ONE of Liverpool’s most contro- versial figures comes home tonight for an event as one-off as she is.

April Ashley, one of the first people in the world to undergo a successful sex-change operation and an icon for transsexuals across the globe, will be holding an “audience with” evening in the concert room of St George’s Hall tonight.

The event with former Vogue model Miss Ashley is one of the most anticipated of the concluding Homotopia festival.

Born George Jamieson in Liverpool in 1935 to a poor family, she describes her childhood as “horrendous”.

As a little boy, her androgynous looks resulted in endless bullying, physical abuse from her mother, and culminated in her being forced to endure inhumane experimental treatments in misguided attempts to normalise her.

Despite the misery of that period, Miss Ashley credits her roots in the city with helping her cope with the incredible adversity she has faced in her 73 years.

“My childhood was horrendous, but I quite like coming back here,” she says.

“The Philharmonic is where my love of music comes from, the Walker Art Gallery my love of art. I still say it is one of the great museums in the world. Liverpool is an extraordinary place.”

She has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge and Cardiff universities, and says it’s good to be able to connect with people who may have had similar experiences to her own.

“I get hundreds of letters every year from people in trouble, young gay people, transexuals, and some are heartbreaking.

“I’m not a professional, but I always say three things: Be beautiful, be kind – to yourself, and others – and most of all be brave. Chins up – get on with life and be as brave as you can.

“It can be very isolated for young gay people. I went through it.

“What’s so marvellous now is that there are lots of groups to help people. When I went through all that, there was no such thing.”

But it’s the glitz and glamour of her modelling heyday – when she turned the heads of some of the most famous men in the world – that people like to hear about.

She says Albert Einstein, whom she met on a couple of occasions in the 1950s, called her Madama Butterfly on account of her striking long eyelashes.

And Miss Ashley is looking forward to holding court in the surrounds of St George’s Hall.

“As a child, we used to sit on the lions watching the Yanks come out of Lime Street station, with the prositutes on one side and the girls looking for a date on the other.

“The saying was, if ever a virgin walked down Lime Street the lions would roar,” she laughs. “Of course we didn’t know what that meant at the time. But they never did!”

vickyanderson