Judy The Donkey

I don't know how many donkeys are given graves. I guess if a donkey is given a grave it must be a pretty special donkey. I'd like to tell the story of one of Liverpool's forgotten heroes, Judy The Donkey (1905-1926).

This grave lies in Princes Park where Judy The Donkey (or JTD for short) famously gave children rides around the lake for no charge. On Judy's days off she could often be seen swimming in the Mersey or relaxing in Ye Hole In The Wall on Hackins Hey.

Although Judy was already a local celeb, it was an incident in October 1909 that made her a hero. A group of teenagers decided to see how many people they could fit on to on to one of the lake boats, the previous record was eight and they smashed it by fitting fifteen people on. Once the overloaded boat was in the center of the lake gravity took hold and the boat started to sink. As soon as JTD heard their cries for help she rushed to the edge of the lake, dived in, and one by one dragged all fifteen of the drenched delinquents to safety. 
No one was seriously injured and Judy saved the day.

From then on things went up and up for JTD.

Judy was the guest of honor at the opening of the Liver Building on the 19th of July 1911 and the organizers wanted her to cut the ribbon but unfortunately donkeys don't know how to hold scissors. Instead Lord Sheffield ceremonially smeared some peanut butter on the ribbon so that JTD would chew through it and therefore officially declare the Liver Building open.

Judy (second donkey on the left), on a day out in New Brighton

While attending the 1919 Grand National (as a spectator not a competitor) the look in Judy's eye as she watched the horses was reported to have been "Oh you fools, can't you see they're exploiting you! Making you run at stupid speeds while they whack you. Why do feel the need to degrade yourselves to this level?". The races winner, Poethlyn aged 9 from Bangor, was said to have given JTD a glance which said "Well if you don't like it why are you here? I enjoy my job and all of us who made it to the finish line are glad. Sorry if it's too exciting for the park donkey". Judy stormed out in a fit of rage. The pair made up the following year and became lifelong friends. Poethlyn later admitted that he had overreacted partly due to the fact that as he crossed the finish line the crowd were chanting Judy's name not his. 

By 1924 Judy had retired from public appearances, only returning to Princes Park on major holidays, always to crowds of fans and well wishers. As much as she adored her public, the constant intrusion into her private life was becoming too much to bear.

JTD passed away peacefully in 1926 surrounded by loved ones and was buried in the park that she had donated so much of her time to.

List of notable features of Princes Park

The Smithdown Barber Shop Quartet!

Unfortunately it's not a singing quartet, it's four barbers which are all really close to each other.

We'll start with Genesis. As that seems like a good place to start.

Obviously the name is in reference to that book. You know, This one.
You may notice that Genesis also offers tattoos and for the right price you can have a tattoo of your old hair style before they cut it in case you miss your old do.

Next we have...

Well I'm not exactly sure what it's called, it could be Ut Barber Shop or maybe Xut Barber Shop or most likely it's supposed to be Cut Barber Shop, although those scissors look nothing like a 'c'. Anyway you look at it it's a terrible name. They should have just called it The Barber Shop.

Speaking of which...

The Barber Shop, using all of their creativity and wit came up with the name 'The Barber Shop'. I mean fair enough it does do what it says on the tin but they could have called it anything. Snippy Joes, Time for a trim, Mop Tops, The Cutty Sark, Do the Do, The Flair Gut Wear Shut Hair cut!

And finally just a few blocks away from The Barber Shop we have...

The Barber Shop. Now, this 'The Barber Shop' is clearly nothing to do with the other 'The Barber Shop'. It's bad enough that one barber shop lacked the creativity to call their barber shop anything other than 'The Barber Shop' but two, come on! I don't know which 'The Barber Shop' came first and whether or not the second was aware of the first when it opened but I feel that if you are going to open a barber shop and call it 'The Barber Shop' you really should check that there isn't already a barber shop called 'The Barber Shop' nearby. But there they both are.

I mean I suppose it is possible for different shops near each other to have the same name and ownership but I don't think that's the case with 'The Barber Shop' and 'The Barber Shop', but I know it can happen a bit further down the road there are four related shops called Day & Night all within about a meter of each other. 

Anyway I feel the title promised some Barber Shop music so I'll finish with this.

P.S. Here is a map showing the locations of all shops mentioned.

They'd Have Probably Found My Lack of Faith Disturbing

In the 80s in Liverpool, two bishops of rival franchises worked together to unite people and stop conflict. But that's not really important.

The cool thing about them is that they were massive Star Wars fans.

David Sheppard was the poster boy for the CofE team and his favourite character was Lando Calrissian.
Derek Worlock was the Archprayer for Catholic Crooners, he always loved Chewwie the best.

Over their many meetings they would arm-wrestle and have long discusions about the meaning and morality of the movies and argued about which was better out of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. (Sheppard prefered Jedi, Worlock Empire).

As both men died in the mid–ninety's, they fortunately never had experience the prequels.

About ten years after they died a statue was commissioned of the Priestly Pair. It was soon remembered that they both said that if a statue was made of them it would have to as if they were frozen in Carbonite like Han Solo was at the end of Empire.

So their wishes were granted.

The statues can be found on Hope St. Opposite the Philharmonic.

David Sheppard in carbonite

Derek Worlock in carbonite

Chavasse Park

I love living in the future. As I write this on my phone, I am sitting in a park three storeys above ground level.

I am at a jubilee concert at Liverpool 1. I don't really care about the jubilee, but I do like free outdoor live music events. And it's not as if the music is especially royalist, the last song played was the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean.

I've been aware of this park for ages but not visited. But I'm glad I that have because some of the views are amazing.

 Despite the clouds you see the weather is really nice.

Here is the stage.

And this is what the park looks like from ground level.

The music was great too, kudos to the Liverpool University wind band.

Five things I love about Liverpool

Firstly, I should point out these definitely not the only, and probably not the best, reasons I love Liverpool. They are just the ones I want to point out.

In no particular order...


1. The Guinness Wall.



I should point out that the clock is either broken or set to the wrong time. Either way, I've never spotted it showing the right time.


2. The Echo Game

This is quite a simple idea so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is already a common thing, but in Liverpool City Centre there are many of these newspaper vendors.

(To save their privacy I've disguised their faces, I don't know if you can tell.)

Anyway, the local paper is the Echo and the vendors will intermittently call out "Echo!", and I like to then say "Echooooooooooo". So I echo their echo. It amuses me.


3. The City Councils 'no nonsense' attitude.

I imagine the conversation in the office went like this.

"The information on that sign on Mount Pleasant is no longer correct, Should we replace the sign, or remove it or what?"
"Nah, just gaffa tape a bin liner to it."

4. Sefton Park


5. Finally, it's socially unacceptable to buy the Sun.