The Leaving of Liverpool takes its title, of course, from the old folk song made famous by the Spinners. It is a song about travelling away from home, and that is what Marion is about to do in this story. A girl who spent her life in Merseyside and North Wales is embarking on a journey across the universe. The analogy is fairly obvious.

Marion’s panic attack in the supermarket when she decided she couldn’t leave the planet without Kellogs cornflakes, McVities chocolate digestives, Heinz baked beans, Nescafe and PG Tips and so on raises an interesting little question. Just what would you take with you if you were leaving planet Earth? It is a question as eternal and impossible to answer as which records you would have on your desert island. But I think those packaged commodities like cornflakes and biscuits would be important to some people. And for a Liverpool girl, for certain, tea would be.

The trip to Birkenhead on the ferry was originally intended to be a trip to Marion’s mother’s grave, but on researching Birkenhead I really couldn’t work out where the cemetery was. So in the end I said that she had been cremated at the Anfield crematorium, which is the most likely place for that to have happened. Marion changes her mind and stays on the ferry for the round trip back to Liverpool. They DO, in fact, always play Ferry Across The Mersey as the boat comes into Pierhead. There are too schools of thought about that – one that it is a corny idea strictly for tourists, and the other that it is a piece of genuine Liverpool folk history that they love to preserve in that way. Personally, I love the song, and I love Liverpool and its Ferry and may they all last forever. And as Marion says…

“This is where immigrants used to set off from, leaving Liverpool for America and Canada, and for Australia,” Marion said. “People have been leaving Liverpool for a long time. I’m not the first. I won’t be the last. But I will be the first to leave it for Gallifrey.”

Fare thee well, to you, my own true love, I am sailing far away.
I am bound for California, and I hope that I'll return some day.

CHORUS :" So fare thee well, my own true love, and when I return, united we will be;
It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but, my darling, when I think of thee.

I have signed on a Yankee clipper ship, "DAVY CROCKETT" is her name
and Burgess is the Captain of her, and they say she is a floating shame;
CHORUS :

I have sailed with Burgess once before, and I think I know him well
If a man's a sailor then he might get along, but if not, why then he's sure in hell.

CHORUS :

Fare thee well to Lower Frederick Street, Anson Terrace & old Park Lane.
for I know it will be a long, long time, before I see you again.

CHORUS :

I am bound for California, by way of the stormy Cape Horm.
I will write to you a letter, love, when I am home-ward bound.
CHORUS :

Oh, the sun is shining on the harbour wall, & I wish I could remain.
for I know it will be a long, long time, before I see you again.

CHORUS :