rama (north of Toronto), and another time (just last year) right here in Kingston. And while I saw Paul McCartney in Toronto when I lived there in the early 1990s, we also saw him many years later in…Halifax, Nova Scotia! We were visiting friends in Halifax but managed to include Paul’s concert as well. You can read about the 2009 concert in this post from 2015.
Poster for an upcoming Beatles cover band concert (Budapest, Hungary – June 24, 1991)
The Straight Eights live at Castro’s Lounge (Toronto, Ontario)
Unexpected links are a great part of travel. And while this post features previously published photos, I’ve just unexpectedly discovered some “new” photos from prior travels. I’ll be sharing some of those in my next post…coming soon!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a trip like that, although I still attend a lot of concerts. So, where would I go now?
The first place that comes to mind is South Africa. Regular readers of this blog will know that I saw (and met!) the late Johnny Clegg many times. Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album remains one of my all-time favourites. “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” is a great compilation of music from South Africa. I really enjoyed seeing Ladysmith Black Mambazo when they came to Kingston. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo recently collaborated with South African Jeremy Loops on a fun single called “This Town”. It would be great to see this live, in the country where it was made.
I enjoyed seeing a small tango orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But since then, I have discovered the music of Bajofondo. The band members are from both Argentina and Uruguay. They use local music, such as tango, as a starting point…but take it in some very interesting modern directions. Since poor weather stopped me from getting to Uruguay, wouldn’t it be cool to see something like this in Montevideo?
But it is not necessary to go halfway across the world. There are some American artists who could form the basis for a fun musical trip. I have great respect for Jon Batiste from New Orleans, Louisiana: I was singing the praises of his “We Are” album even before it received a bunch of Grammy nominations. A trip to New Orleans could also include Trombone Shorty, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who we recently saw in Kingston)…the list goes on.
I’ve already seen the Weeklings perform live…in Monmouth, New Jersey, of all places. However, they were so compelling that I’d love to see them again. Their cover versions (especially of Beatles songs) are amazing, but their original compositions are great too. And I recently discovered that they sometimes play live at Daryl’s House, in Pawling, New York. It’s a cozy venue, and is operated by none other than Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame). Wouldn’t that be a fun part of a trip to New York City?
I shared some Weeklings videos in a music-related post from a couple of years ago…if you like the above two, you’ll probably find these ones even better.
And what about all those Canadian music trips I could do? Pagliaro in Montreal…trips like that could keep me occupied for years!
If you followed my trip to Abbey Road last November, then you can probably guess why we incorporated a visit to Liverpool into our 2005 Wales holiday: to see the Beatles sights in this northern England city. To make the experience as authentic as possible, we stayed at the Adelphi Hotel: it is an ancient place that would have been the top hotel in town during the 1950s and 1960s. Guests have included Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Roy Rogers (and his horse Trigger!).
Prior to becoming global superstars, the Beatles gained an intensely devoted following in their hometown of Liverpool. The venue most associated with them is the Cavern Club on Mathew Street, where they played hundreds of shows “before the fame”. It was a damp, dingy and crowded underground venue dripping with condensation that nonetheless attracted throngs to each Beatles performance.
Near the Liverpool waterfront on a blustery day in northern England
One would think that such an important sight would have been preserved as a tourist sight. Nonetheless, it was in fact “filled in” in 1973 to accommodate an underground rail line. Some say that the Cavern was not saved because there was some lingering resentment over the “local boys who left”. Using the original plans and some of the original materials, a “new” underground Cavern Club was soon built in the same general area and it has been filled with tourists ever since. This is the Cavern you see in the photo at the top of this post.
Our van for the National Trust tour of the Lennon and McCartney childhood homes in Liverpool, England
While it hosts bands of all types, during the daytime almost everybody there is a tourist attracted by the Beatles connection. Not wanting to miss out, we went down there to see what it was like. A passable guitarist sang Beatles songs on the stage. We ordered Cokes, as many of the lunchtime attendees would have done in the Beatles’ day, and (along with a lot of tourists) managed to get a small feel for what it might have been like in the early 1960s.
Before going down into the Cavern, we stopped at The Grapes. This is a nearby Mathew Street bar where the Beatles would sometimes relax before or after shows at the Cavern. Again, most Beatles fans know this. A couple of local patrons offered to take our picture, which we thought was a nice gesture. It soon became clear that they were hoping for some money or drinks for their trouble!
“Mendips” – John Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool
While it was relatively expensive, we then went on a National Trust tour of the boyhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A full-time housekeeper lives in each one and the only way to get inside them is by taking the National Trust tour from downtown Liverpool. Advance reservations are required, as only a limited number of people can visit each day. Indoor photographs are not allowed.
John’s home was first…and it might be a revelation for some. Although Lennon wrote a song called “Working Class Hero” and rebelled against privilege from time to time, he actually grew up in a relatively posh home (it even had a name: “Mendips”) with his aunt. Mendips has been preserved as it would have been in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We saw the front “foyer” where John and Paul would practice their vocal harmonies because the wall tiles resulted in great acoustics.
20 Forthlin Road (centre left) – Paul McCartney’s childhood home in Liverpool
From there we went to Paul McCartney’s former home at 20 Forthlin Road. This was much more modest – a cramped row house where Paul lived with his brother and father (his mother died when Paul was just 14). We saw the living room where John and Paul composed some of their early songs “eyeball to eyeball”. As with Mendips, the house has been restored to how it would have been when Paul actually lived there. Although it was much humbler than John’s house, it would have been filled with music as Paul’s father had once been a bandleader. The housekeeper here even bore a passing facial resemblance to Paul and naturally had the same Liverpool accent.
If you are interested in the history of the Beatles, visiting the National Trust houses is probably the best way to see “The Beatles’ Liverpool”. The Cavern is also worth a peek but be aware that, out of necessity, the authenticity is just a little more compromised.
Last Saturday was “Record Store Day” and we drove to Ottawa to see what was available in the record stores of our nation’s capital. It reminded me of the interesting music I’ve picked up in my travels: each record has its own story, above and beyond the actual music.
The photo at the top of this post is one of my favourite finds. For some unknown reason, the Soviet record label Melodiya decided to release a 4-track EP (7″, 33 rpm) containing seemingly random tracks from Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 “Ram” album. When I was “crate-digging” in a Tallinn, Estonia used record store, I found this pressing from Riga (now in Latvia, but then part of the U.S.S.R.). While I can’t speak Russian, I know the sounds of the Cyrillic alphabet and was able to phonetically confirm that this was in fact a release from the former Beatle. I picked up some fascinating Soviet LPs there too…but I’ll keep the focus on 7″ records today, as they are easier to pick up while traveling.
A Czechoslovakian 7″ single from Dean Reed, the “Red Elvis”
Speaking of the Soviet era, I picked up some fascinating 45s in Prague last September. Some were just Czechoslovakian pressings of hits by Western artists but the Dean Reed 45 pictured above was something I would never find in Canada.
Dean Reed went nowhere in the U.S.A. as a singer and traveled the world in search of fame and revolution. He ended up based in East Germany, where he was proudly paraded by the authorities as a genuine American rock star and revolutionary. He did, in fact, enjoy immense popularity in the Eastern Bloc…at least for a while. His ersatz-Elvis recordings sound rather hokey now but there wasn’t much else available. Alas, he drowned under mysterious circumstances outside of East Berlin in the mid-1980s. If you’re interested in his bizarre story, there is a book (“Comrade Rockstar”, by Reggie Nadelson) about Reed and it has long been rumoured that Tom Hanks would make a movie about this forgotten musician.
Karel Gott’s “Beatles” single
Karel Gott also found success in the Eastern Bloc during the 1970s but, unlike Dean Reed, still enjoys some popularity today. Like many people who lived during that difficult time, he made certain compromises in order to preserve his career in a totalitarian state. The above single does not feature the Beatles, but the A-side is a Czech-language tribute to the Fab Four (although it sounds nothing like them). I found this single in the same grim record store that yielded the Dean Reed record. Both were very cheap: I suspect it is because they come from a time that many people would like to forget.
Johnny Clegg’s 1987 “Asimbonanga” single was not attracting attention in Helsinki
Johnny Clegg is one of my favourite musicians. Best known in North America for contributing “Scatterlings of Africa” to the Rain Man soundtrack, he bravely led racially-integrated bands during the Apartheid era in South Africa and continues to release genre-crossing and thought-provoking records today. I wrote about Johnny last year in this post. Alas, it doesn’t appear that he is very popular in Finland: I found the above French pressing of his “Asimbonanga” single in the bargain bin of a Helsinki record store.
Reality is stranger than fiction: the Rutles “I Must Be In Love” single
I never imagined that the above single could exist. The Rutles were a Beatles parody band created by some Monty Python alumni and eventually were the subject of the brilliant rockumentary “All You Need is Cash”. The soundtrack is also outstanding and highly recommended for Beatles fans. The parody was so well-received in England that I found this single in a London record shop last November. It was an unexpected souvenir of the same trip that took me to Abbey Road and various other Beatles landmarks.
Coming up next week: I’m on the road again! Using some accumulated Air Miles, I’m visiting a place that I somehow overlooked during my year of extended travel. Stay tuned for the big reveal!
