My family on my father’s side are from Liverpool. Generations of Goff’s were ‘scousers’ – relations were dock workers, Mersey ferry captains and family still live in the city today

In the seventies as an artist I exhibited in the Bluecoat Gallery and the now defunct Liverpool Academy and drank, frequently too much, in the Philharmonic and other watering holes that are a proud part of Liverpool’s culture, history and Victorian heritage. Destroyed by incompetent management, aggressive unions and uncaring Government Liverpool’s shipbuilding industries, the powerhouse of the city, died. With them died shipping lines and supporting engineering, finance and trading industries. I remember the city as a ring doughnut – surrounded by suburbs but with an empty centre. In those days the city centre was well signposted going into the city, but signs for the way out were noticeable by their absence as if having got you there no-one wanted you to leave again.

Slowly, painfully, regeneration has taken place, helped by a thriving local art, poetry and music culture – peculiar to Liverpool and never really becoming part of the mainstream except when the Beatles became the dominant force in world music in the 1960’s, followed by other groups and the so-called ‘Beat’ poets. Liverpool has always somehow stood apart, the exit point for emigrants to the United States, for colonists and traders, the end of the line for road and rail, a proud and independant city.

It is this more recent heritage that the hotel celebrates through its interior design, although the magnificent Victorian building it is in was once shipping and insurance company offices. Five minutes walk from Pier Head, where the ferries arrive from Birkenhead, close to where the tunnel under the Mersey decants visitors to the city, road access is difficult, and there is no pull in for cars. The adjacent alley is pedestrianised because it is the street that is home to the famous Cavern Club where so many acts started out (and the Beatles performed 292 times), and now a place of pilgrimage for fans from all over the Globe. The hotel opened as Liverpool was Europe City of Culture for a year, giving it full occupancy.

In the lobby the muzak system plays Beatles songs and it was entertaining at breakfast to watch a coach load of age fifty-something Spanish tourists singing along to the ‘Fab Fours’ songs, word perfect, as they helped themselves at the breakfast buffet. It was wearing after a couple of days to hear the same songs looping around – after all the Beatles produced two dozen albums,184 songs, so there is plenty to choose from!