Nostalgia

It's eleven years since I stopped my regular visits to my old hometown of Liverpool following the death of my mum. On my last couple of short trips there, I was so choked with emotion that I decided that I could never, ever contemplate living there again. The city was down-at-heel, depressed and devoid of the spirit and energy it had back in the mid Sixties when I was a student enjoying all it had to offer.

Now all that has changed. Liverpool has got its buzz back. In the run-up to its year-long line-up of events on being appointed European City of Culture 2008, it's been transformed and is every bit as vibrant as it was in the heyday of the Beatles. In fact (note this in your diaries, folks) Ringo will be appearing there in January and Paul later on in the year. All the details can be found on the website www.liverpool08.com

I have just come back from spending a week there, during which I made my first visit to the city centre in decades, to find it pedestrianised and a complete shoppers' paradise, with cheaper prices than Londoners pay for the same goods. Liverpool humour abounds. Sitting Bull, the googly eyed red bovine above, has appeared on Otterspool promenade. The netting scupture was on the prom, too. (Both photos taken in twilight, so excuse the dim colours.)

Plucking up courage and fighting back the tears, I passed by the old family home. We sold it in 1997 for £41,000. Now it is back on the market, repainted and refurbished, with a slate path and green lawns in place of the old rockeries, at a staggering £225,000. If only we had kept it! But it needed so much work that neither my sister nor I felt up to the job.

For the first time, I realised what an easy city it was to live in for a non-driver like me. The train runs every 15 minutes from Aigburth and gets to the centre in three stops, which beats my commute into London by over an hour. I think I could live there again. In fact, this scouser-in-exile just might return.