in the song "What She Said" on the album Meat Is Murder by the Smiths: "What she read/All heady books/She'd sit and prophesize/(It took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead/To really really open her eyes)." The town is also referred to in the song "Everything Is Sorrow" on the Boo Radleys' C'mon Kids album: I worked in Birkenhead for you/It brings me tears even now. A fairly detailed description of the town is given in Paul O'Grady's memoirs, At My Mother's Knee... and Other Low Joints: The Autobiography. Birkenhead is indirectly referenced by "the Birken'ead drill" in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Soldier an' Sailor Too": To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about, / Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout; / But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew, / An' they done it, the Jollies – 'Er Majesty's Jollies – soldier an' sailor too!, as it refers to heroism by Royal Marines during the sinking of HMS Birkenhead, itself named after the town in which it was built. Other authors have done this as well. The 1998 book, Awaydays, and the following 2009 film of the same name are set in Birkenhead. In August 2022 the British Member of Parliament for Birkenhead, Mick Whitley, supported the findings of local historian John Lamb, that Robert Louis Stevenson had set his 1881 classic novel Treasure Island in the towns of Birkenhead and Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula lying opposite Liverpool. This followed a previous announcement by Alan Evans of Wirral Borough Council that the French science fiction writer Jules Verne had also set his 1874 novel The Mysterious Island in Birkenhead. Their Letters of support for Mr Lamb's claims were posted on the Jules Verne and the Heroes of Birkenhead website in August 2022. Notable people Actors and performers In the arts, Birkenhead has produced several actors and performers including Lionel Gamlin, Roger Abbott, Glenda Jackson, Anew McMaster, Lewis Collins, Megs Jenkins, Taron Egerton, Patricia Routledge, Paul O'Grady (also known as Lily Savage), soprano Valerie Masterson and baritone George Baker. The dancer and actor Lindsay Kemp was born in the town but as a child moved to South Shields. Opera director Graham Vick was born in Birkenhead. Artists Some notable artists were born in the town, such as Philip