The old town looks the same...

...but only in certain corners!

Liverpool is a very different place in 2010 to the run down bombed out city I used to visit back in the early '70s. I didn’t explore too much the first time around. Hitched into town in October '69, camped overnight outside the Empire Theatre box office – got front row tickets for a Rolling Stones concert and hitched back home again. Repeated the free travel route a month or so later for the gig and discovered Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman waiting for the band to come on. Memories as clear as if it was yesterday – including getting my purse nicked with the tickets in it. I must have had an honest face back then as we had no problem getting in without them.

I hooked up with a cute, long haired (of course) flared jean-ed Liverpudlian guy called Dave and continued to visit for the next year or so. I remember a bombed out city centre, live music at O’Connors pub and the Kardomah Coffee House in the city centre. And of course The Cavern, which is like a shrine these days, well preserved with few alterations from when the ‘fab four’ played there between gigs in Hamburg's red light district and fame and fortune in America.

The docklands are a different story – restored and refurbished with smart accommodation, shops, restaurants and the Beatles Story museum. Strange to walk through a museum full of sights and sounds familiar from my younger days. Not the first time I've done it though. I found a same year model as my ex-boyfriend Albert's Hilman Hunter in a transport museum in Wanaka a few years back. The recordings of screaming girls, thick accents and fabulous old songs are a bit older. The number of young people coming to pay tribute to their parents’ favourite musos is remarkable.

I feel sad at the end of the display as a room dedicated to each of the Beatles reminds me George died of cancer, John was shot dead in the street, Paul lost the love of his life – also to cancer - then a large-ish chunk of his fortune to a less than enduring second marriage. Only Ringo’s room brings on the warm fuzzies. Thomas the Tank Engine, movies with wife Barbara Bach, solo records and a son following close in his footsteps.

The nostalgia rounds off with a flutter in the penny arcades (at 10p a go!) then fish and chips and mushy peas at OAP prices on the pier at Southport.