Description
Book SynopsisCrossing the river is about growing up on Merseyside during the 60s when Liverpool exploded with the music of the Beatles and the Mersey Sound as well as the poems of Roger McGough, Adrien Henry and Brian Patten. It remembers the excitement of the ferry crossing from Birkenhead when ocean-going liners were moored by the landing stage at Liverpool from where the walk led to the shops and cafes that no longer exist. The poems also explore the childhood and teenage experience of games, rites of passage and a life spent outdoors before television and on-screen activities kept young people indoors. It is about Liverpool, but seen from the perspective of the Wirral standing between two rivers and gazing at the big city with its world of excitement just a train or ferry ride away.
Table of ContentsIntroduction viii Flight of fancy 1 The other end 2 The games we played 5 Tally-Ho! 6 Football anarchy 8 Free roaming 9 Flicks 11 Striking match 13 Scottie Road 14 Bonny Night 16 The naming of meals 18 Annual Races 20 A Winter's Tale 22 Collecting Dividends 24 Tooled up 26 Sunday School 28 Gangs of New Ferry 30 Dividing lines 32 Earning your stripes 34 Birkenhead Market 36 Tempus Fugit 38 Measuring up 40 Mersey fog-horn 42 Crossing the water 44 Dividing lines 32 Earning your stripes 34 Birkenhead Market 36 Tempus Fugit 38 Measuring up 40 Mersey fog-horn 42 Crossing the water 44 Fumes and fugues 46 1964 BP (Before Primark) 47 Foreign travel 48 Bugger Bognor and Blackpool 50 Be prepared to dance 52 My life on the street 54 Cruising the Dee 56 Shocking story 58 Sergeant Pepper's moustache 59 It's a war out there 61 1966 and all that 63 Pools and perms 64 Paradise Street Liverpool 67 Cafe culture 69 Phillygigs 71 Vacancies Liverpoool 1964 73 Plays for Everyman 75 There's variegated privet in the deep-end 77 Hilbre 78 Rocking the boat 80 Making hay while the sun shines 82 The Trojan Wolf 84 Help! I'm suffering from nostalgia! 86 We're aliens 88 A Triumph 90 Ghosts on the grass 92
