I spent most of my life in various satellite towns of Liverpool, but always with eyes toward the mother ship. From certain vantage points in each of those towns can be viewed the unmistakable, if indistinct, skyline, against the hazy backdrop of the Welsh mountains.
Even in early childhood as I gradually became aware that my little world wasn't the centre of the universe but was merely an overspill from the true centre of the known universe. I felt a pride, by association, and each adolescent sojourn into the "big city" became a reaffirmation of my roots.
Streets my parents spoke of with reverence became real, areas and buildings took on a mythical quality until I stood before them and actually laid hands on their blackened, iron clad, columns. Black is my enduring image of the Liverpool of yore, pre "smokeless zone " and pre " Sandblasting "; " yore " is that period before "1962 " I confess I am sometimes confused regarding the chronology of my own memories.
Then to find myself actually working in the inner city on leaving school! Dad had fixed me up with a job in his line of work, as a shop assistant in an auto factor, and me an artiste! The next great poster designer! Selling Pistons!
But in those days Paradise Street was just that, long summer lunch hours in the gardens while all the beautiful office girls came out with their packed lunches, sunning them selves as they pecked at their salmon paste sarnies. Huh! They hadn't yet learned of the secrets of Sayers the bakers in Hanover Street.
A lot of early preconceived notions were soon discarded in those formative years as a callow youth thrust into maelstrom of Merseyside. Principal amongst them was my tendency to pigeon hole people on the flimsiest of evidence, usually sartorial. My attitude was a throw back to my upbringing, courtesy of my ex military father and my mother the original Mrs Bucket1. God rest her soul.
My education advanced enormously when, years later, I found myself working on a building site in Liverpool eight, I can still see the expression on the face of the "Site Agent" as I stood before him in my flared Jeans and hippie hair. His wry smile spoke volumes.
I was thrown in at the deep end, where some cement wagons were arriving and had to be offloaded by hand. I was told,'Don't worry someone will show you what to do' and was taken outside and told where to stand and where the bags of cement were to be stacked, and so there I stood, watching the hustle and bustle of a construction site in full swing.
Hours went by and I began to think that this was one of those induction pranks, you know the type of thing; a rookie is sent for a 'left handed screwdriver', 'tartan paint' or that old chestnut, a 'long wait'. As I dodged dumper trucks or caught the eye of other labourers gainfully employed and felt a bit guilty, but then a gigantic articulated truck made the tricky turn through the site gates loaded to the gunwhales with bags of cement.
I confidently waved him towards me and stopped him at the cement shed and awaited the promised team of willing labourers, and there we stood looking around, with not another soul to be seen. I swear, tumbleweeds trundled past as the wind whistled through the scaffolding and even the blare of transistor radio's ceased.
The driver immediately took in the situation and said, "Looks like it's yours kiddo." And climbed on the trailer.
"Bastards! "I muttered and took off my coat.
Seven trailers loads later and, as the last wagon departed, the site came alive again. Radios came back on dumper trucks as appeared from nowhere, and smirking labourers emerged from hiding.
As the weeks went on and I learned the rhythm of the site, certain characters emerged. There was one man, a bricklayer, too old by then to keep up with the pace of the wall builders, and who was employed to tidy up the loose ends. He was an endless source of fascinating tales, but difficult to open up at first. He was a very private man, but if you asked him questions on any subject in the world he just knew the answer.
There seems to be a wealth of men such as him in Liverpool, I've met them in social clubs, pubs, and other jobs I have had. I often wonder just how many fascinating lives go unreported, or how much experience is lost because we don't take the time to listen?
Humour is my enduring memory of the building site, from dryness of wit to out right slapstick. The ongoing saga of Georgie and the 'can lad'stands supreme amongst these. Apparently, the job of 'can lad', who was the designated tea-maker, has, throughout the ages, gone to a young inexperienced boy fresh out of school, and the present one was no exception, apart from the inexperienced bit because he was fifteen going on thirty
Georgie, being the youngest Scaffolder, took it upon himself to make the life of the 'can lad' a misery, a decision he was later to regret. Georgie was a formidable character in his early twenties. He was six foot plus, with a head that looked like it had just emerged from the heather of Easter Island. His broken nose and a hair lip added to the fearsome grimace, one of three expressions he possessed; the others being a dopey grin and a slack-jawed blank look.
Far from being cowed by heavy handed tactics, the small and nimble 'can lad' was able to evade most of the attempts by Georgie to humiliate him and even turn the tables until it all took on the appearance of bear baiting but like a good special forces 'can lad' he always had his escape rout planned.
One muggy day when we were all ensconced in the canteen hut. Grey light slanted through the thick blue cigarette smoke and billowing waves of rain swept the tin roof promising a long lazy day in the warm womb like embrace of the dry shed. Maybe it was the warmth, or the eternal hypnotic chug of the cement mixer in the distance, added to the soporific murmur of three card schools, their subdued conversation only broken by the occasional riff and slap on the bare plank table, but I leaned back against the coarse whitewashed wood and tried to drift off.
I glanced once more out of the window at the impressionist image of a deserted building site, through the rain streaked glass, and thought 'yeah, that's on for the day' and settled back into the folds of my coat. In that period before sleep, eyes half closed I found myself staring across the room at the first real black man I had seen up close.
This may seem ridiculous nowadays but I had only seen a handful of mixed race kids in my school and they seemed to be known by everyone and had a kind of celebrity because of their exotic rarity. Only years later was I to learn of the hardships they endured to achieve their celebrity status.
But here was I surreptitiously staring through my lashes at this strange being, so black he could have been hewn from Ebony, while his robust features told of eons of experience. 'What distant shores had you trod?' I wondered to myself. 'what dark and mysterious continents had you crossed; what brutal and arcane customs had you defeated ?'
He caught my eye as he reached into his knapsack; I couldn't stop myself now, my imagination kicked into overdrive. With his incongruous Trilby and threadbare two-decade old suit jacket he looked like every image I had seen of the Biafran refugee. I asked myself, 'What foodstuffs had he found in this strange land that met with his approval?'
I almost held my breath as I watched his exploring hands in the voluminous bag, his expression changed to puzzlement as he noticed the attention I gave his bag. I was thinking of furry wriggling things, of undulating pink creatures.
Finally his hands emerged clutching a corned beef sarnie' and the Daily Mirror, he looked concerned as he noticed my shoulders slump and said in a deep voice, "'Orright lah?".
"Err, yeah. I was miles away there "I said sheepishly and averted my gaze and then realised that everyone over the age of thirty in the room looked like a Biafran refugee, and that the contents of their 'Buttie Boxes' with their 'Brawn' or 'drippin' filling would have made a caveman heave!
I settled back, re-assessing my pathetic misconceptions and troubled by my naivette but was soon drowsy. It was that comfortable drowsiness we used to get staring into the embers of a coal fire while the telly droned impotently, or poking twigs into the fire on 'Bommynight' after the fireworks were gone.
The reverie didn't last long though. With a loud Blam! The flimsy door crashed open letting in the wind and rain and in barged Georgie. He was about to force the door closed but was followed in by "tedious Ted" a self obsessed Electrician.
Georgie insinuated himself into a card school and was swiftly swallowed up into the sway, but 'Tedious' edged his considerable bulk in among his peer group of haughty Electricians with all the subtlety and grace of a Tectonic plate!
The mood was, for me, ruined now, there was an imbalance, the grating voice of "tedious Ted" upset the ambience, as he pronounced the virtues of American cars, a subject we were all heartily sick of hearing about. He was a comical little man, roughly spherical in shape and incurably short, so much so that he affected Cuban Heeled boots!
Something about Georgie was troubling me. He had entered wearing expression number two, his 'dopey grin', but there was a hint of something else. I tried to put my finger on it, but the loud braying of 'Tedious' made it difficult.
All the members of the card schools felt it; concentration levels fell as he repeated his mantra about "small block Chevy's "to an increasingly uncomfortable audience. But, like the grain of sand that produces a perfect Pearl, he went too far.
"I believe a car should reflect the personality of its owner" he proclaimed pompously.
This proved too much for Georgie who swivelled on his bench and shouted,
"Then why don't yer gerra chip van, yer fat basterd"
It was a sight to be talked about for ages to come. I mean that expression of a man who thought he was regarded as a worldly wise style icon, until cut to the quick by a mere labourer. I watched him visibly crumble as he took in the heaving shoulders of the laughing throng.
My smile faded a little as I watched the realisation dawn that even his peer group of apprentice electricians were trying not to laugh and I felt a tinge of sadness for a man forced to face the fact that he was not who he thought he was.
When all the merciless giggling had been extinguished, bar for a few sporadic outbreaks, I turned my attention back to Georgie and finally pegged what was different. He was still full of himself from his killer quip but there was also an air of smugness about him, that had been there from the moment he barged in.
No chance of a snooze as my mind selected 'Sherlock' and I tried to divine what monumental event could add a whole new expression to his limited repertoire? Eventually I narrowed it down to one of tow possibilities. He had enjoyed a big win on the horses or he had finally got one over the "can lad".
It had become a constant thorn in his side that whatever mischief he had cooked up for the boy had always been thwarted. For, just as in the epic contest between the Road runner and the Coyote, not a day went past without some bizarre plot to compromise the lad, and which invariably came to grief.
I leaned over the arrayed playing cards and asked,
"Georgie, what have you done?"
"What dyer mean? "He replied a little too quickly, and clearly his face was having difficulty trying to accommodate more than one expression at a time.
"Well," I went on" Its too early for a big win on the horses and the kipper on you tell me you've been up to no good, and by the way, where's Jimmy?"
For the "can lad" did indeed have a name, and was suddenly noticeable by his absence.
Several heads swivelled around on hearing my question, somebody observed that he thought there was someone missing, and then the questioning heads turned towards Georgie. The general air of expectancy became contagious and a silence fell over the room as all eyes swivelled in his direction.
He couldn't contain himself, and his broad shoulders started shake with suppressed glee. Puzzled smiles broke out until he suddenly froze, and in a 'silent movie' fashion he cupped his palm behind his ear, cocked his head and looked up to heaven, in the universal language which said, 'Hark, what is that I hear?'
All eyes turned to upwards, and heads turned in direction finding mode, until someone nearest the door said,
"Who's that?" and held the door open to aid the acoustics.
Then we all heard it, the unmistakeable sound of a screeching can lad, but there was something odd about it, something eerie because the screams were fading in and out like a distant radio frequency emanating from 'Trieste' or one of those equally forlorn and bleak names on the Transistor dial.
"I'm gonna kick y…" mutter mutter "'ocks you stupid big fu..Mumble mumble…astard! Im gonna rip you a ne…"
This was all too odd; card schools were forgotten, drinks were put down, differences were put aside, and everyone stumbled out into the driving rain to find the source of the disturbance. We spread out and threaded our way through the skeletal buildings, eventually to emerge like a synchronised stumbling team, in unison, back out into the open, on the other side.
The buildings had created a sort of amphi-theatre, and there in the middle, among piles of debris, detritus, and a huge mountain of sharp sand, sat the cement mixer, chugging away contentedly, but with its drum pointed to the skies, like some Napoleonic Mortar, and protruding from its gapping maw, was the 'can' lad's head, slowly rotating, and emitting earth shattering expletives.
This was the start of a long list of 'tit for tat' pranks, each more outrageous than the last, which brightened our days and made the mundane hard labour bearable; but behind it all I always sensed affection between the two mad adversaries, like squabbling siblings, inextricably linked by their mutually assumed status.
I learned a lot in those early Liverpool experiences, which stood me in good stead in later occupations; to be able to speak of shared knowledge, with other "plastic Scousers" gives one a warm feeling of belonging. I know it sounds corny, but when one strips down ones emotions, the corniest are usually true.
And my earliest job? How did that end? Well they paved Paradise Street and put up a parking lot, with a pink bus stop a boutique and a swinging hot spot!