About two miles away from the southern outskirts of Liverpool where I grew up, beside the river Mersey, sits the tiny village of Hale. As a child, I was fascinated by Hale and would look forward to the journeys my granddad and I would occasionally make to the parish churchyard. The reason for this was simple: a real life giant was buried there. This was no myth or fairy story, it was written there on a dark stone slab (right) in bold white letters:

“Here lyeth the bodie of John Middleton the Childe of Hale. Nine feet three.”

Such childhood fascinations, however, have a way of fading into the background and I’d all but forgotten John Middleton until a few months ago.