Goodbye to the Royal Iris, a vessel of memories

Dear readers — Jack here, I used to write for The Post, but a couple of years ago I did something really quite unforgivable and moved to Manchester. Alas, I remain its loyalist reader, and today Laurence is off and Abi is busy turfing out bad guys, probably, so it falls on me to introduce this piece. It’s by David Lloyd, and it’s a love letter.

The reason I loved working on The Post, and still love reading it, is because it's a publication written by people who don’t just care about this city, but by people who are of it. Its writers aren’t sitting behind desks googling street view or punching in AI prompts. They’re out there, nosing around the parts of this city that matter: the stuff they love, the stuff that could do better. 

Case in point: last week, David got misty eyed riding the Royal Iris on one of her final crossings, so we asked him to write about it. As he explains in the piece, this is where his dad proposed to his mum back in 1961 — it has serious history. I’d love to hear your own memories of the Iris down in the comments if you have them. 

I’d also love to see you getting on board, as it were, at The Post if you haven’t already. We love all our members, of course, but it’s only those who pay keeping the ship above water…

Don't forget!

We’re hosting an intimate event at Cafe Tabac. One of our best freelancers Melissa Blease will be interviewing photographer Francesco Mellina whose exhibition captures Pete Burns and Dead or Alive in their earliest years. There’ll also be a Q&A and a chance to chat over drinks afterwards. Get your tickets here and we’ll see you at Cafe Tabac on Bold Street on Tuesday 14th April at 6:30pm. 

Goodbye to the Royal Iris, a vessel of memories

There are few places in this city where you can walk with ghosts. The promenade deck of the Royal Iris of the Mersey was one. Last weekend she plied the Mersey for the very last time, in the same stately 12-knot fashion she had since 1960.

As much a part of Liverpool's identity as the copper birds she steered her graceful arc towards from the Wirral, the ferry has carried more than 17 million passengers across the river. Sorry, 'cross the Mersey.

I rode the Royal Iris of the Mersey last week to pay my own quiet respects. In my day, she was the Mountwood. How romantic of the Birkenhead Corporation to name their ships after post-war overspill housing developments: the Mountwood, the Woodchurch and the Overchurch. It brings a lump to my throat just thinking about it. Who needs a Titanic or a Queen Mary when you’ve a ferry named after a pebble-dashed semi?

A Beatles tribute band welcomed us aboard as I headed up to those iconic wooden benches on the top deck. Despite the tannoy's reassuring announcement that 'the buoyancy apparatus is, in fact, the seating' I take a look at them, and remain – as I always have – unconvinced. Even if they're not stuck fast to the decking, I'm fairly sure they'd sink like a Luftwaffe bomb, to the bottom of the Mersey, if thrown overboard.

What I wasn't expecting was the sheer weight of memory to hit me like a force eight barrelling in from the Irish Sea.