David Charters

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

Obituary: Charlotte Hough

IT WAS a scene from one of those sepia detective stories, in which the gracious ways of another world collide rudely with the manners of today.Read

Obituary: Donald E Westlake

HE WAS the writer as a rebel, a man of the mean streets, coat collar raised, whose words spurted like bullets from one of his two ancient typewriters – sometimes bloody, other times funny, always crisp.Read

David Charters: And what did you get for Christmas?

SOME years ago, on Boxing Day morning, I emerged blinking like a mole from under the sagging streamers, puckering balloons and curling tinsel of home, to waddle to the shop, where fellow villagers, all glowing and newly-gloved, were gathered, still full of pudding, goodwill and mulled wine.Read

Obituary: Joan Bright Astley

HUMANS are intellectually flawed and often incompetent to boot, and this can give rise to humour even in the darkest hours.Read

Obituary: Ted Lapidus

AT ABOUT the time that frazzle-haired beatniks, poets and pacifists were sauntering about in trenchcoats, the smart-sets in Britain and France began parading in safari-suits, which seemed to by-pass the irony that both countries had given up their African empires.Read

Statues on the Victoria monument in Derby Square, Liverpool

Bodies of steel preserved in bronze on a great Liverpool monument

Muscles almost ripple in the semi-naked brothers on a great Liverpool monument. Now we can reveal their names for a new generation of ogling girls. David Charters reportsRead

Obituary: George Francis

HE WAS born in the shadow of slavery when the “Jim Crow laws”, which separated the races, dominated life in the poor quarters of New Orleans, where, as a boy in a swing-chair on the porch, he heard Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet.Read

08 was truly great

I HOPE all readers enjoyed a happy and healthy Christmas and, as we move into 2009, are looking forward to the New Year.Read

Obituary: Ray Deakin

THE long-jawed football manager stared from the window and saw a young man lapping the training-ground.Read

Obituary: Jack Douglas

HE WAS the eternal Englishman in a wet mac gamely struggling against the wind on a seaside prom.Read

WHEN the heat is strong in young bones and your eyes open hopefully to the light of each new day, the passing years tumble easily onto a muddled parade, which saunters towards all the glowing tomorrows.

But then, suddenly, you are older and the heat seems weaker – one night there’s a long-forgotten school friend riding the same lift at the underground railway station. But you can’t hook a name to the face.Read

Obituary: Delaney Bramlett

THE English bus driver’s son was spellbound by the singing and guitar-playing of the American sharecropper’s son.Read

A beacon of hope in a harsh world

He’s just another businessman in one of the world’s great cities, but with him he carries the love of Merseyside to the poorest of the poor. David Charters reportsRead

Obituary: Robert Mulligan

MOOD filled the screen – the moods, which arise from the humming of insects, the whirring of fans, the croaking of frogs, sweat on your collar, heat, oppressive heat, a slavering dog, childhood’s wide-eyed wonder, southern courtesy, seats swinging on creaking verandahs and ... hate.Read

Obituary: Conor Cruise O’Brien

HE WAS the towering intellect of Ireland, which, of course, meant that he was a splendid talker, possessed of a voice full of learning and a sense of wisdom, richly mellowed by the fine drinks he favoured, which were perhaps associated with the grand banqueting tables of Europe, rather than his native country.Read

David Charters

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