The architect behind a landmark Liverpool shopping centre has told the ECHO how the death of one of the most famous musicians of all time inspired its design.
David Backhouse was a student at Alsop High School in north Liverpool and qualified as an architect at the tender age of 22. He went on to work in housing in Liverpool but it wasn't until 1980 that his career had its defining moment with the design of Cavern Walks.
He said: "I was asked to look at the concourse on Lime Street and a 'working site' on Mathew Street . They'd knocked down a few warehouses on Mathew Street and were using them for storing materials and latrines and all sorts.
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"It was early summer and I knew I wanted to rebuild The Cavern but I couldn't get any inspiration. The concourse on Lime Street was easy."
David added: "On the morning that John Lennon was killed - we had a new baby and had slept in - and we were woken by this frantic ringing on the doorbell. It was a guy who worked for me, in tears.
"I asked him what on earth was the matter and he told me Lennon was dead, he'd been shot in New York. I have no knowledge of that day past that point. But the next day I woke up and designed Cavern Walks in one go."
David, who still designs houses to this day, first discovered his love of art after leaving school. He said: "My dad was a joiner and didn't want me on the tools. One night he saw an advert in the ECHO for an office job on Water Street so I applied and got the job.
The catch however, was that David had to go to art school one night a week and to The College of Building one day and one night a week. He got into designing houses at "about 26 or 27", when he was approached by David Parry to start a firm.
While this led to success in his career - the company worked on the first sheltered housing scheme in Liverpool - David was restless. He said: "Within two years we had two Liverpool offices and a London office with 35 staff. But you go from being a designer to an administrator and I hated that."
It was a 1973 holiday to Provence in France where he was reinvigorated. David met a Canadian potter and fell in love with the art form; within two years he was teaching pottery in Hugh Baird College.
He said: "The pottery has kept me sane. The terracotta on Cavern Walks is down to that."
David's love of pottery also inspired a tongue-in-cheek sculpture that stands in Liverpool city centre to this day. Near Cavern Walks on Harrington Street, as you head towards North John Street, is a cheeky message to fellow architect Lord Norman Foster, who insinuated David was "irrelevant" when he quipped 'an artist is to architecture like lipstick is to a gorilla'.
David got Hathenware Ceramics to make a little sculpture of a gorilla holding a compact and putting lipstick on. He sent his rival a postcard with a picture of the ape on, but received no reply.
Cavern Walks was acquired earlier this year by a joint venture between property investment firms JSM Company Group and Greenwood Developments. The upper floors, which were once offices, are set to become a Beatles themed hotel .
Some of the retail units on the ground floor will be retained, with JSM hoping to create an 'alternative indoor market' reminiscent of Quiggins .
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