Forget nice Paul, homely Cilla and those wacky Liver Birds, this is the fascinating and barely believable side of Liverpool’s history as rooted out by Ed Glinert, author of the forthcoming Liverpool Compendium.

Tales of slavery, pirates, press gangers, riots, the assassination of nasty John (Ron Nasty), the last days of Ian Brady, how a bunch of rabid Trots seized the council and spectacularly failed to bring down the Labour Party, let alone the ghastly government (those terrible Tories), how an unsinkable ship registered in Liverpool, er, actually sank and how a Liverpool cult figure burned a million quid for a laff.