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.
Golden slumbers fill your eyes - down in the dumps
By
John Williams
There was a time in Liverpool when the term consumption generally referred to Tuberculosis. The modern usage of the term refers to our near universal desire to buy consumer goods. Of course, there are billions who can't afford to buy their daily food much less contribute to the phenomenon of over consumption. Their poverty also means that they are more likely to contract TB, which is not only depressing but horribly ironic as they could be said to be suffering from under-consumption.
Today, as I was emptying my household rubbish, five sacks worth of bulging excess, I wondered how it was that in my childhood we managed with only one rubbish bin, which in terms of volume held rather less than a modern plastic bin liner.
So much of our household rubbish was disposable in those days. In fact, all of the refuse from our street could be comfortably hauled away by a single horse drawn wagon, but those beautiful shire horses have long since been replaced by lorries with engines that measure horse power in their hundreds. The horses used to deposit perfectly good manure, whereas lorries deposit only carbon particles in our gasping lungs.
I remember one man who used to dash out into the street and scoop up the fresh manure and then furiously dig it into his garden while the droppings were still steaming. He was, sadly, unaware that the dung had to be rotted down before application and so, because he never realised that ammonia and roses don't mix. His plants perished in droves.
It was of course the open fires in our houses that provided not only warmth but they also served as domestic incinerators. For instance, newspapers, that we nowadays accumulate until they resemble fences at Aintree racecourse, were burned almost as soon as they were read; most food stuffs came in paper bags, that could also be tossed onto the fire and vegetable peelings could be composted or laid atop of fires to make the precious fuel burn at a slower rate; empty jars and bottles were returnable and often provided a source of income to enterprising children who would go round houses collecting them. Today our landfill sites are overflowing with plastic bottles.
"I'd like to teach the world to learn drink in perfect harmony,
and leave our countryside pristine for our posterity..."
All together now,
"Glass! It's the real thing...."
Several years ago there was a television programme called 'The Rock and Roll Years', in which pop music was the soundtrack to the events of any given year. I was watching it once, I think it was depicting the year 1971, when I saw a group of long haired layabouts demonstrating outside Schweppes in Long Lane Aintree because the company had decided to abandon returnable bottles. Excitedly I turned to my boys, who were involved in the intricacies of that dreadful computer game, Championship Manager, and exclaimed,
"Look, it's me!" The boys, barely looking up from their conquest of Europe, snorted in unison, "Cool haircut dad!"
I wanted to retort that because the leeching of female hormones from plastic containers is apparently creating, if that's the right word, infertility in men, they might have difficulty producing the next generation of footballers, but realised that they have enough rubbish to contend with already as every day seems to bring news of a fresh disaster for mankind. Play while you can kids.
Over the past thirty years I have lost count of the times that I have accidentally thrown a valuable object or document into the bin and then spent hours sifting through an evil smelling mountain of upturned debris composed of anything from a Chicken Tikka container to polystyrene packaging.
So lamentable is my habit of carelessly abandoning such items that my wife keeps a special pair of rubber gloves to facilliatate the recovery of buried treasure. She also retains a well used pair to slap my silly face with. In my time I have dumped watches, bank receipts and on one occasion a Nintendo Gameboy!
So, if I am ever a guest in your home it would be best not to ask me to help with the housework or you might end up emulating those wretches in the third world shanty towns who eke a living out of garbage.
Once there was a way,
to get back homeward,
Once there was a way,
to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry,
and I will sing a lullaby
Golden slumbers fill your eyes,
smiles awake you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling do not cry,
and I will sing a lullaby
Lennon and McCartney