In some little often seen corners of the internet you sometimes stumble upon a little gem. ‘The Pudding’ is one of those gems.
The map, produced by Matt Daniels and Russell Goldenberg of The Pudding, shows a people map of the UK, where city and town names are replaced by their most Wikipedia’ed resident: people born in, lived in, or connected to a place.
On The Pudding website, it states (somewhat technically!), “Person/city associations were based on the thousands of “People by city or town” pages on Wikipedia. The top person from each city was determined by using median pageviews (with a minimum of 1 year of traffic). We chose to include multiple occurrences for a single person because there is both no way to determine which is more accurate and people can “be from” multiple places.”
Here are the most searched for people and their associated towns:
Wallasey – Paul Hollywood Unsurprisingly, the celebrity chef and long-serving judge of ‘The Great British Bake Off’ is Wallasey’s most searched for person. He was born in 1966 in Wallasey, the son of bakery proprietor John F. Hollywood and Gillian M. Harman. He was a pupil at The Mosslands School. He studied sculpture at the Wallasey School of Art but left the school to start work as a baker. He first worked in his father’s bakery in York and then in other bakeries on Merseyside. He eventually went on to become head baker at a number of hotels including The Dorchester, Chester Grosvenor and Spa, and the Cliveden Hotel.
Hoylake – Cynthia Lennon Cynthia was an artist and perhaps best known as the first wife of John Lennon and the mother of Julian Lennon. Born in Blackpool and raised in Hoylake, Cynthia enrolled at the Liverpool College of Art, where John Lennon also attended and a meeting with Cynthia in a calligraphy class led to their relationship. When John was performing in Hamburg with the Beatles, Cynthia rented his bedroom at 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton from his aunt and legal guardian, Mimi Smith. After Cynthia became pregnant, she and John married on 23 August 1962.
Heswall – Fiona Bruce Born in Singapore Fiona Bruce is a well-known TV presenter, fronting programmes such as BBC News at Six, Crimewatch, Real Story, Antiques Roadshow, Fake or Fortune? and Question Time. She was educated at Gayton Primary School in Wirral. A little known factoid is that she modelled for the stories in the teenage girls’ magazine Jackie.
West Kirby – Bill Ryder-Jones To address him by his full name, William Edward Ryder-Jones is an English singer-songwriter, musician, music producer, and composer from West Kirby. He co-founded the band The Coral, together with James Skelly, Lee Southall, Paul Duffy, and Ian Skelly, playing as their lead guitarist from 1996 until 2008. He has since pursued a solo career, writing both his own albums and film scores, as well as producing records for other artists and appearing as a session musician.
Bromborough – Paul Heaton Bromborough born Heaton is probably most famous for being the frontman in the bands The Housemartins who had success with the singles ‘Happy Hour’ and the UK number one ‘Caravan of Love’ in 1986 and Beautiful South who had a series of hits throughout the 1990s, including the number-one single ‘A Little Time’.
Thingwall – David Balfe David is a musician and record company executive, most notable for playing keyboards with the Teardrop Explodes, founding the Zoo and Food independent record labels, signing Blur, and for being the subject of their first number one hit, “Country House”. He played with several Liverpool bands in the late 1970s that emerged from the city’s legendary Eric’s club scene, including Radio Blank, Big in Japan, Dalek I Love You, and Teardrop Explodes. He also played keyboards on and co-produced the first Echo & the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes albums.
Eastham – Ash Taylor Ash is a footballer who started his career at Tranmere Rovers at the age of 10 and currently plays for Aberdeen. He also represented Wales in their U19 and U21 squads. He attended South Wirral High School and grew up in Eastham, Wirral.
Birkenhead – Taron Egerton Birkenhead born Egerton is an actor and singer. He is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award and has been nominated for two British Academy Film Awards, a Grammy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He gained recognition for starring as Gary “Eggsy” Unwin in the action comedy film Kingsman: The Secret Service and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Bebington – Pete Burns The remarkable figurehead of 80s band Dead or Alive3 was born in Port Sunlight in 1959. Burns was the group’s vocalist and songwriter. The band rose to mainstream success with their 1984 single “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)”. They were the first band under the production team of Stock Aitken Waterman to have a number-one single.
Thanks to Paul Sandmann for bringing this story to the attention of birkenhead.news in a post in the Facebook group, Heswall Pensby Irby Thingwall Home-Watch, Community And Gossip
Image Credits: Fiona Bruce by Andrew Campbell, Paul Heaton by Simon Fernandez, Paul Hollywood by Tim Fields, Taron Egerton by Gage Skidmore.