Footprints in the Sand.

There is mystery in a family tree. Who were these people? What were they like? What feuds and quarrels lurk there? What broken hearts to they hide? Family trees are very much like footprints in the sand. Nothing else is shown.

We have traced our family tree as far back as 1770,  the entire Keyton clan never straying far from Cork, but the longer I stare at their names, the more I want to know about them. Who were they apart from names and dates? Even so, dates reveal a lot. Look at old Jeremiah Keating 1770 - 1880 and  check the 1830 generation, you can see—surprisingly—they sailed through the Great Potato Famine and lived to a ripe old age, a mystery in itself. If you compare this to later dates, Keytons begin dying off like flies—that though is less of a mystery and summed up in one word.

Liverpool.

In 1865 John Keyton moved to Bridgend. It may have been to gain mining experience before moving on to Liverpool and then America, where wages were much higher than here. It was a well-worn path for those Irish born with a sense of adventure. 

In Bridgend, my grandfather was born and by the slip of a pen John Keating became John Keyton because the Welsh registrar wrote it how it sounded to him. 

Fortunately for me, unfortunately for John’s immediate family, instead of moving on from Liverpool to America, they stayed, living in a disease- ridden slum. 

And in tribute to them I wrote the book, determined that these at least would be more than ‘footprints in the sand.’ 

The Pierhead from where so many sought a better life in America

Why should anyone else read the book? I could say it’s beautifully written and packed with evocative photos. I could say that. The truth though is much more. The Keytons and Parrys are  illustrative fragments of a far wider picture.

The former Walton Workhouse where my grandmother died

Five people were killed here during the Blitz

But ideal playgrounds for children- before ‘Health and Safety.’

A Liverpool Childhood is a spotlight on a moment in time. It’s a personal memory integrated into the social and cultural history of Aintree based on hearsay, gossip, ghosts from the past, a period of turbulent change. It examines the impact of war, the complex family culture dominating local factories, recession and renewal, schools, music, murders, and ghosts.

And where do you find local pubs like these anymore?

The Beatles 

The famous Aintree Institute built by the jam maker Sir William Pickles Hartley in the 1890s as a Christian community centre‚ the venue for many, many Beatles concerts,  and demolished in 2006  by worthy councillors for houses that twenty years later have still not  been built. A piece of history replaced by a pay and display car park.

In geological terms we are here and then gone. Some call it renewal. But here and now we have life and we have meaning, a shared history and one to be celebrated—even if, as George Harrison once observed, ‘All things must pass’—but not before reading this book