Liverpool has long boasted an array of world-class arts and cultural
institutions, including the Walker, the Bluecoat, Tate Liverpool, the Liverpool
Biennial and one of the finest and most extensive museum collections in the
country. But the predominant image of the city and its people has been less
associated with the rarefied culture of the arts than with a culture more firmly
rooted in the everyday, whether sport, leisure, the world of work (or the lack
of it), or the twin pillars of family and religion - themes which memorably
converge in the long-running sitcom Bread (BBC, 1986-91). The defiant figure of
Jean Boht's Ma Boswell, overseeing her tight-knit if rumbustious brood, draws on
a popular characterisation of the city itself: a place shaped by a strong sense
of community and solidarity.
To plot a 'Day in the Life' is thus to conjure the general from the
particular; to distil a narrative of a place and its people by zoning in on the
diverse practices of its those who inhabit its everyday landscapes. Terence
Davies' celebrated films Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day
Closes (1992) offer a richly evocative infusion of postwar childhood
remembrances in an everyday working-class milieu of residential streets, the
local pub and church, as well as the local picture house. While theatre and
music halls provided the bulk of the entertainment in the nineteenth century, by
the 1930s and '40s cinema was to become by far the most popular leisure activity
amongst Liverpool's working classes.
Although the popularity of cinema as a form of mass entertainment has long
since declined, sport has remained an important fixture in the everyday lives of
many Liverpudlians, shaping much of the city's urban identity. Home of the Grand
National, the world's greatest steeplechase, Aintree was also a leading venue
for motor racing during the 1950s and '60s. Another important sport in the
city's history, particularly amongst its immigrant communities, was boxing.
Liverpool Stadium (demolished in the 1980s) was the first purpose-built boxing
stadium in Britain. It is football, however, that remains the city's abiding
sporting passion. Often likened to a religion (indeed Anfield, the home of
Liverpool FC, has been described as Liverpool's 'third cathedral') football
commands the fierce loyalty and devotion of fans of the city's two top league
clubs, Liverpool and Everton.
One of the enduring facets of Scouse mythology - one that is well articulated
in many films and television dramas based in Liverpool - is that, whatever the
circumstances or trials of day-to-day living, the Scouser's innate and playful
good humour will see him or her through. A good case in point is Margi Clarke's
brassy Kirkby girl in Letter to Brezhnev (1985) . Such a characterisation
epitomises a working-class sensibility which stood defiant in the face of
unemployment and industrial decline. Once a vibrant port-city, its rhythms drawn
from the hustle and bustle of a thriving industrial-maritime landscape,
Liverpool in the 1970s and 80s reflected a markedly different social geography,
shaped by the many economic and political upheavals it faced during this period.
Keen to dispel some of the negative images of its recent history, the re-branded
Liverpool of today is a city in which culture and leisure are the cornerstones
of the new economy. The everyday mythologies culled from a century of film
provide a fitting memorial to a city at work and play.
Les Roberts
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