A Magical Mystery Tour

There are places I remember all my life, without ever having been to any of them. The Cavern Club. The street known as Penny Lane. An orphanage called Strawberry Field. The names, of course, are recognizable to every Beatles fan familiar with the Fab Four’s early years in Liverpool. Last month I visited an ailing sister who lives in nearby Wirral, England, and the trip gave me a chance to finally check out some of these sites, as well as other spots in the historic Merseyside area.

I’d always envisioned Liverpool as a drab working-class port, and was surprised to find a bustling city with lush green parks, hip art galleries, cool shopping and an active nightclub scene. Even if you ignore

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the giant yellow submarine in a park across from the docks, the spirit of the Beatles is inescapable, like the annoying poster adverts that read: Imagine. Burger King at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Because my time was limited and the ventures seemed overly commercial, I skipped the Magical Mystery Tour bus and the Beatles Story museum. Instead, I opted for a new twofer ticket to see Lennon and Paul McCartney’s childhood homes, both superbly restored by the National Trust. The McCartneys’ council house at 20 Forthlin Road has been open to the public for nearly five years, but the suburban, semi-detached house known as Mendips — where John lived with his Aunt Mimi from age 5 to 23 — only began accepting visitors in March. Tastefully styled in simple, early ’60s fashion, with a few original items still in place at each location, the homes were surprisingly unremarkable yet somehow electrifying.

The intimate rooms felt more real than most other stops on the usual Beatles tours. After all, the original Cavern Club was closed in 1973, though its bricks were saved and used a decade later to build a replica in the same part of Mathew Street. While Penny Lane is nearly as quaint as the song suggests, the original Strawberry Field Children’s Home has been demolished, with only its graffiti-covered red gates remaining. Somehow it seemed too macabre to visit St. Peter’s Church graveyard, where the real-life Eleanor Rigby is buried. I never made it to the Starkey family residence, either.

Senses bombarded by Beatlemania, it was time to try other local artistic offerings, including the stately old Walker gallery and the trendy Tate Liverpool. The Tate, located at the renovated Albert Dock shopping-café complex, has a small but stunning display of modern art, with an exhibition of abstract British works currently on show through October. A 10-minute stroll away is the Walker, with its breathtaking array of Pre-Raphaelites and a fine 17th century European collection, plus a nod to the Beatles in the form of a painting by Stuart Sutcliffe, the art-school chum of Lennon’s who briefly played with the group before dying of a brain hemorrhage in 1962. A breezy walk down Bold Street, the city’s smart shopping area, marked the end of my brief visit to Liverpool. Picking up some local Scouse lingo, I decided to lap up life and have a bevvy at an ale’ouse. Wouldn’t you know it — as I hoisted my first sip of Cains, a local band nearby started playing She Loves You. All I could do was finish the beer, nod my head and think: Yeah, yeah, yeah.