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.
As long as he needs me - fear and loathing in Liverpool
By John Williams
My earliest memory of the cinema was formed in the Majestic in London Road and that image has remained suspended in my mind forever. It was of Bill Sykes hanging from a roof in David Lean's version of Oliver Twist.
Even though there have been occasions since when I would have been temporarily happy to see some murderers dangling from a gallows the trauma of observing Bill's hideous death ensured that I would always be an opponent of Capital punishment.
Since that day I have been transfixed and terrified by many cinematic images but none I think have so resolutely shaped my world view.
A particularly embarrassing moment occurred when I was just fifteen and it ought to have cured me of making assumptions, but unfortunately it didn't.
I was fifteen years old, in those days when the worth of a film was likely to be extolled by word of mouth rather than by the undemocratic process imposed by the near tyranny of a modern TV personality passing judgement on an art form from which he has been largely excluded.
I was new to the area and still in the process of making friends so I never had an opportunity to discuss the merits of a film with anybody else. Thus it was that I strolled into the Playhouse Cinema in Smithdown Road to see Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' blithely unaware of the nature of the film, other than having a vague idea that it was about hospitals.
As I settled into my seat I became aware that almost all of the surrounding seats were occupied by girls from my new school. Their presence in such numbers lulled me further into thinking that a fairly innocuous film was about to unfold and I contentedly proceeded to tuck into my Butterkist popcorn.
The lights dimmed and in that moment I was overwhelmed by the magic I always associate with the cinema. It somehow evokes in me a combination of the Fun fair, a first date and Christmas Eve. I was especially pleased to see that the movie starred one of my childhood crushes, Janet Leigh.
I had fallen in love with her when I saw her in 'The black shield of Falworth', a stock Hollywood presentation of medieval England, in which the beautiful Janet epitomised the English rose waiting to be rescued by the royal prince Tony Curtis who was travelling incognito. His need for disguise probably explains why, when asked where he was bound, Tony replied, in ancient Brooklynese,
"Yonda lies the castle of my fadda".
Of course to me his accent was pure English as every movie I had ever seen concerning medieval England was populated by such native speakers as Alan Ladd or Kirk Douglas.
My lamentable lack of exposure to English films was a consequence of my mother's wartime visits to the cinema, the venues of such outings would always be determined by others who, when asked what film was showing at, say, the Curzon in Old Swan, would scathingly volunteer,
"It's English! But there's a Yank on the Maj[estic]!"
English films were held in low esteem.
Anyway, there I was happily ensconced in the best seats in the house and intently following Janet Leigh's every move. After what seemed to be little more than a few minutes Hitchcock's camera became my eyes as we followed her into the shower...as she was brutally stabbed I found to my horror that most of the shrieking that suddenly lacerated the cinema was mine! I was never so glad of the all embracing darkness of the cinema.
When the cinema disgorged us from its warm maw I found myself faced with a walk home in the dark. I was so disturbed and frightened that I walked down the middle of Lodge Lane! Mercifully it was free of traffic. When I got home I realised that my parents were in bed and so not wanting to disturb them I entered the house through the cellar.
As I walked through the pitch blackness my face was brushed by something cold and damp. My concern about waking my parents was in vain because my screams almost brought the house down and it was only when my step father, whey-faced and anxious switched on the cellar light that I saw the workman's coat hanging from the ceiling.
Twenty years later my wife and myself took my niece and nephew to see Steven Spielberg's 'Indiana Jones and the temple of doom'. At one particularly absorbing point it became clear that the heroine was about to be ambushed.
As the camera glided slowly toward her while she was peering over a rock balcony to observe the scene below my nerves were stretched as I awaited the inevitable. Suddenly, a villainous face appeared, in front of her, and I screamed.
In my shame I was horribly aware that every child in the cinema was turned toward me. Fortunately for me my wife had also emitted a scream of terror and so I was able to recover sufficiently to place a reassuring arm on her shoulder and indicate somehow that she was only a woman....