LIVERPOOL comic Alexei Sayle last night spoke of his experience growing up in the city, during the first of this year’s university lectures.

The 56-year-old delivered an address to a packed Liverpool Philharmonic Hall entitled, Stalin Ate My Homework: Growing Up in the radical environment of Liverpool.

The Anfield-born author and actor spoke of his childhood and being brought up in a family with Communist values. He said: “I grew up in a particularly Communist environment, in that my parents told me it was Lenin who came down the chimney at Christmas.”

Sayle also spoke of his rebellious youth as a member of the Merseyside Marxist Leninist Group, selling a newspaper called The Worker on the streets of Liverpool.

And he touched upon trips with his parents through the “swingdoor” into Eastern Europe.

The comic described his memory of how the city’s beautiful pubs and buildings were “destroyed overnight” in the huge redevelopment of Liverpool.

Recalling the people’s relocation from their homes to “terrible flats and estates”, he added: “This forced rehousing and destruction of this chaotic but enthrallingly beautiful city burns me to this day.”