A COUPLE of very significant dates loom in my life.
First up this Monday (April 2) is the second meeting of the poetry group I’ve started up, the Bards of New Brighton.
Then on April 7 it’s my birthday. More about that further on in this posting.
Anyway, if you write poetry – and a surprisingly large number of people do – then please come along to the ‘Bards’ poetry night at the Little Brighton pub (known locally as ‘The Ginny’) in Rowson Street, New Brighton, starting at 8.45pm. Admission is free.
We are a friendly, supportive group, and I am grateful for the encouragement of Shirley and Fred, landlady and landlord of The Ginny.
I am currently writing a fresh poem every week for the Breakfast programme on BBC Radio Merseyside.

It’s quite tough to write poetry to a deadline in this way, especially about things in the news which are fast-changing and often subject to tragic twists in circumstances, not to mention legal considerations regarding contempt of court and defamation.
However, these weekly, rhyming news reviews of mine seem to be working. A listener from Wirral requested that I send her a copy of my most recent offering, which contained an admittedly cruel line about Tranmere Rovers!
Here’s the bit of the poem in question, which referred to England’s laboured defeat of Andorra last Wednesday...
“Now, each week your poet chronicles a hero
Someone for whom we would all shout ‘bravo’
Quite often the man of the hour is Steven Gerrard
And so he was this week as England struggled hard
To beat that national team of tiny Andorra’s,
Who are about as good as Tranmere Rovers.
Gerrard scored two goals and made a third
And as well as scoring he can also save, I’ve heard.
For he saved the neck of the England boss.
Poor Steve McClaren, he’s quite at a loss
To know why he’s hated for under-achieving
And why the Press hope he’ll soon be leaving.”

Now, it is with heavy heart that I announce my 50th birthday, coming up on April 7, Easter Saturday.
I know! It’s hard to believe. I look so young.
I’ll be getting drunk with pals from New Brighton in my favourite pub, Hell’s Waiting Room, and I’ve organised a buffet supper there, prepared by my pal Commuting Mitch.
Actually I am having FOUR parties in various parts of the country where I have lived (and loved living) over the years – New Brighton; Wigan (my home town); London and Norwich. I'm even thinking of adding a fifth knees-up ...in Scotland.
I’m very pleased to be holding the main party in New Brighton – a place I’ve adored ever since my dad used to bring me here on the ferries in the early 1960s.
Over the years, of course, the resort has lost so many amenities and architectural jewels – the tower, the tower ballrooms, the ferries and the landing stage, the pier, the open air baths, the Grand Hotel, the Hotel Victoria ... oh, the list is endless.
And now, I see a sly process of so-called “consultation” has been started by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury on the future of SS Peter and Paul Church.
I have been following this process carefully, and it’s clear that the church authorities want to be shot of the magnificent domed basilica. Some of their published proposals involve selling the church off to developers, or de-listing it, which could lead to demolition.
This much-loved, cathedral-like RC church sits at the top end of Atherton Street and dominates the resort’s skyline.
The threat, shamefully, comes from the Diocese. It does not come from the parishioners. They would be most upset if their building was lost as a worship space.
I am grateful to Councillor Tony Pritchard for highlighting the danger facing this beautiful building.
We should also praise Wallasey Civic Society for ensuring the church got official Grade II listing after members rightly suspected there were plans afoot to close it.
The listed status offers some protection for the time being but not total protection.
It is clear to me, as a practising Catholic, that nowadays the Catholic hierarchy are more interested in managing decline than building the Kingdom of God.
The good Catholic people of confident faith and vision who got this grand church build more than 70 years ago will be turning in their graves at the faint-hearted approach to Christian faith displayed by the churches’ top brass today.
It seems to me that Peter and Paul’s has been simply left to wither on the vine by the authorities.
Currently, there is no parish priest living in the presbytery next to the church for the first time in decades.
Instead, Peter and Paul’s is served by an overworked priest from Leasowe Road, who has been told to look after three local Catholic churches in Wallasey single-handedly.
Peter and Paul’s is currently allowed only one Mass each Sunday, and that is held at 8.30am – much too early for most people.
Why isn’t there a family Mass at 11am, and an evening Mass, such as the lovely one held by Father Jerome each Sunday at Joey’s Church in Seacombe?
It is as if the church authorities want the faith to falter in Wallasey.
I urge everybody to sign Councillor Pritchard's petition to save SS Peter and Paul’s. You can sign it in the Bargain Booze in Victoria Road, New Brighton.
Let’s all take a stand and safeguard the future of the last really grand building left in New Brighton.
Come ON! All hands to the barricades.

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