Updated 11:22am 9 February 2010:

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David Charters

Nazi monster that never fired a shot

The pride of Hitler’s fleet was launched in grandeur and sunk in ignominy. Now a local historian can reveal her extraordinary secrets. David Charters reportsRead

Obituary: John Scott Martin

IT WAS perhaps surprising to learn that the chap with the bush of white hair and a longish nose set at a humorous angle, who mutated into an insect before maturing into a Dalek, should have been appointed a church warden and a school governor with the enthusiastic approval of the local community.Read

David Charters: All we really have is a sense of wonder

"DO YOU ever think about what happens afterwards?” asked my friend the Philosopher, as we sat amid the ghosts of players at our table on the old bandstand in the marble cafe.Read

Angela Morley

PEOPLE of a certain age, who like the old English humour of self-deprecation and doomed ambition, can hear again that tuba introduction, the melody of a controlled burp, which told us Hancock’s Half Hour was starting on the wireless.Read

Keeping the spirit of jazz alive

Before The Beatles, a jazz band led the Mersey sound. Now the Merseysippis are nearing their 60th anniversary still dedicated to the cause of jazz. David Charters reportsRead

Kathleen Byron

NOBODY stared from a wimple with more menace than the nun with a vivid past and passionate jealously, who simmers while the other sisters in the Anglican brood toil and pray in a converted seraglio high in the Himalayas.Read

William Zantzinger

THERE is some resonance today, in the wake of celebrations for Barack Obama, in writing about an American tobacco farmer from south Maryland, who would have remained unrecorded by history had it not been for one drunken night.Read

President Barack Obama

As the world salutes America’s first black president, David Charters views the great moment in a personal light

MAYBE today a warm wind blows through the old cotton fields of song and tears, whispering “history”. Maybe. Or it could just be that a man, the son of a white mother and an African father, begins the biggest job in the world.Read

George Always I, portrait of George Melly by Maggi Hambling

George Melly: He went on performing to the end

HE'S dead, but he hasn’t gone. Now a new exhibition will celebrate the rumbustious Liverpudlian George Melly, who will always be with us. David Charters reportsRead

Obituary: Ralph Harris

HE KNEW eight Presidents of the USA, the small and dapper figure, who once stepped eagerly along corridors of power in Birkenhead, peeping into the timber-panelled committee rooms beneath the green dome on the magnificent town hall.Read

David Charters: I fear that I am succumbing to a chill

DOWN the platform of evangelical hope, beneath the slow orange glow of the weary lamps, we waited on the coldest morning of the year for the coming of the 8.27 train – some, like me, muffled as graveyard tramps in hats, trench-coats and gloves; while others paraded in fur-lined boots and expensively cut, Alpine cardigans with slinky belts designed to look cool in a blizzard.Read

Obituary: Sir Dai Llewellyn

HE DID Wales proud, the boyo. There could be no doubt about that. In a land of sheep, he was a ram, blessed with the name of a rugby prop forward, or maybe a tenor in one of those endless bow-tied choirs from the valleys – and he caroused through the gossip columns, pausing only to satisfy his appetites in pubs and boudoirs, though if there was a competition to decide which he favoured more, it would have been a close call.Read

Judith Edwards

THERE was another England, not so long ago, of Boy Scout jamborees and Girl Guide camps, when curates played ping-pong with surly teenagers – and ladies in stout shoes from WIs or Townswomen’s Guilds strode into the offices of local papers with the notes for their weekly columns.Read

Bill Stone

HE WAS a celebrity at the end simply because he was there, but that had gained him a place in history and in the affection of his country. Actually, Bill Stone was there twice, serving in both “lots”, as servicemen sometimes called the world wars. He was the final Briton to have done that.Read

Norah Button

Happy 70th birthday to Norah Button - and her beloved theatre school

She raised the curtain on thousands of singers and dancers stretching for the top in glittering shows. Now the fairy godmother, maker of stars, is 70. David Charters reportsRead

Kenneth Stoddart

COURTESY, modesty and a sense of fair play, for the powerful and for the weak, were the unyielding qualities set in the bone-marrow of this distinguished gentleman, whose angular frame would always rise from the chair rise when ladies entered the room. Then they would see the light shine on his shoes.Read

David Charters: I am not a cold fish

"I SUPPOSE if my bottom sagged like a drunkard’s concertina, I would also wear baggy trousers,” said my wife, amid a melody of giggles, as she perched demurely on the stairs, warmly clutching the hall telephone – while I toiled through the washing-up in the kitchen, marvelling again at the capacity of cutlery to breed in warm detergent. Read

Obituary: Ian Greaves

IF IT had not been for an injury, he might have been there in the blizzard on the treacherous runway on that night February night in 1958 when a great English football team became legendary.Read

It is not just about the cliched places

As Liverpool today officially ends its reign as European Capital of Culture, a pair of quiz team eggheads offer visitors a glimpse of the hidden city. David Charters reportsRead

Obituary: Joe Maxwell

HE WAS a community man, proud of the old neighbourhood, which had given so much to his city. It was home to him and he liked the pubs on the corners with their coal fires, the little shops, the foghorns blasting on the river – reached by the many streets, from which the dockers poured in their thousands with their clip-clopping wives and daughters on their way to the sugar refinery.Read

Author Profile

Award-winning feature writer and columnist David Charters is a highly-respected journalist and author whose hugely-popular weekly column is now available in print and podcast format. Tel: 0151 4722427

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