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 jeanpool - The influence of sailors and tailors in Liverpool
By John
Williams
When I was young the only people who wore jeans were sailors. In fact, they weren't called jeans, they were known as dungarees. The connection with cows and manure was somehow implicit. Denims, as a generic term for indigo dyed cotton, would not surface until the sixties, the age of the Beatles, the Mersey sound, and glam rock.
In the late fifties young men began to struggle into 'drainpipes', no doubt inspired by the likes of James Dean and Gene Vincent. In Liverpool there was a firm called Flemings, who would tailor jeans to your personal taste, or even lack of it. Typically, they were so tight that if there is any truth in the notion that tight pants create sterility in men then the recent decline in Merseyside's population might, in part, be attributed to Flemings' zeal in building a customer base.
By 1969 and there were only three real contenders for the world heavyweight denim belt, Lee, Levi and Wranglers. Loons were just a bizarre diversion. So, in one generation, we went from being mobile sandwich boards, advertising the product of a small provincial firm, to an all singing all dancing advert for the big boys. When Woodstock became a media event on a par with Kossovo, the watching ad-men got the real message of the event,
'There's a billion dollars of advertising space on those butts,' they exulted, before breaking into a heartfelt rendition of,
'Bless your beautiful hides!'
And that is how we, the flower children, became the denim clad wranglers riding the Trojan horses that opened the gates of consumer Paradise for Ralph Lauren's Polo players and the rest of the designer cowboys. If Ghandi were alive today he would probably be sporting a Nike tick on his loincloth!
When my son insists,
"I like Nike!"
He is simply echoing the most successful political slogan in American presidential history,
" I like Ike!"
What worked for Eisenhower works against me, so next time you are cursing your kid's expensive clothing choices, just remember, it was probably you who refused to wear anything without a credible label. Okay, it was only an inch or so square, but you know the saying, give somebody an inch...and they'll probably write something expensive on it.