Interrogation

So, Dad, why did you choose to do your postgraduate course at Liverpool?

My first degree was Ivy League; I wanted to experience Redbrick.

A sensible decision?

Not really. I hardly attended any lectures, and I regretted that I hadn’t gone back to Oxford. But you make your bed, you lie on it.

So, did you get anything out of your time on Merseyside?

Certainly. I learned to speak English with a Scouse accent.

Be serious, Dad.

I worked for a while in a local Grammar School where I met some wonderful people: I am only sad that I have lost touch with all of them.

Anything else?

I visited a local nursery school and chatted up a delicious blonde teacher. My goodness, she was a stunner.You know her as “Mum”

What about all this social mixing? What was that about?

Well, as a friend of mine, Jack Balmer, once remarked: we have working class origins, an upper class education and a middle class income. So effectively we beneficiaries of the 1944 Education Act didn’t belong anywhere. It has taken me a lot of years to reconcile the contradictions.

Liverpool became famous because of the Beatles, didn’t it? Were you part of that scene?

Your mum and I visited The Cavern once, but that was 1961 and the Beatles were still in Germany. And we used to frequent a coffee bar called the Jacaranda (known locally as the Randy Knacker) which later became famous. But of course I am always happy to lie about my Beatles connection.

Tell us about your courtship. Was it very romantic?

Ask your mother.