{"id":208197,"date":"2025-06-23T17:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/208197\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T17:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:20:15","slug":"echo-letter-writer-extraordinaire-and-liverpools-most-opinionated-man-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/208197\/","title":{"rendered":"ECHO letter writer extraordinaire and Liverpool’s most opinionated man dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tributes to the late Bernie Carroll whose “mischief spread across Liverpool’s artistic and bohemian community”\"BernieBernie Carroll on Faulkner Street by Papillon where he met friends every Saturday – picture posted by Papillon (Image: Picture posted by Papillon )<\/p>\n

Tributes were paid today to the “most opinionated man in Liverpool\u201d and the ECHO<\/a>\u2019s most prolific-ever letter writer who has died at the age of 75. Artist, musician, humorist and linguist Bernie Carroll died after a long illness on Monday, June 16 at the home he shared in Toxteth<\/a> with wife Steph Dodds.<\/p>\n

Since 1978 Bernie claimed to have written a letter a day to the ECHO<\/a> with thousands of them published in the newspaper over the years. And when the ECHO’S letters page went weekly he used a family address in Bristol to “fire off missives” to that city’s local evening newspaper.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Wavertree<\/a>, Bernie went to the former Skerry’s College which prepared students for a career in the civil service. But he did not fancy following in the footsteps of his father James. A fluent German speaker, thanks to German-born mother Marga, he studied for a degree in German and Russian at Liverpool John Moores University in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\"BernieBernie Carroll, a prolific contributor to the ECHO, has sadly died(Image: Lisa Rand)<\/p>\n

Friend and former ECHO journalist Will Leece said: “Week in, week out, year in, year out, Bernie would fire off four, five or even more letters to the Echo. And probably half of them were published too.<\/p>\n

“He was christened the grumpiest man in Liverpool by one ECHO reporter and he embraced the title with glee. Yet at the same time he was anything but truly grumpy – just mischievous. And his mischief spread across Liverpool’s artistic and bohemian community for half a century and more.”<\/p>\n

\"OutsideOutside Kirklands in the mid-1970s<\/p>\n

Mr Leece said his friend was unable to take “seriously” the prospect of life in the civil service adding: “In the space of a few years he became an artist, street musician – as a one-man band and also with various co-conspirators as the Picasso Sisters – tiler, chef, doorman at various bars, upholsterer, author, publisher, and translator. Blink and you’d find that Bernie had got himself a new job somewhere.<\/p>\n

“Then there were the letters to the ECHO<\/a>. And when the paper’s letters pages went from daily to weekly, he was able to use a family address in Bristol to fire off missives on a daily basis to the local evening paper there, too. He had been in failing health for a considerable time but that had little effect on his output, with his final contributions, as pithy as ever, coming only a few weeks ago.”<\/p>\n

\"BernieBernie Carroll from Toxteth who kept himself occupied during Covid-19 lockdown making wooden toys from a disused IKEA bed frame(Image: Colin Lane\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

Hope Street bar and restaurant Papillon posted a tribute to Bernie on its Instagram page saying: “It is with a heavy heart that we share the passing of Bernie, who had been a regular with us since day one of Papillon. Every Saturday, come rain, sun or snow we looked forward to seeing him take up his pew outside for his usual Americano with nine sugars and hear his thoughts on the week.<\/p>\n

“He wasn\u2019t just a customer, he was a cherished friend who became a part of our daily lives and the fabric of this place. He will be very missed.”<\/p>\n

Bernie, who wrote two books about the city, and his fashion designer wife Steph ran a business selling pub guide posters that can still be seen in bars up and down the country.<\/p>\n

He previously told the ECHO: “I’ve been round on the scene so long that I’m part of the furniture. I was a translator for years but retired and started doing pub guides. I just have an opinion on everything, you can call me the most opinionated man in Liverpool. When I discovered the letters page I thought ‘well, I’ve got a gripe with society. I’m going to write in every day’.”<\/p>\n

As an artist, Bernie illustrated most of Liverpool’s pubs and his compendium poster is well know across the city. He said: “The posters proved so popular I did the same for Manchester, Blackpool, the whole of Scotland – and nothing stopped me from there. Each of the pubs are all a little bit of Liverpool history.<\/p>\n

“Through the pubs I have watched the development and decline of the city. I did a poster for Toxteth<\/a> pubs once and within a year a lot of them had shut down. I’m leaving a good record behind of how Liverpool has spent the past 35 years.”<\/p>\n

Bernie leaves behind his wife Steph, niece Michelle and great-nephew Jake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tributes to the late Bernie Carroll whose “mischief spread across Liverpool’s artistic and bohemian community”Bernie Carroll on Faulkner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,8838,33363,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-208197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-nostalgia","13":"tag-toxteth","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114733831188934073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}