Liverpool Stories
Love thy neighbour - dressing for the part
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.
By John
Williams
There is an Australian soap opera which is shown twice daily on British television. This intrusive series is called, ironically enough, 'Neighbours'. Twice a day, we witness the enactment of neighbourly values, which, in stark contrast to their contemporary setting, ceased to exist at roughly the time that Hitler was terrorizing every one on the block.
I mean, the characters in the Australian soap actually talk to each other and exhibit compassion whenever tragedy strikes, which is, on average, about once a week. Now, while I've almost always been lucky enough to have good neighbours to my immediate left or right, it is a sad truth that anyone outside that limited range often remains virtually anonymous for years.
Unless we have been thrown together by mutual interest, such as trying to establish who told the vicar's wife there was a gap in her bedroom curtains, or which unfeeling swine superglued the tops of the walls, with the result that we now have to feed the cats with a dish attached to a long pole, then the chances are that the only way I'll ever know who they are is from the obituary columns.
I suspect that the development of massive urban areas has contributed to this loss of communal spirit. We see too many people in too short a space of time as on any given day it is possible to bump into the same person three or four times in various locations, such as the supermarket, the bank, the coffee shop or the last aisle of 'Victoria's Secrets'.
What can you do when you've already discussed the weather with a person and then five minutes later you meet them again? Pretend you haven't seen them!
Where I live the tendency to stiff people has been developed to an absurd degree. There is one couple I know who walk around with a pair of binoculars around their necks and as soon as they see someone they want to avoid they raise their binoculars to the eyes and start saying things like,
"Oh look, a lesser spotted fish eagle."
And this in an area where there haven't been any fish since the great flood. The times I've looked in vain for those bloody birds!
This phenomenon has to be caused by over familiarity for there must surely have been a time when people craved neighbourly visits.
Picture this situation. The scene is an oasis about three thousand years ago. Inside one of those striped tents a man and his wife are staring out of the tent at the vast expanse of hostile desert.
They look up at the sky, and down at the sand. Up and down, up and down...Just then the man spots two people mounted on camels coming over the horizon. He leaps excitedly to his feet and cries,
"At last! Visitors!"
The couple scramble about, plumping cushions and emptying ash trays when suddenly the woman stops what she is doing and looks hard at the approaching couple.
With a bound she reaches the entrance to the the tent and pulls down the flap. The husband is about to question her but she holds her fingers to her lips and says,
" It's that Rachel woman...pretend we're out!"
"Pretend what!!!"
Of course it wouldn't have happened. In reality the visitors would have been welcomed with open arms and forced to watch slides of the pyramids while eating cress sandwiches. But you take my point.
I am at present attempting to introduce my own solution to this problem. It is relatively simple and would lead to increased business and employment opportunities.
Why not get the local council to create an ordinance whereby people are encouraged to wear period costumes, and then be persuaded to change each ensemble at least three times a day?
Quite apart from the increased demand for seamstresses, tailors, historical researchers and armourers the scope for adding drama to one's life is enormous and people would respond favourably to the opportunity of meeting 'new' people!
You have probably already created a scenario involving this idea and I would like to add mine. Imagine a normal day in my street. The sun is shining and a man steps out dressed as Napoleon. He is greets his neighbour thus,
Napoleon: "Ca va citizen Stalin."
Stalin: "Ca va bien comrade Bonaparte."
Napoleon: "Things are well with you I hope?"
Stalin: Da. I am just off to Sainsbury's to find the longest check-out queue there is. It makes me feel right at home."
Napoleon: "I know just what you mean, I've been reading le exchange and marche and found a fully working guillotine. Oh look, there's Robin Hood."
Napoleon waves and by way of reply Robin Hood gives a toot on his horn.
Stalin: It's only certain men who can get away with wearing tights and he's one of them."
Napoleon: "Oh I know. I was only thinking that when I saw him yesterday when he was Burt Lancaster in the Crimson Pirate."
Stalin: "The Crimson Pirate you say...when I saw him on Monday he was Rudolph Nureyev."
Napoleon: "Mmmmm. Well that explains why I had to abandon being D'arcy. I wondered why there was such a run on tights!"
You have to agree that the possibilities are limitless!