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.
All in the game - Hot legs
By John Williams
One of the saddest aspects of being an elderly father to an energetic teenager is that I am not able to take any real part in his sporting activities. It isn't that I don't want to but it is so undignified when, at half time in a soccer match, the other players reach for refreshments while I can barely find the wherewithal to adjust my pocket nebulizer.
I am of course exaggerating but what is true is that my children have largely missed out on the years that their dad was something of an athlete. True! I was an accomplished sprinter in my youth, something that was often useful if, after escorting a young lady to her home, I was forced to race to catch the last bus, or, as on one memorable occasion, I had to flee the attentions of an irate father, a small bandy legged man who was a rabid opponent of the burgeoning sexual revolution.
Didn't the reactionary old tosser understand that I was on a dangerous mission to liberate women from the constraints of chemises and bloomers? Only later would Germaine Greer et al recognise the value of my sterling efforts. I digress.
Last evening I was persuaded to play cricket with my fifteen year old as he wants be a fast bowler. So we drove to a nearby beach which is fringed with a large area of grass and which at that time of night is largely free of dog walkers, kite flyers, itinerant poets and the like, where we hammered in the cricket stumps.
As I prepared to receive the first ball I couldn't help thinking how nice it was that my son still thought it okay to be seen with his old man in public. He bowled straight and true, whereas I played like a true dickhead, completely missed the flight of the ball and then heard myself screaming as it cratered my left shin.
Not wanting to appear wimpish as well as stupid I bravely dismissed his mortified ministrations and signalled for him to bowl another.
Another fast accurate ball...another miscalculation on my part...another purplish blue crater...this time on my right shin...another impression of a howler monkey.
As I limped to the car I heard Kipling intoning,
"If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!"
I smiled bitterly and thought, `Up yours Rudyard!'