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.
Ferry across the Mersey-Life goes on day after day
By
John Williams
It always seemed to me quite strange that I lived in one of the world's largest seaports, yet still had to board a ferry and make a boat journey to the seaside!
Liverpool's share of the sand and sea had long since been swallowed up by the ever increasing need for new docks, so we had to look across the Mersey to New Brighton for the delights of the seashore.
My mother, Rose Anne, worked all week, and so she craved a lie In on Sunday mornings. I used her fatigue to my unholy advantage. She would promise almost anything for 'five more minutes', and I always extracted the best promise in exchange for silence.
Then, when the five minutes had elapsed I would raise her tired eyelids and urge her to remember her promise of a trip to New Brighton. Tired as she was my mother always kept her word.
After our bus trip to the Pier Head, paid for with a woodbine cigarette that the conductor casually accepted in lieu of fare, we would board the ferry and the perennial magic of my childhood's longest excursion would begin to work its wonder.
There was a saloon bar below decks, at least that is what the verdigris stained brass sign indicated. In fact, it was little more than a counter, over which tea, lemonade and crisps were sold.
It was that taste of lemonade and the greasy rich taste of pre polyunsaturated crisps that heralded the start of the Journey proper; because, after all, I used the bus almost every day, and Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport did not serve crisps, or lemonade in miniature bottles depicting a petticoated girl on a garden swing.
The tang of salt and seaweed grew stronger as we headed west, where the shrilling of the gulls was like an airborne pipe band greeting visitors to the Mecca of pre Majorca Merseyside. The pier reached out Into the river, a skeletal arm ensuring that no ferries drifted past it into the Irish Sea. All this under the omniscient gaze of the Tower Ballroom that rose above the serpentine roller coaster like a Greek warrior from the hair of the Medusa. Oh the thrill of It all!
In those days the fairground was something to be reckoned with. It swarmed with people. Whole families including grandparents, young girls wearing skirts that might have been supported by a weeping willow tree; Teddy Boys in velvet drapes and American soldiers almost buried under the weight of their prizes.
My favourite treat was the Roller Derby, which consisted of rolling wooden balls as quickly as possible into a small hole, from which the balls would reappear, after having kicked your horse along the track at the rear of the stall.
It was very exciting, especially when I won a glass fruit bowl on a bakelite plinth for being the youngest competitor. However, I suspect It was really because the stall holder had noticed that my mother was the original Pretty Woman.
The Helter Skelter was made to endure. Solid, with polished wooden slides, it stood resolutely throughout the year, while its transient cousins in the travelling fairs shook under their ricketty frames. I loved the feel of the coconut matting as I trudged to the top of the stairs, and thrilled as I left my stomach in the wake of my mach one descent.
After that, the fish and chip supper, with tea and bread and butter. An odd Sunday dinner perhaps but wholly acceptable to a boy who had competed in a Derby, climbed a mountain and discovered the source of the Nile in one day.
Then, money spent, we would meander along the beach in search of crabs, mother of pearl shells and buried treasure, until the hooting of the last ferry caused us to turn toward drier land and home.