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.
Easter parade - A day in the life of Sefton park
By
John Williams
Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet - Horace*
Wednesday got off to a great start. The sun was shining and I'd managed to scratch the correct date on my bus saver ticket. I've lost count of the times I've neglected to don my spectacles while performing this delicate task, and then spent the rest of the day in a state of high anxiety in case my mistake was spotted. We decided to make a long overdue visit to Sefton Park, which is arguably the prettiest on Merseyside.
We got into town and had a brief look at the war memorial behind the Town Hall
and I couldn't help wondering who had swapped the concrete paving stones, flags, for the original surface. Perhaps that's why the plaza that hosts the memorial is called 'Exchange Flags'.
We were dithering about which bus to get to Sefton Park when I saw a number one bus destined for the very place and so we boarded it. I had a few misgivings, because when I worked on the buses in the sixties the number one route passed through some of the ugliest industrial areas I'd ever seen, and as if the unsightly buildings weren't enough, the smells that cloaked some of them were foul in the extreme. It was with that in mind that I wondered if we'd have been better off getting an 86 which passed through some of the more interesting districts of Liverpool.
I soon forgot my fears when the bus turned off the main road and into the rejuvenated Albert Dock.
The Albert Dock, once a symbol of dereliction is now a visible sign of Liverpool's steady resurgence from the industrial dark ages, when almost all of our major employment structures collapsed beneath the combined weight of under investment and Thatcherite spite.
I began to sing its praises about the transformation, vaingloriously likening its expanses of shining water to Venice. I would have said more but my son shot me the kind of glance normally reserved for when I forget myself and try to accompany a singer on the radio, when his friends are present.
He needn't have bothered because for the rest of the journey I was enthralled and amazed at the transformation that had taken place during the intervening thirty five years since I had travelled that route. My eyes were dazzled by the displays of daffodils that enveloped the new purpose built factories and warehouses. I was delighted by the new housing projects, which were of diverse and pleasing designs as they basked in the reflections of hosts of narcissii, in love with themselves, each other and the Spring sunshine.
On our arrival at Sefton Park we were greeted by the awe-inspiring 'Fields of hope', a sea of daffodils planted with the aid of public subscription and the Marie Curie cancer foundation. There were blooms enough to delight a thousand Wordsworths, and perhaps help find the cure to mankind's great blight.
Our joy was somewhat curtailed when we saw the charred remains of the Victorian boat house which some de-racinated person had torched two weeks earlier. Even that example of civic spite couldn't dampen our spirits for long and soon they were as high as the kites being flown by some Chinese children who, in the northern reaches of England, were upholding an ancient tradition.
Our ultimate destination was to the recently restored Palm house which had always been a source of local pride until vandals, many of them elected by the unsuspecting populace, had almost destroyed it. There is a necessarily ugly fence around this realisation of a dreamer's love of light, metal and glass,
whose vision exemplified the words of Robert Browning,
" Man's reach should always exceed his grasp, else what are stars for?"
As we entered the building we were surprised to see a group of Somali women cooking what was described as an everyday meal.
The event was brought about by the efforts of two men, Scot and Julian, who had been commissioned to create a sculpting to celebrate the Palm House's links to the world's flora and fauna. One would have thought that the commission would have presented a daunting enough challenge in itself but the two men had decided to make the project a multi-cultural festival by inviting members of Liverpool's ethnic communities, from Norway to New Zealand to prepare a meal symbolic of their homeland. The day we went was Africa day, and as far as we were concerned it was also St Christopher's day as the patron saint of travellers was smiling on us when Scot invited us to share in the feast.
Truth to tell, I had already calculated that five women and two men couldn't possibly have consumed the African cornucopia, and I had dallied in the area just long enough for him to make the gesture. We were joined by other recipients of St. Christopher's bounty.
One of these was a man called Mick who was accompanying his wife on what might prove their last day together for some time as he was awaiting a summons to one of Europe's oil rigs. Mick was delighted at the invitation, but he had to restrict himself to the salad and flat bread as he wasn't over keen on garlic, which was a shame as the beautifully plump pillows of rice which cradled the delicious chunks of lamb were redolent with all manner of mouth-watering spices Nonetheless Mick enjoyed the meal, which, set in the tropical sunshine,was universally praised. To the women who cooked the meal I can only say,
"Shoquran"
* For it is your business, when the wall next door catches fire