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.
The Grotto - Childhood magic in Liverpool
By
John Williams
Every year there was at least one event that evoked in me feelings that I can only describe as near mystical, in that the emotions accompanying the experience were incapable of description. A deep almost religious joy would overtake me at the mere mention of the phrase 'Santa's Grotto'.
In my ecstasy I could feel myself being pulled down into the subterranean world beneath Lewiss' department store where concealed puppeteers would make elves and pixies pirouette among the flora and fauna to the beat of dwarves hammering toadstools to fashion miniature dancing shoes.
Ever since the catacombs of ancient Rome, life underground has exerted a deep mythological resonance on Christians in general and the people of Liverpool in particular. Perhaps it stems from the great Famine years when thousands of Irish refugees were crammed into cellars where so many died of cold and disease.
More than a century later The Beatles would resurrect a moribund Liverpool, as they rose gloriously from the Cavern, like Jesus from the sepulchre*. As an adult I queued to watch groups like The Hollies playing in the Cavern, as a child I queued amid festoons of crepe holly to see Father Christmas create another kind of harmony deep within my being.
In the sheer excitement of it all the actual present was somehow secondary. Just as well really because they were usually rubbish, solitaire, hoop-la etc. Santa must be paid I suppose. In any case who would deny him his one pay day? The grotto was a dream, but then all grottoes are, why else would millions bathe in the cold waters of St. Bernadette's rock cave if not perchance to dream? Oh for the minor miracles of our miraculous childhood!
Shades of John Lennon's 'we're more popular than Jesus'!