Down at Liverpool Docks.

My grandfather and most of my great uncles ( both my grandmothers were one of 13 children, so there were lots) were all dockers and merchant seamen. All long dead but those that survived the war and the poverty and accidents of dockwork, I remember as incredible story tellers who would hold us spellbound for hours with nonsensical tales! This old bloke's face from down by the Mersey Ferry landing could simply be all of them all rolled together.

Two years today since we lost my Dad, who grew up without his father who was a butcher on The Nova Scotia which was torpedoed in World War Two by the Germans accidentally. ( The ship was only carrying civilian crew and hundreds of German prisoners of war ) I am not one for churches or cemeteries but felt a pull to go home today and be by the Mersey. It was an amazingly stormy day and the river had broken its banks. I watched the storm come in from Wales and Birkenhead with a mug of tea at the Pier Head. Managed to get some good shots from under the landing stage, but I liked this face better after all that standing in the gales and rain! Not a sad day at all, just good to feel close to the past and remember things that have shaped you sometimes. Glad I went.

Home in Lancashire for a hot bath, a curry and the log fire lit!