Get Into Reading Group Diary #4: The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn

Baines has a growing obsession with a Peter Eames – an architect in the 1860’s who had a flourishing career until deciding to take on a venture of a rather grand FREE library to be built not in the well to do area of Liverpool but of all things in the poor section! Reading may have been thought of as something only people with money do! What fascinated Baines was Eames’ short tragic life – his body found in Blundell Sands in suspicious circumstances.

Baines being a fellow architect took a great interest in Eames’s thoughts which he obtained from William Brown Street in the form of his diaries – wanting to know more, what a better place to look than a diary which hopefully holds a person’s innermost thoughts? I think you should never judge a person by his outer shell but his inner being (sorry becoming a philosopher now!) The group started thinking about diaries and how personal they can be, and how peculiar it can be to look back at an event from years ago and how it seemed a big upheaval when originally written but now totally insignificant

Eames appeared to have lots of forward thinking about architecture which did not come to fruition – maybe because of lack of money or people who made the final discussions were backward thinking instead of forward. Over the last few years Liverpool has represented a building site – especially running up to the year of culture 08 – at times it seemed like a marathon to get things ready rather than a sprint. It was quite amusing though to realise that things were just as chaotic here in Liverpool in 1861 – Peter Eames also describing the city as a construction site!

In the book the other day Baines met up with a photographer called Tanquerary who he felt an instant bond with – funny in life how we sometimes instantly bond with someone or maybe have an instant dislike for no apparent reason. Strangely, very strangely I was in Slater Street the other day and a shiver went down my spine as there was a photography van there!!! Sleep Well!