Ken Vance SJ

At the age of eighteen, I left Liverpool to join the Jesuits.  This was in 1965, when Liverpool was the capital of the pop world - Beatles, Cilla Black, Gerry & the Pacemakers and dozens of other groups were all part of local life.  I saw them all.  Now I am back in Liverpool waiting for the city to be become another sort of capital - the 2008 European Capital of Culture. 

However it would be difficult to identify this 'culture' within the area in which our parish is situated.  The area around St Francis Xavier's is still suffering from the effects of the 1970s and 80s, when Liverpool was in decline and large numbers were unemployed.