The North

by Paul Morley

  Liverpool, Brian Patten recalls: ‘I started writing because I was quite isolated. My family didn’t talk to each other, it was one of those nightmare families. My father had left. I grew up in a quite violent and strange house and I just felt very isolated, so I started writing to try and articulate my own feelings really, you know. I wasn’t thinking about whether it was poetry or not, I was just trying to articulate what was going on inside me. I had one teacher at school, a guy called Mr Sutcliffe, who was really ace and he was inspirational to me. That was at a school called Sefton Park Secondary Modern; I think there is a little Norwegian supermarket there now.’ Liverpool, and Alan Bleasdale answers a question about why so many writers come from Liverpool: ‘I think it’s the influence of the Irish, the Welsh and the dock economy, and the fact that nobody had proper jobs up to about a hundred years ago. My mother’s family is from the Dingle and my dad’s family is from Scotland Road – that’s where they were born and brought up . . . A lot of my mother’s family especially were dockers, and when I was a kid you’d go down to the Dingle and you’d hear stories of these 6,000 men in a pen, with 300 jobs, of a 6 o’clock on a Monday morning. And the 5,700 men who went back up the hill – and they’d go into the pub . . . and play cards, and they’d have the crack. And . . . so there was an awful lot more time for people to talk. To create stories, and . . . I think Liverpool is very much a verbal city, and surely it comes from the, you know, the Welsh and the Irish, and it comes from the fact that not many people had jobs a long time ago.’

  Liverpool, all our friends are all aboard, and many more live next door. Ken ‘what a beautiful day for sticking a cucumber through a letter box and shouting the Martians are coming’ Dodd also proved a weirdly accomplished singer, with a string of hits that seemed to exist in a world where the Beatles – who had a bit of Dodd about them – had never happened. Ken Dodd’s 1965 song ‘Tears’ was beaten only in overall sixties sales by ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. When the Beatles appeared on Dodd’s television show he said, ‘We talk the same language. It’s the draught from the Mersey Tunnel which causes the Liverpool accent.’

  Liverpool, Till Death Us Do Part, Johnny Speight’s abrasively realistic BBC sitcom, piloted in 1965, running until 1975, featuring swearing, ranting, racist, right-wing, East End working-class bigot Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell (after Peter Sellers turned it down), whose socialist son-in-law Mike, played by Antony Booth, at the other end of the widening post-war generation gap, is a smart Liverpool layabout combining many of Alf’s most hated traits – northern, Catholic, Irish, tolerant, liberal, sexually liberated, young, Liverpool FC fan to Garnett’s beloved West Ham United. During their non-stop slanging matches Mike was frequently abused as a ‘randy Scouse git’ by his explosively intolerant and ignorant father-in-law. Booth himself was born in Jubilee Road in 1931 to an Irish mother and merchant-seaman father who worked as a clerk in a docklands warehouse and at the United States consulate in Liverpool. He is a descendant of the famous nineteenth-century Booth family of actors which includes John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

  Liverpool, a decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation. Liverpool, dazzling but ultimately fraudulent. Liverpool, but the thing is, it really just is . . . Legendary fast-thinking, quick-talking and beloved Liverpool comedian Tommy Handley, born in Toxteth on 17 January 1892 – famous for the moral-boosting radio programme that became synonymous with glorified war-time British spirit, It’s That Man Again (ITMA), that man being both Handley and Adolf Hitler, the latter constantly baited by the roguish Handley and his crew – is featured on the cover of the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Marilyn Monroe is flirting with him, and he is next to acid author William Burroughs. Stan Laurel of Lancashire is between artist Richard Lindner and guru Sri Mahavatara Babaji. Lewis Carroll of Cheshire is standing next to Lawrence of Arabia. Handley and ITMA, in which convivial music hall moves into radio, its elastic exuberance transformed into something experimentally new, is a big influence on the four worked-up post-war authority-scorning surrealists making a mockery of British stoicism who would become the Goons – Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan – who in turn trigger something, as an incorrigible gang and self-governed creative collective, in the Beatles. Liverpool, digging the weeds.

  Liverpool, John Betjeman, 1970: ‘Liverpool Cathedral is one of the great buildings of the world. Suddenly one realises that the greatest art of architecture, that compels reverence, but also lifts one up, and turns one into a king, is the art of enclosing space.’ Liverpool, the departure for the Sea of Dreams is from the Pier Head. Liverpool, described in 1920 as a ‘threshold to the ends of the earth’. Liverpool, outdoor toilets. Liverpool, unconquerable charm. Liverpool, from side streets and backyards, from all directions, come more and more children, suddenly grown up. Liverpool, a fountain of things. Liverpool, sights of local interest. Liverpool, nowhere to look for amusement and mercy but to one another. Behind the Pier Head there are numerous narrow streets that drop down to the river: Water Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street and James Street. Liverpool, it’s just a rumour spread about town. Liverpool, a dreary flat spread of streets. Liverpool, the foul disorder of bad dreams. Liverpool, daydream, trance, faith and passion all exist on the borders of waking thought. Liverpool, the patchwork landscape around the cathedral yields a supernatural dell. Liverpool, Phil Redmond, Jimmy McGovern and Anthony Shaffer. Liverpool, I’m Bloody Sure You’re On Dope. Liverpool, the true beginning place. Liverpool, somebody speaks and you fall into a dream.

  Liverpool, artistic troublemakers. Liverpool, serious fools. Liverpool, Stan Kelly-Bootle, born 1929, eccentric Renaissance man, achieves the first postgraduate degree in computer science in 1954, is a member of the earliest wave of computer programmers – ‘computer science is the boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities’ – and also writes the lyrics to ‘Liverpool Lullaby’, where he talks of something tough and resilient, nothing can take its place. He also wrote the lyrics to ‘I Wish I Was Back In Liverpool’, longing to be back in the town where he was born, even though it has no trees, no wonderful fields of swaying corn, but the all the girls with their dyed blonde hair make up for that, and the constant black and tan, the dark stout and pale ale, and he lingers over memories of his favourite town, however packed it is, however many are crammed into a single bed near the old Pier Head.

  Liverpool, decline. Liverpool, docks, obsolete. Liverpool, run-down council estates. Liverpool, population 1971, 610,000. Liverpool, John Lennon, 1971: ‘Yes, well, the first thing we did was to proclaim our Liverpoolness to the world, and say, “It’s all right to come from Liverpool and talk like this.” Before, anybody from Liverpool who made it, like Ted Ray, Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, had to lose their accent to get on the BBC. They were only comedians, but that’s what came out of Liverpool before us. We refused to play that game. After the Beatles came on the scene everyone started putting on a Liverpudlian accent.’ Liverpool, voices. Liverpool, Al Hibbler. Liverpool, Carl Perkins. Liverpool, Ray Charles. Liverpool, the Mersey meets the Mississippi. Liverpool, the Dissenters. Liverpool, the Mersey Sound. Liverpool, Robert Mitchum. Liverpool, Stuart Sutcliffe. Liverpool, yeah yeah yeah. Liverpool, George Martin. Liverpool, MBE. Liverpool, Ravi Shankar. Liverpool, Vietnam. Liverpool, the Maharishi, transcendental meditation. Liverpool, Ringo takes several tins of baked beans with him when the Beatles go to India to study with the Maharishi. Liverpool, long-haired rough-spoken poets wandering into O’Connors and screaming their poems above the bar noise.

  Liverpool, Abbey Road. Liverpool, the home of the Beatles. Liverpool, the Beatles, the ultimate confidence trick. Liverpool, a dry eye rubbed raw shrinking into itself. Liverpool, windows and curtains in the same position for fifty years. Liverpool, chasing rainbows. Liverpool, the train from outside the city holding its breath before it noses into Lime Street and sinks into the earth. Liverpool, t
he air lashed and staggering with suction winds. Liverpool, nothing to breathe but burned rubber and diesel fumes. Liverpool, despised. Liverpool, drunk. Liverpool, repartee. Liverpool, mass redundancy, failed strikes, depopulation, gangs, guns, drugs, poverty, social exclusion. Liverpool, making a dent in national self-awareness. Liverpool, the brand names, the fads, the bastardised vistas. Liverpool, a succession of poses. Liverpool, imagine. Liverpool, frozen memories gleam amid the blackness of loss. Liverpool, hope springs eternal. Liverpool, November 1976, Julian Cope surfaces at a Liverpool college, meets Ian McCulloch, Pete Burns, Pete Wylie, and forms a succession of half-groups. Liverpool, to be physically on the edge is to be spiritually on the edge. Liverpool, an epic whodunnit. Liverpool, a certain slippery ease. Liverpool, make me whole again. Liverpool, live and let die. Liverpool, making to live. Liverpool, hate. Liverpool, well there’s something else to life. Liverpool, Dunlop, Tate and Lyle, Kraft, leaving. Liverpool, scum. Liverpool, smackhead. Liverpool, scallies. Liverpool, vagabonds and thieves and scoundrels on the make always lying. Liverpool, how do we soldier on? Liverpool, a triumph of drift and whim. Liverpool, late into the night. Liverpool, buildings and stars laid flat for storage. Liverpool, the steady accretion of plain lived moments. Liverpool, destruction of, by bombs, town planners, politicians, indifference, ‘when desolation spreads her empire here’. Liverpool, love. Liverpool, needles and pins, winds blow, the rains pour, the seas flow, old men grow tired of sailing: ‘The old ships’ ghosts, drifting away.’ Liverpool, ta ra then.

  On 27 August 1967 Brian Epstein dies in his Belgravia home, officially from an overdose of sleeping pills, the day before he was due to travel to Bangor, north Wales, to join the Beatles at the International Meditation Society. The band decided not to replace him and instead embarked on a new project alone. The BBC TV film Magical Mystery Tour was treated poorly by the critics and for some was the beginning of the end for the Beatles. Within three years they fell apart.

  Brian Patten, Roger McGough and Adrian Henri authored the outstandingly successful Penguin Modern Poets: The Mersey Sound – the only one in the series to get its own title (at the time the poets were not keen on the link with pop music, preferring to be nothing fancier than number 10). Each volume of the series, an attempt to introduce contemporary poetry to the general reader launched in 1962, featured three poets of the 1960s. The Mersey volume featured a variation on the normal predominantly black cover – a mix of red and black with silhouettes of Liverpool landmarks and a black and white photo of a pop fan – and brought together approximately one hundred poems by the Liverpool poets. Over 500,000 copies have been sold, more than any other poetry anthology, and it has been credited as the most significant anthology of the twentieth century for its success in bringing poetry to new audiences. Priced in 1967 at three shillings and sixpence, the book consolidated three poetic reputations and was reprinted eight times in seven years. The poets mixed avant-garde and popular culture in an accessible and saleable form and extended their work into performance.

  Liverpool, we hope you have enjoyed the show. Liverpool, a moment of utter clarity. Liverpool, I love to visit the city to see my hub caps (Bernard Manning). Liverpool, among people who would be lost without the cross. Liverpool, entertaining all sorts of conditions with a view to self-preservation. Liverpool, dogged dedication. Liverpool, industrial anxiety. Liverpool, work-shy. Liverpool, loss of civic vision. Liverpool, above us only sky. Liverpool, football crazy, Brian Redbone, Ian Callaghan, Chris Lawler. Liverpool, Albert Dock, at the edge of the water, from old world to new world, from new world to this world, eat, drink and spend. Liverpool, and the years flare up and are gone quicker than a minute. Liverpool, John Lennon as Mickey Mouse, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi and Chaplin. Liverpool, it’s been a hard day’s night. Liverpool, thank u very much. Liverpool, your sky all hung with jewels. Liverpool, people they rush everywhere, each with their own secret care. Liverpool, diving for dear life when we could be diving for pearls. Liverpool, until you realise it’s just a story.

  Liverpool, George Melly, the British saint/pope/uncle/tout/fount/jester/dean/queen of surrealism, born Alan George Heywood Melly, son of a wool broker and an actress in Liverpool on 17 August 1926. The Melly family were wealthy pillars of Liverpool society, and young George and his brother and sister led a comfortable life in a large ugly Victorian terraced house in the Sefton Park area. He described Liverpool 8, his home as aspirational 1950s bohemian poet, writer, artist, flaneur, as ‘a multiracial slum waiting for the planners’ bulldozer’. He said of the Beatles – ‘that four-headed Orpheus’ – that their songs at the time ‘trapped what it felt like to be a rebellious suburban Liverpudlian for whom beat music offered an escape. They were tough and tender. You could sense, behind the words and music, the emergence of a new spirit; post-war, clever, non-conformist but above all, cool.’ He wrote of their song ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Liverpool was always in their songs but this was about the kind of old woman that I remembered from my childhood and later, very respectable Liverpool women living in two-up, two-down streets with the doorsteps meticulously holystoned, and the church the one solid thing in their lives . . . I could see Park Road or Mill Street and those houses going down to the river, and I could imagine Eleanor Rigby living in one . . .’ In the Sunday Times he traced John Lennon’s roots in In His Own Write through Carroll, Klee, Thurber, the Goons and Joyce. He wrote in his 1970 book Revolt Into Style, ‘Dedication to pleasure is Pop’s intention: pleasure in the present for young people, before they are independent, and have to assume adult responsibilities.’ He noted that following the success of the Beatles, ‘States Worship had largely been replaced by a cool, if deep, chauvinism, but as it is impossible to think of England as having no past, this is dealt with by treating history as a vast boutique full of military uniforms, grannie shoes and spectacles, 1930s suits and George Formby records. By wrenching these objects out of their historical context they are rendered harmless.’ Pop culture, he announced, is the passport to the country of now, where everyone is beautiful and no one grows old.

  In 1971 George Melly gave evidence for the defence in the celebrated Oz trial. (The magazine’s editors had been prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act for their ‘Schoolkids’ Issue’, which included pornographic images.) He would be happy, Melly proclaimed, for his sixteen-year-old son to read the issue (his son was in fact eight at the time), adding for good measure that a Rupert Bear cartoon featuring the character having sex with an old woman was ‘the funniest thing in the magazine’.

  The Kingsway Tunnel was opened on 24 June 1971 by Queen Elizabeth II. The new link between Liverpool and Wallasey actually consisted of two tunnels, one in each direction and each with two lanes. In early 1971 The Scaffold provided some catchy tunes for a television campaign heralding the introduction of decimal currency to the UK. In a series of five-minute programmes entitled Decimal Five and shown on BBC1, they sang such inspired lyrics as ‘Give more, get change’ and ‘Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots’ in an attempt to help older people to weather the change. The fact that The Scaffold were hairy freaks likely to repel older people seemed not to have occurred to the decimalisers. Liverpool, whispers out of time. Liverpool, the gibbous mirrored eye of an insect. Liverpool, a breeze like the turning of a page. Liverpool, the momentum of a conviction. Liverpool, a society specifically organised as a demonstration of itself. Liverpool, the mouth of the Mersey. Liverpool, the mouth. Liverpool, the river itself. Liverpool, roll on, John.

  85.10

  Yoko and John left England for New York on 3 September 1971.

  ‘My love of New York is something to do with Liverpool. There is the same quality of energy in both cities.’

  ‘What is Liverpool like?’

  ‘Liverpool was just where I was brought up. It’s like anywhere . . . I love the concept of it, but I don’t live there.’

  ‘What did being from Liverpool have to do with your art?’

  ‘Because it was a port, that means it
was less hick than somewhere in the midlands, like the Midwest or whatever you call it. We were a port, the second biggest port in England. Also, between Manchester and Liverpool the north was where all the money was made in the 1800s whenever it was, that was where all the brass and the heavy people were. And that’s where the despised people were. We were the ones who were looked down upon as animals by the southerners, the Londoners. In the States, the northerners think that down south, people are pigs, and the people in New York think West Coast is hick. So we were hicksville. Liverpool is a very poor city, and tough. But people have a sense of humour because they are in so much pain. So they are always cracking jokes, and they are very witty. It’s an Irish place, too; it is where the Irish came when they ran out of potatoes, and it’s where black people were left or worked as slaves or whatever. It is cosmopolitan, and it’s where sailors would come home with blues records from America. Liverpool has the biggest country & western following in England besides London – always besides London because there is more of it there. I heard country & western music in Liverpool before I heard rock & roll. The people take their country & western very seriously. I remember the first guitar I ever saw. It belonged to a guy in a cowboy suit and a cowboy hat and a big dobro. They were real cowboys and they took it seriously. There were cowboys long before there was rock & roll.’ From the ‘Rolling Stone Interview’ with Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone, 1971.