Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
Gypsies, tramps and thieves - My Romany days
By
John Williams
I hope this is the last house I will ever dwell in. I say that because not only am I happy in my present home, in a way I never have been before, but I simply haven't the energy anymore for the upheaval involved in moving again.
You see, before buying this house we had previously spent four years in a mortgaged hell-hole where the thought of moving was never far from my mind. The reason for buying the decrepit heap was simple. It was a consequence of trying to buy a house when the state of the housing market in 1989 was so over heated that it was approaching critical mass as people tried to sell their homes and take advantage of the rising prices.
In those days house specifications never even reached the windows of the estate agents. They were snapped up by eager buyers while the ink was still wet. The bricks and mortar equivalents of dog kennels were fetching astronomical prices as buyers sniffed out likely homes.
Like the vast majority of home buyers I had only a narrow window of opportunity to purchase a new home; namely, the three weeks grace I had before the student who had bought my house moved in.
Now for years I had quietly nurtured a dream about the characteristics that any future dwelling would possess.
First on my wish list was that the rear garden would face west so that the evening sun would gently melt the ice in my whiskey and coke. Next, it would have a view, nothing spectacular, but something rather more pleasing than the net curtains of the house opposite. Finally, the neighbours would be pleasant, and perhaps even share my interest in brass rubbings, early formica topped tables and sketching Garden gnomes. I didn't really hold out too much hope for the third category of wishes.
We looked at few houses but because I didn't drive then we were at a marked disadvantage compared to car drivers. It's impossible to recount the times we lost out to a bloody Fiesta owner. I've hated them ever since and not just because their owners cut me up more than any other driver on the road.
Anyway, we found a house that, given our slender budget, appeared to be right for us. Now, when you consider that every house on the market was sold within hours of its details being published, I should have perhaps asked myself why this particular house was still available. You have probably arrived at the answer already...
However, even in mortal breasts hope springs eternal, and so with a spring in our step we went to see it. To say it fell somewhat short of my wish list is an understatement of the highest order. For one thing, the garden faced east and by four in the afternoon it was shadier than a used Fiesta dealer; the view consisted of a ten foot wall, topped with barbed wire to protect a car park; then I saw my neighbour.
She shuffled to the door, her hands dripping a bright red substance. I didn't know whether she'd been slaughtering a Brontosaurus or painting cave frescoes of Bison. It turned out she had been applying Cardinal Red floor polish to the floor of her cave. She also had a speech impediment; she couldn't utter a sentence without swearing. We decided against setting up home adjacent to Jurassic Park and left.
Time, however, was not on our side and so two weeks and four hovels later we were forced to go back to see the owner of the house, which was, inexplicably, still for sale! Suffice to say that we bought the place and for the following four years I was in a slough of despond.
The estate agent's description of the house had included the phrase,'in need of modernisation'. I should Ko-ko. The Acropolis was in better nick when the Greek government closed it to the public to avoid further structural damage.
Our walls were so damp that when the fire was lit the wallpaper used to steam and peel off and the plumbing was so old you could get lead poisoning just having a shave. As for the electrics, let's just say that when my cousin's husband, Aidan, ws re-wiring the house he was wearing more rubber than the Michelin man.
We took out a loan and had the walls damp-proofed, the plumbing replaced and the roof tiled. Then, in 1994 we decided to sell the house that Jerk built.
The God of irony, who urinates on us from great heights, ensured that after Black Wednesday the housing market had slumped and by 1994 hundreds of thousands of people were having their homes re-possessed or else found themselves owning houses with negative equity. Almost nobody was buying houses and I was suffering from a bad case of inverted deja vu, which is not a condition I'd wish on anyone as the blood rushes straight to your head.
It was at that juncture that my old friend, Dame Fortune, paid us an overdue visit, and she brought with her a young couple who were so ill-suited that they made the odd couple look even money to live happily ever after.
It is an awful thing to say, but while he was vaguely presentable she was so unattractive that she made my eyes water and I found myself blinking in disbelief that anyone could contemplate living with her when there were hordes of unattached Wart Hogs.
Her passion, the young man notwithstanding, was raising exotic animals, and as my blinking settled down to a squint I could see why it was said that pet owners eventually come to resemble their animals, because her speciality was breeding Geckos.
It was her hobby that ensured she would buy our house, as at the rear of the re-furbished hovel were several brick buildings, consisting of a coal place and a laundry. She was delighted with them as they would an ideal environment to house her Geckos, and so presumably keep any threat of female competition firmly out of sight.
To this day, albeit with less frequency than before, I bless the name of that young man, because if he had suddenly come to his senses or had his lamentably poor eyesight repaired then he would have left her long before he eventually did and La Petite Godzilla, who had all the money, would in all probability not have bought the house.
I sincerely hope she found a soul mate, without having to emigrate to the Galapagos Islands, because she delivered me from an earthly hell and into my demi-paradise where the evening sun shines on my Eden from the west; where the view is pleasant and the neighbours are, by and large, neighbourly.