Knocker-Upper

An unexpected rain storm woke me up at 3 am. All was quiet except for the massive downpour of huge drops bouncing off my open window pane. Not surprisingly, I fell back asleep quicker than one can close their eyes. My agenda for the morning was to wake up at 5:20 am, shower, and then make my way to the South Sefton Rotary Club in Waterloo for their 7:30 am meeting. Earlier the previous evening, two students saw me googling the Royal Hotel in Waterloo. When they found out that the Gormley statues can be found off the beach where the Rotary club met, they asked that I wake them up too so they could join me: me for my make up meeting, them for beachside photo ops.

Later that morning on our way back into town, Colin Beaver, the newly installed South Sefton Rotary Club president gave us a quick tour us around town. We saw the original yellow 17 foot Super Lamb Banana and a smaller union-jack clad one. This sculpture, now the city mascot was created by Japanese artist, Taro Chiezo, to warn of the dangers of genetically modified food. Most appropriate to the city of Liverpool due to the port's rich history in the trade of lambs and the import of bananas. Bypassing traffic past the miles of docks that now stand empty, he told us the story about Liverpool's knocker-uppers. These are people who would carry long thin sticks and tap (knock) on dock workers 2nd floor bedroom windows to wake them up so they could report to their dock by the time a ship was in port ready to be unloaded. I chuckled to myself ... I am becoming more Scousian by the day. This morning, I was a knocker-upper waking up my travel companions before the first light.