Trips & Adventures – 9 August 2018
Today we visited the city of Liverpool to see the Minton Floor at St George’s Hall and the Double Fantasy exhibition (about John & Yoko) at the Museum of Liverpool.
As we were too early for lunch we made our way to the St George’s Hall cafe, just a short walk from Lime Street train station. There were framed prints of famous Liverpudlians decorating the walls and we recognised most of them, whilst we enjoyed our tea or coffee.
The Great Hall is two floors up and has a tunnel vaulted ceiling supported on massive red granite columns – the largest of its kind in the whole of Europe – and interior architecture which cannot be beaten; including figures portraying qualities Victorian Liverpool aspired to – art, science, fortitude and justice. The Hall houses a breath-taking Minton tiled floor of 30,000 mosaic tiles, which is normally covered by a removable floor to protect it. The floor was uncovered just for a two week period.
We lunched at the Fall Well pub and then made our way to the Pier Head where the Museum of Liverpool is located. John Winston Ono Lennon MBE was an English singer and songwriter, who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. He married Yoko Ono in 1969. The Exhibition “Double Fantasy” explores John and Yoko’s story of their deep and powerful love.
John Lennon was highly political as a peace activist and in 1973, he contributed a limerick to Len Richmond’s The Gay Liberation Book (now out of print):
“Why make it sad to be gay?
Doing your thing is okay.
Our body’s our own,
so leave us alone
And play with yourself today.”
Another fun day Out in the City!
Out in the City 
Fabulous trip and lovely weather in Liverpool, with a nice breeze. The huge bronze doors in the Hall have the inscription SPQL – Senators and People of Liverpool – and the “Mincing” floor is really impressive, especially where it has been restored so you can see the depth of the original colours. I understand it was covered by wood to raise it to the level of the surrounds and was used for dancing!!! We could have paid to wear plastic shoe covers to practise our dance steps but decided to just look at the magical floor, stunning stained glass and enjoy the privilege of seeing it all up close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George%27s_Hall,_Liverpool
The John and Yoko exhibition was also well worth the trip, very quirky and showed the influence Yoko had on John’s life and talents and how they intertwined their love with their art, music and politics. Some of his clothes were on display and I had forgotten how slim he was, many other personal artefacts from both of them, plus photos and videos to watch. Tucked away in a corner was a small inscription about the visit card Yoko gave John when they first met, reproductions were available for free in a small box…it is a plain white card with breathe in black letters in the middle and Y.O, at the bottom in the middle also in black. Big thank you to Yoko for allowing so many personal things to be shown in this unique exhibition.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/exhibitions/dou.ble-fantasy/
Thanks Tony for organising such an enchanting and wonderful day out for our group. Pauline xxx
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