Vinyl(s)

In the beginning was the vinyl. 

Well, not quite at the dawn of recorded music. Originally, from the 1880s onwards, there were perforated paper rolls for pianolas, wax cylinders for phonographs, flat and brittle shellac discs for gramophones and even magnetic reel-to-reel for tape-recorders. In fact vinyl records, made from polyvinyl chloride (or PVC), didn't make their appearance on the scene until the 1940s, sixty years into the process.

The durable two-sided discs contained analogue recordings in a continuous groove and were played on the turntable of a device with a valve amplifier and one or more speakers. The records came in two varieties: 7-inch "singles" playing at 45 rpm (revolutions per minute) and 12-inch "long players" (aka LPs) spinning at 33rpm. They were nicknamed variously discs, frisbees, hot biscuits, hot wax, liquorice pizzas, platters, slabs, and spinners. 

Then since the golden age of vinyl records (1950s to 1980s) look what else has come along. First of all cassette tapes, CDs, minidiscs and  i-Pods and then the recording angels went truly ethereal with the arrival of digital streaming services such as Napster and Spotify.

Some of you whippersnappers won't even have possessed a record-player or a vinyl disc, maybe not even CDs. I had my hand luggage searched at Manchester airport last summer and the security lady took great delight in holding up my Sony Walkman CD player and asking her youthful colleagues "Does anybody know what this is?" Few did, much indulgent amusement at my expense.

Nowadays music has blue teeth and Alexa as DJ. But those of us of an age regret selling our record collections back in the 1990s, or boxing them up in the loft for want of anything to play them on anymore. I bought my first vinyl in the early 1960s (starting with The Beatles) and then sold hundreds of LPs thirty years later because CDs were more compact and versatile. 

I only hung on to a few LP records that I thought would never get reissued on CD, and then over the last decade I've been buying some of my old favourites on vinyl again as the format has been making a (somewhat expensive) comeback. I now have my favourite fifty albums of all time, many in pristine 180g vinyl, because you really can't beat the organic sound quality of a record played on a good hi-fi system.

However, for a few decades sales of vinyl records plummeted from their millions per annum to a few hundred thousand, mostly on specialist labels and for club DJs who kept the vinyl culture going into the new millennium with their twin decks and their 12" grooves. So it's DJing I'm going to focus on today.

state of the art DJ twin-deck rig

The first documented use of the term disc jockey (DJ) is from 1941, no great surprise that it was coincident with the arrival of vinyl records. From the Second World War onwards, through the birth of rock & roll as a phenomenon, radio presenters who played records over the air started to become celebrities in their own right, building their fan base, commenting on the music they liked, having the pulling power to make songs 'hits'.

In America, the likes of Alan Freed, Bill Randle, Dick Clark, Murray the K and Wolfman Jack became cult figures. Randle brought Elvis Presley to the attention of the nation in the 1950s, and Murray the K did the same for The Beatles a decade later.

In the UK we had Brian Matthews and Alan Freeman on the BBC, Kid Jensen, Jimmy Saville and Johnny Walker on Radio Luxembourg and then a raft of DJs who would eventually become household names as pirate radio stations proliferated in the 1960s with Dave Cash, Dave Lee Travis, Emperor Rosko, John Peel, Keith Skues, Kenny Everett, Simon Dee, Tony Blackburn  and many more. (By the way, if you haven't seen the brilliant Richard Curtis movie 'The Boat That Rocked', remedy that soonest please, you won't be disappointed.) 

Radio Caroline DJ about to play the latest 'hot biscuit'

As well as radio DJs (whether terrestrial or piratical), the 1960s also gave rise to an enduring breed of vinyl spinning disk jockeys at clubs, dancehalls and discotheques up and down the country, They were often more than comperes and spinners of vinyl. Many were influencers and trend-setters, creating or promoting a dance craze here, a whole scene there... in no particular order or chronology, mod, goth, Motown, hip-hop, bluebeat, psychedelia, northern soul, grime, acid house, hi-NRG, electronica, reggae, new romantic, techno, ambient, jungle, ska, Eurobeat, whatever people wanted dance the night away to.

I can name-check a few movers and shakers if you like. Jeff Dexter in London basically turned the country onto the twist, before becoming the regular DJ at Middle Earth in the mid-sixties. Ian Levine and Rob Winstanley curated Northern Soul at places like the Twisted Wheel and Wigan Casino in the 1970s. Dave Haslam was the top DJ at Manchester's Haçienda during that city's Madchester era of the 1980s. Eddie Richards, godfather of 'house' music, was the main man at Camden Palace from the 1980s onwards. Annie Mac was a favourite spinner at Creamfields in more recent years. 

Then there are high profile DJs you've probably heard of by cultural osmosis, like Big Youth, Calvin Harris, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold and Pete Tong, and beyond them a plethora you've certainly never heard of who go by funny aliases like Bro Safari, Deadmau5, Eiffel 65, Green Velvet, Jack Beats, Jillionaire, Lisa Lashes, NERVO, Sharkey, Totempole and Weird Genius.

I was once tempted by an offer to host a music show on local radio here in the jewel of the north. I thought about it for a while, the opportunity to turn people on to the range of music I like. I'd got as far as choosing an alias, Stanley Park, and a name for the show which would go out on Friday nights as Stanley Park's Midnight Works. But then I figured I'd be permanently tired with everything else I try to do - and anyway it turned out that the radio station doesn't have turntables and vinyl anymore, it's all digital now, WAV and FLAC and MP3 files plucked from the ether. So I got off that particular cloud.

While researching for this piece, I came across the song 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life', a cheesy disco dance hit in the early 1980s for New York group Indeep. Rolling Stone magazine declared it to be "one of the greatest songs ever written about being a girl, listening to the radio, or any combination of the two" (lol) and Billboard reckons it's in the top fifty best dance tunes ever. I watched the video. It's two girls singing and a DJ playing the backing track on vinyl on a deck. The protagonists sing "if it wasn't for the music, I don't know what I'd do, yeah" and the DJ's response is "There's not a problem that I can't fix, 'Cause I can do it in the mix." What a hero.

I also stumbled upon the fact that a playful tweak of the title has given rise to a T-shirt very popular with clubbers (as pictured below) and I was momentarily diverted by the thought of perhaps writing a short story that would do justice to the title 'Last Night A DJ Shaved My Wife', something along the lines of a feisty midwife whose husband has walked out on her and three young children, so she becomes a sought-after DJ in a local nightclub at week-ends while delivering babies by day. How does that work as a treatment?

de rigeur saucy clubbing T-shirt "LAST NIGHT A DJ SHAVED MY WIFE"

I didn't go there in the end (not enough hours in the Saturday), but I did want to write a poem about the power of DJing, that shamanistic leading of the musical tribe into revel and rave. It's not the first time I've written on the topic. Check out this blog from six Januarys ago, which includes a poem featuring DJ Sky High (aka the Detonator) in Radio Big Bang.

As background (though one should never explain a poem), in 1927 psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who never visited Liverpool, claimed to have had a dream about the city saying “I found myself in a dirty, sooty city. It was night, and winter, and dark, and raining. I was in Liverpool. With a number of Swiss—say half a dozen. I walked through the dark streets... we found a broad square dimly illuminated by street lights, into which many streets converged. The various quarters of the city were arranged radially around the square. In the centre was a round pool, and in the middle of it a small island. While everything round about was obscured by rain, fog, smoke and dimly lit darkness, the little island blazed with sunlight. I had a vision of unearthly beauty, and that is why I was able to live at all. Liverpool is the “pool of life.” The “liver,” according to an old view, is the seat of life, that which makes to live.”. A local poet in the 1970s reckoned that Jung and his dream friends had arrived at the Cavern in Matthew Street.

The poem is truly a work-in-progress, to be continued obviously (at some point) but never mind that. So move the furniture out of the way, put on your black vinyl shoes and dance to the groove of...

Scouse House

A dream of a darkened cavern - the sound, the lights,

lights and sound of happy humanity bouncing round

bobbing and spinning at the bidding of  DJ Jungman.

Girls in short PVC dresses, lads all in black vinyl macs

sway as one to the rhythm of the shaman, undulating

in a primordial soup of collective euphoria,  gyrating

and hydrating, spinning and bobbing in trancelike joy

hydrating, gyrating to the rhythms of 12 inch grooves,

this musical amoeba in the grip of the power of DJing.*

To be continued...

(*pronounced "jing" with a silent d, not "deejaying", and evocative of magic as in Djinn or Genie.)

Thanks for reading, pop pickers! S ;-)

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Goal!

In football it’s an old saying that goals win games. How many times have you seen a game where one team has all the possession but fails to score and the other team has one chance, takes it and wins the game. Some games are like this but sometimes late winning goals are much more significant.

One such game occurred on May 26th 1989 when Liverpool played Arsenal to be First Division champions. It was a game between first and second with Arsenal three points behind Liverpool and needing to win by two clear goals to become champions. Liverpool needed a draw or a win to become champions. At 90 minutes Arsenal were leading 1-0 which was enough to hand Liverpool the title.

However, after a Liverpool attack breaks down the Arsenal goalkeeper throws the ball to Dixon who sends a long pass to Smith who passes the ball on to Michael Thomas who charges into the Liverpool penalty area. Thomas waits for the Liverpool goalkeeper to commit himself to a save and Thomas lifts the ball into the net. The Liverpool ground exploded into chaotic celebrations. Arsenal scored their second goal at 90+2 minutes thereby winning the game and becoming First Division champions for 1988-1989 season.

Michael Thomas winning the 1989 League Championship for Arsenal at Anfield

Some say the significance of this game was that it rescued English football from the misery of football hooliganism, the Heysel and Hillsborough tragedies and paved the way for the formation of the Premier League three years later in 1992.

Another such game was the 1999 Champions League final in Barcelona between Bayern Munich and Manchester United. Going into the game United were on course to win the Treble as they were already Premier League champions and had won the FA Cup as well. However, in the final after 90 minutes, United were 1-0 down and 3 minutes of time were added on. United had a corner which Beckham sent into the Bayern penalty area. This was poorly cleared and Giggs sent the ball back into the Bayern goal area where substitute Teddy Sheringham put the ball in to the Bayern net.

The goal was timed at 36 seconds into injury time. Thirty seconds after the restart United forced another corner which Beckham sent into the Bayern penalty area finding the head of Teddy Sheringham who nodded the ball across the face of the goal. The second United substitute Solskjaer reacted quickest and prodded the ball into the back of the Bayern net. The second United goal was scored with 43 seconds of the game remaining.

Many of the Bayern players were so distraught to have lost the game in such a fashion that they could hardly restart the game. Shortly after the game was over, United were European champions and became the first English club to achieve the Treble, winning the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in the same season. The Treble winners also confirmed their domination of English football winning their last Premier title in 2013 when manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired from the game after 26 trophy laden years.

Manchester United, European Champions and treble winners in 1999

Perhaps the most famous and iconic game in Premiership history occurred when Manchester City played Queens Park Rangers (QPR) at home on Sunday 13th May 2012. City went in to the final match on the final day of the season as Premiership leaders from arch-rivals Manchester United on goal difference. Manchester United were playing away at Sunderland. City needed to match or better United’s result at Sunderland. Additionally, QPR needed a draw to escape relegation from the Premiership.

As luck would have it, QPR were leading 2-1 after 90 minutes and there were 5 minutes of added time to play. Despite nearly constant pressure, QPR hung on until the second minute of added time when a Silva corner was headed in by the City striker Edin Dzeko headed to make it 2-2. By this point news came through that results elsewhere meant QPR were safe from relegation but also that United had beaten Sunderland and as things stood United were going to be league champions. City needed to another goal to become champions.

In the 94th minute City forward Balotelli despite being on the ground passed a ball to striker Sergio Aguero who ran further into the QPR penalty area and unleashed a savage shot that flew into the back of the QPR goal. The Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler roared simply “Aguerooooo” as the ball hit the back of the net and the stadium erupted into emotional chaos. City had won their first Premiership title and won their first league championship in 44 years under manager Roberto Mancini.

"Aguerooooo" winning the 2012 League Championship for Manchester City

The significance of this game, and this goal in particular, is that City under new manager Pep Guardiola from 2016 would go on to dominate the English game. Since 2016 City and Guardiola have won 18 major trophies including winning the Treble of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the European Champions League in 2021 equalling Manchester United’s Treble in 1999. City are only the second English club to complete the Treble.

GOAL!

Five minutes left to play
two goals down are they
going to throw it all away

Come on, come on, we need
a goal, just one more goal
to ease our aching desperate soul

A loose ball, a bad clearance
it’s in the back of the net, it’s
called perseverance

Three minutes left, keep on
Up the attack, no holding back
just pressure, pressure, pressure

Bad tackles, desperate defending
the noise is unrelenting, just hit the
shot, give it all you’ve got

Aguerooooo!


With thanks to Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler for the iconic “Agueroooo”.

And thank you to you for reading. Please leave a comment as they are always appreciated.

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Dialects. Use them - or lose them.

Th'all 'ave to forgive me Lanky dialect today.  Tha' knows I'm a sandgrown 'un wi' watter in me boots but lately, I've bin a bit of a clothead, forgettin' me Lanky roots. I was fair havin' kittens about writin' t'blog terday but t'penny dropped yesterday, 'bout heawf an hour after I got 'ome. I was spittin' feathers and dyin' fer a reet gradely cup a tae by't time I geet 'indoers, tha knows.  I'd been at the crem' seeing off a fellow poet and Grand Lancashire lad and it were fair bucketin' down.  I looked like a dreawned rat.  Anyway, I put wood in'th'ole and it suddenly dawned on me, that I am a native Lanky speaker an' all.

Enough of that for now.  Don't want to lose you all. I need to explain.  I was born in Blackpool, the daughter of a publican, who moved us first to St Helen's when I was four and a year later to the outskirts of Liverpool where we lived until I was eleven. I had developed a soft, scouse accent by then but as any true city born Liverpudlian would tell you, with rising intonation and a rolled 'r', 'Maghull is in the country!"  Unfortunately, arriving back in Blackpool to attend Elmslie Girls Grammar School, with any degree of Liverpool accent was never going to win me house points. The emphasis on the 'ck' in 'Blackpool' went down like a French kiss at a family reunion. 

To add to the 'scouse' twang, Dad had taken a pub in a small village and most of the locals used a lot of Lancashire dialect.  Expressions rolled out of them like a foreign language. 'It'll be reet' or 'es in'th elbow room', would send me in to fits of laughter. The girls in the kitchen and a couple of the bar staff spoke in this strange dialect and I thought it was hilarious.  My two older brothers called them, 'woolly backs.'

In the village was a small, 'sells everything' shop.  They had the most clutter I had ever seen in my life. The owner, Mary Smith was a Lancashire dialect poet and was also the proud holder of the title, 'Worst Singer in The World', for several years running. Mary posted some of her poems on the shop door.  I recall one that was intended to stop people dropping litter, although I doubt that anyone reading it would really get the message. So here I was, a sort of Liverpool girl, living in a Lancashire village, attending a posh girl's school where only 'received pronunciation' would do. The solution.  Electrocution lessons: Worked a treat! 

The poem this week was commissioned by The Imperial Hotel, Blackpool, for a pamphlet entitled, Visitors in Verse.' It is a work to celebrate some of the many famous characters who have stayed in the hotel. There is a George Formby convention here every year.  So here's a tribute from a Lanky Lass to a very cheeky Lanky Lad.

Ooh Mother It’s George Formby

A cheeky little chappie,

‘A Lad fra’ Lancasheer’,

Strummed his banjolele,

Buck-toothed for ear to ear.  

Leaning on a lamp-post,

A little lady walking by,

A beauty known as Beryl.

By ‘eck she caught his eye.  

She became his missus

And managed his career,

He was soon the Nation’s favourite,

The ‘Chaplin over ‘ere.’ 

He made a good few movies,

Some at Ealing studios,

Singing ‘bout what he could see

When he was cleaning windows.  

With his little stick of Blackpool rock,

He said he liked to stroll,

Along the promenade,

‘Cause he was such a happy soul.

And when the wind was bracin’

He was often heard to say

To anybody listenin’

As he went on his way.  

“Turned out nice again then, hasn’t it?” 

 

Thanks for reading.  Adele

                                                                      

 

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Town Planning - may the force be with you.

Long, long ago, not far away (from where I now live in Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire), there was a stretch of coastline that was bleak marshland, inhabited only by seabirds and wildlife.  Wild winds blew the sand onto sea grasses and over eons, a chain of sand dunes developed, (probably occupied by sand people  - oh don't worry - there are only 16 days to The Force Awakens - for anyone who is not a Star Wars fan, I hope you will stick with me for a while - at least to read the poem at the end). The largest sand dune was named by locals as Top Hill.

As we know, under the feudal system, areas of this country were divided up and came under the auspices of Lords and this land of dunes was part of the estate of Lord Hesketh. His son and heir, young Peter used to have picnics with his family on Top Hill and he would look out from the summit at the incredible views, imagining that he was a sky-walker.  The force was strong with Peter.  He had a vision for the future, so he added his mother's name, Fleetwood to his own and set out to design and build his own Utopia on the Fylde Coast.

At this stage in the story, Peter joins forces with a Jedi Master in the shape of architect Decimus Burton.  The two now discuss Peter's extraordinary plan to build an incredible oasis in the sand dunes. It is to be a port to rival Liverpool and a holiday resort better than St Leonard's on Sea. In 1839 the two draw up plans for Fleetwood: a stylish resort of elegant avenues, emanating from a central point at Top Hill. Burton sets to work on the construction of a Chinese pagoda tea room that will be a vantage point for viewing the town as it is developed.

As we know, the force has a dark side. Our hero, Peter will need to convince people to come to his new resort.  Big, bold, brassy Blackpool is a mere six miles away and already has the attention of the working-classes. Peter needs a hook. He decides to invest his inheritance, to keep it away from Darth Tax-Collector, in building an extended railway line from Preston. This is a canny manoeuvre: the railway cannot yet carry passengers over Shap and beyond into the land of Scots.  On completion of the railway line, passengers travelling North can now alight at Fleetwood, stay at the North Euston Hotel, (another Burton building) and then embark for The Lake District and beyond by steamer ship.

Decimus Burton designs and builds three light houses that, when aligned, can safely guide ships into the difficult Wyre Estuary. Soon Fleetwood is a fashionable resort and comes to the attention of Prince Albert, consort of the newly crowned Queen Victoria, who decide to pay a visit... Peter takes the Prince up to the summit of Top Hill to view the town.  Naturally there are many other events in the story of Fleetwood. This is just the beginning...

 

  

On Top Hill 

Misty windows soaked with spray,

shroud from me the timeless view

of mountain back-dropped Morecambe Bay,

once reserved for privileged few,

who picnicked on Top Hill.

And as he looked out from the rise,

at seascape skirting, rolling skies

with sweeping landscapes every side,

Lord Hesketh-Fleetwood was inspired

by standing on Top Hill.

Just like a crow’s nest on the sea

he set his structure at the peak,

Chinese pagoda serving tea,

a charming central place to meet,

to chatter on Top Hill.

And seen from high on grassy Mount,

stylish avenues began.
a visionary plan, splayed out
designed just like a Chinese fan,
extending from Top Hill. 

They came from near and far and wide,

by ship and railway, powered by steam.
Prince Albert brought his blushing bride
to share the joy of Peter’s dream
and whistle from Top Hill.

Thanks for reading.  Adele

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Canals - flowing through time.

I spent my mid-childhood, from six until eleven, in Maghull. Dad opened a new pub there called the Everest in 1962.  Named for the pioneering ascent in 1953, the pub was surrounded by Hilary Crescent, Tensing Avenue, Hunt Road. Although now part of Greater Merseyside, the small town was then in Lancashire and I happily attended the local county primary. The main A59 ran through town but there was a pedestrian subway connecting to the shops and beyond that, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal flowed towards the city, eight miles away. 

It was a safe place to live and my memories of growing up there are very happy.  I walked to school, often rode my bike to Aintree or Melling and even at the age of nine, took the Ribble bus into the city alone, trusted by my parents not to speak to strangers and to return at a pre-arranged time. 

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal links the two cities, stretching over a distance of 127 miles (204 km), crossing the Pennines, and includes 91 locks on the main line. The canal at Aintree passes close to the racecourse and gives the name to the course's Canal Turn. In the early 21st century a new link was constructed into the Liverpool docks system, via Vauxhall. 
 
Vauxhall is more famously known as the 'Scottie Road area' because Scotland Road runs through it. Scotland Road was created in the 1770s as a turnpike to Preston via Walton and Burscough. It became part of the stagecoach route to Scotland. It was widened in 1803 and streets of working-class housing developed either side, as Liverpool expanded. Demolished as slums in the 1930s, they were replaced by corporation flats. By the mid 19th century the area was densely overcrowded, with appalling living conditions, worse than anywhere in the country. Eldon Grove (now Grade II listed) was built as model housing as part of a labourers’ village and was officially opened by the Countess of Derby in 1912.

In Victorian times the area had over 200 public houses. Scotland Road was the centre of working class life in north Liverpool. Home to most of Liverpool's migrant communities: almost "a city within a city". There were four main migrant communities; Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian as well as the native Lancastrian community and pockets of German and Polish.  It was a cultural melting pot.  A place close to the city centre and the docks, it could be a place of both romantic nostalgia and brutal hardship. Community, often dictated by faith, was at the centre of Scotland Road. 
 
Urban clearance and the construction of the Wallasey Tunnel in the 1960s and '70s led to a shift in population of the area to various parts of the city such as Huyton, Kirkby and Norris Green, to new modern housing, leaving Scotland Road in a state of steady decline. Demolition particularly around the north end of Scotland Road continued in the 1980s and beyond. In the 1978, a new housing estate breathed life Into derelict land to the west of Vauxhall Road: Eldonian Village. 'Our Cilla' and the children of Vauxhall opened The Vauxhall Bridge in 1994.

 

Minnows (In the shadow of the bridge)

In the year of World Cup glory,

when The Toffees won the cup,

a tiddler rides her push-bike

through The Northway underpass,

past the shops and out of sight.
Picnic packed for pleasure
in the shadow of the bridge.
 

She leans her trusty metal steed

against the cobbled wall,

just below the stone humped-back

and walks along the towpath,

her only apprehension,

leggy nettles, reaching out to

sting the flesh above her ankle socks.

She sits, legs dangling over,

soles inches from the foaming scum,

drifting on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. 

Keen eyes pierce the murky flow,

scanning rapidly until

a sudden fleck of silver, flickers,

in the shadow of the bridge. 

She lifts the bamboo pole,

in goes the yellow, nylon net

and skilfully she scoops, then lifts  

a trio of sparkling minnows.

Now they sit beside her in a jar,

brim full of happiness,

riding home, strung to her handle bar.

 

The same canal now flows where Scottie Road

and Tate and Lyle kept company.
The residents campaigned
to keep their old Eldonian community.
On Sunday, they found a minnow,
with a bullet through his back,
in the shadow of The Vauxhall Bridge.

On hearing of the sad death of Lewis Dunne on Sunday 15th November 2016.

Thanks for reading.  Adele  

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As I keep saying to Roger McGough.........

It’s 1969. Boswell Street, Liverpool 8. I live there in a house share with six other girls. What a place to be and at what a time. A cultural revolution is happening and I’m in the thick of it. The music, the literature, the art – all that makes life worthwhile is changing and growing and shouting from the top of the Liver Building and I’m in amongst it.

Naturally, I have a copy of The Mersey Sound, the landmark anthology of the poems of Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten in the Penguin Modern Poets series, hasn’t everybody at that time? These are the blokes you see strolling around the Liverpool streets and holding court in the pubs nearby. This is the book that made poetry accessible, relevant, democratic and bloody good fun for everybody, in amongst the profundities and serious messages it contained. This was in the days when a paperback cost three shillings and sixpence, so to buy three or four books a week was possible.

I’m not in the habit of defacing books nowadays, but was obviously less scrupulous then, as my copy contains numerous girlish jottings and underlinings on the text and, amongst other things, something of a shopping list or account of expenditure that reads, rather poignantly I think now:

 ‘ring               25 shillings

            sandals          £1

            cigs                 1/9

            book               3/6

           stockings       2/11

            busfare          9d

            total                 £2. 13s 11d’

Well, we knew how to live in those days. It must have been some ring at that price!

We had a party at the house one night (we had lots of parties, lots of nights!); open house for all-comers and one guest who came strolling through the house was Roger McGough. I dashed upstairs to get my copy of The Mersey Sound for him to sign, which he duly did, thus            

‘4 Sheilagh

♣

Roger McGough

July 69’

The book has stayed with me ever since, through thick and thin. I’ve dipped into it periodically, to enjoy the poetry, wallow in nostalgia, cheer myself up, as the mood takes me. It’s been in a plastic cover for years now, it is yellowing, disintegrating and absolutely precious to me.

The years went by, then three years ago I heard that there was to be an exhibition at the Victoria Gallery in Liverpool to mark the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The Mersey Sound. Naturally, I made the pilgrimage to the exhibition and was amazed by the collection that had been gathered together. The manuscript notes and jottings that grew into the poems, art produced by the writers at the time, flyers and posters for poetry readings and ’happenings’ that they were involved in, all manner of ephemera of that heady and magical era. And I still had my book, personalised for me by Roger McGough. It by now needed the last rites, but I took it along, just in case….. Unfortunately neither of the two surviving writers was there that day.

Fast forward to 2012…….Dave said he would like to see ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the Radio Show’ at the Grand. Inwardly grimacing, I enthusiastically agreed – after all, I’ve dragged him along to no end of performances he didn’t particularly fancy, so a quid pro quo was the least I could do. I bought the tickets and forgot about it. Then a couple of weeks before the show I saw in the Gazette that the Narrator would be…….one Roger McGough. Now I really wanted to go!

My copy of The Mersey Sound by now needed embalming fluid, but out it came with me to the Grand Theatre. I’m not a ‘Hitchhiker’s’ fan (sorry, sorry, sorry if that offends anyone) but I enjoyed the performance well enough, especially the laconic tones of the Narrator! From the bar afterwards, I saw that a long queue of autograph hunters was forming outside the theatre. I wondered how to play this and, as I wondered, into the bar from the inside of the theatre strolled….Roger McGough (and others). Casting aside my inhibitions and horror of behaving like a starstruck teenager, I whipped out my book and burbled to the great man ‘You kindly signed this for me in 1969. I wonder if you could possibly…..’ He seemed pleased and laughed, was affable, charming and good humoured and signed it:

‘For Sheilagh

(again)

Roger McGough

June 2012’

Bet I’ve got the only copy in the world signed in 1969 and 2012!

I’ll finish with a poem from the anthology. It’s by the late, great Adrian Henri and is possibly the first poem ever to include fish and chips and Top of the Pops. It's a sweet poem of young love........aah, 1969!

Sheilagh

Love Is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paintstained hands

Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you don't put out the light

Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops

Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops

Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is

Love is you and love is me

Love is prison and love is free

Love's what's there when you are away from me

Love is...

Adrian Henri

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