Crossings

Is it absurd to compare the Mersey with the Nile, or Stockport Viaduct with the Pyramids of Giza? Perhaps it is. Yet the pyramids are the remains of a dead civilisation which became a historical backwater. The industrial civilisation which started on the Mersey’s banks changed the world physically, culturally and musically – and in India and China it is still doing so today. Mersey: The river that changed the world, published by Liverpool’s Bluecoat Press to mark Capital of Culture 2008, was a richly illustrated book that explored these connections through a series of specially commissioned essays from writers, journalists and experts in fields as diverse as srchaeology, history, music, wildlife and architecture. In this chapter Deborah Mulhearn takes a look at how traders, travellers and locals have crossed the River Mersey.