Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle (Bloomsbury 2016)

 

One of the unexpected ways in which my upbringing as the son of Communists had helped prepare me for the challenges of celebrity, an advantage that my fellow comedians didn’t have, was in the matter of staying true to yourself. The idea of the traitor, the sell-out, the apostate was central to Joe and Molly’s state of mind. Even when I was quite small we would be out shopping in town and  my mother or father would gesticulate towards some harmless-looking individual and say in a whisper, ‘See him over there trying on gloves, he left the Party over Hungary in 1956 and now he’s . . .’ Here they’d pause before revealing the full horror. ‘A Labour councillor!’ Or, ‘Don’t look, but that woman by the bacon counter, she used to be in CND but now she’s . . . joined the Air Force!’ At first I couldn’t see anything different about the people my parents pointed out but over time it did seem to me that they possessed a certain haunted quality, an air of sadness, and though their mood probably wasn’t helped by being whispered about in shops by a red-haired woman and a man in a trilby hat accompanied by a silent watchful boy I sensed that the main critical voice was within their heads, that they themselves were aware on some level of the abandonment of their younger more idealistic self and it corroded them from the inside.

I did not want to end up like that. The trick it  seemed to me was to not be blind to the many faults of the left while at the same time to try and stay true to those core values of workers’ rights, social justice and equality.

Me doing fund-raising benefits for left-wing organisations was an attempt to stay connected with those ideals.

As a left-wing entertainer it was accepted that you would inevitably perform unpaid at concerts in aid of various radical causes – doing benefits had become a sort of national service for alternative comedians. There was very little pleasure in appearing at them though. I did a bit about benefit concerts in my act: how you told a joke, then there was a pause while the audience vetted the joke for its political content, possible sexism, any hints of neo-colonialism, adherence to the theory of dialectical and historical materialism, and only once it was cleared would they laugh – it was like doing your material over a faulty phone line.

I went up to Sheffield to appear in a show at the Crucible Theatre in support of Nicaragua’s revolutionary, anti-American, pro-moustache Sandinista government. Following the show the cast and their friends were introduced to the guest of honour – David Blunkett the radical left-wing leader of Sheffield City Council. After the line-up Linda said, ‘I don’t like that man, there’s something funny about his eyes.'

Scully and Mooey by Alan Bleasdale (Corgi Books 1984)

 

'A little blasphemy won't send you packin' t'Hell, Mrs Scully.'

"If it does, there's a lot of people who've done us down I'd like t'meet there. We were brought up in the Depression, me an' his dad, an' then through the blitz an' bloody ration books, an' that joker with his 'y've never had it so good'; aye f'them what's always had it. An' then a few good years just t'trick yer into thinkin' things're goin' t'work out alright, before the world turns around an' hits y'kids in the face. It's never them at the top what suffer though, it's us down here what have t'go through it, as far as I can see. An' whatever the politicians say, it's always goin' t'be the same. It all comes back t'those that can least afford it.'

Scully by Alan Bleasdale (Arrow Books 1984)

 

'Yes Mam, alright Mam. I'll go an' tell her now,' he said and got his jacket on and went out.

As soon as he’d gone, I whipped over and had a look at his letter to nobody that he thought he’d hidden in last week's TV Times. It was another in his series of ace letters to Tranmere Rovers. He’s written at least two more to them that I know of.

Dear Sir,

 I was on the King Blessed Vergeins Playing feelds Eastbank last Sunday watching the Football Match Between Astley United And Garston Bakereries in Div. 9 of the Liverpool F.A. Sunday leeges and my Atension was atracted by the centre forward for Astley United. Sir. I tell no lie when I say that in all my many years Watching and referring football off all clases, I have not often enough seen Talint like what this PlaYEr has got. He his scilful, too footed and a gooD header off the ball. He is strong in the takle a gooD dribler and not a CowErd. I found out that is name is Antony James Patrick Scully and that he his twenty years old next birthday and that he lives in 47 Sankey Road, Eastbank, It wooD be a crying shamE if some BIG CLub did not spot him BEFOUR IT HIS TO LATE.

p.s. I am noT Related to this BOy at ALL.

Yours truly.

An Old Age Pensionor.

You might find it funny but after you’ve read as many as I have, it gets a bit boring. I got me felt tip pen out and wrote, IVOR BOLLOCKOFF above where he’d put ‘Old Age Pensionor', and folded the letter up and stuck it back in the envelope.

Scully (1984)

 

Just a gentle reminder . . .

The original and the best. 

Five trophies played for . . . five trophies won. 

Man Who? Liverwhat?

The 51st State (2001)

 

Iconic

Back (Left to right.)
Emlyn Hughes, Tommy Smith, Ian Callaghan, Terry McDermott, Phil Thompson.

Front and Centre.
Bob Paisley.

Loose Connections by Maggie Brooks (Abacus 1984)

Harry was twenty minutes early. He located the ICA in an unlikely spot amongst some blind government buildings in the Mall. It was a white, low-lying block, like a slab of impenetrable wedding cake. He walked up and down in front of it a few times, uneasy and uncomfortable in the borrowed suit. The shadows were black and geometric in the overhead sun. He fancied the building had an Egyptian flavour to it. A parched palm tree would have looked at home.

His spirits soared momentarily. Perhaps next week he’d be in a foreign country under a foreign sun. The suit was lightweight seersucker, white with blue stripes. This morning it had seemed just the thing - rather casual and devil-may-care, a suit for someone used to travelling, crisp and cool and effortlessly elegant. Now he was not so sure. The sweat was trickling down his back and running a stream into the bunched fabric of the outsize waistband and he was increasingly aware of the way the trousers ballooned out at the knees and ended up lapping unwanted over his glistening brogues. An image of Andy Pandy in a white and blue one-piece kept humping into his mind unasked and he scowled as he felt his confidence ebbing. He swerved into the doorway before he could think better of it and lurched into the bookshop with a purposeful air. The assistants had the air of people who’d agreed to lower themselves to the task as a short-term favour and who found each contact with a customer unspeakably droll. They sparred roguishly with one another, letting out occasional hoots whilst keeping a weather eye on Harry’s spade fingers as he leafed through creamy pages of text looking for pictures. Harry turned on his heels and made for the gents, his confidence ebbing to rock bottom.

George Orwell was right, he told himself bitterly as he quarrelled with the towel roller, it’s something you give off in your pores and people have an infallible nose for it. He jutted his jaw at himself in the mirror. I may not have class, he told himself defiantly, but what I do have is boyish charm. At thirty-three this was a rare and useful tool to have in the kit. It had always served him well before and in this instance it was his only card. He had never been so determined about anything. He was going to Munich.

The Red Machine: Liverpool in the '80s: The Players' Stories by Simon Hughes (Mainstream Publishing 2013)

On one occasion, Bates’s ego got the better of him. In the tunnel at Stamford Bridge ahead of a match and with a loose ball at his feet, he asked former Liverpool left-back Joey Jones to tackle him. So Jones did, leaving Bates in a heap.

‘Joey was a tough lad,’ Spackman says. ‘He and Mickey Thomas were nutters. They drove down to London every other day for training from their home in North Wales. Every Monday morning, John Neal would come into the dressing-room and say, “Sorry, lads, training’s been put back an hour – Mickey and Joey are stuck on the motorway.”

‘Because Ken Bates wouldn’t pay for them to stay in a hotel, they’d sleep in the referee’s room at Stamford Bridge on a Friday night before a game. It was a big room with a TV and a sofa, but not the ideal place to sleep if you’re a footballer preparing for kick-off. They’d walk up the King’s Road on a Saturday morning for a fry-up then go back to the ground and wait for everybody else to arrive. It was a ridiculous arrangement.’

Stamford Bridge was hardly a place you’d wish to watch a game of football, never mind spend the night.

‘It was big but a bit of a dump,’ Spackman continues. ‘There was one huge stand, but the rest of the ground seemed so far away from the pitch because of the greyhound track. You needed 25,000 in there to create any sort of atmosphere. The pitch was terrible, too. I was used to a nice bowling-green surface at Bournemouth, but at Chelsea – a club then in the Second Division – the pitch was a dustbowl. It made it difficult to play pretty football. Over the years, that’s probably why Liverpool found it difficult going there.

(From the chapter, 'SOUTHERNER, Nigel Spackman')

The dartboard of the sixth happiness.

Another 180. You beauty. Never gets old. Never stop posting them. Liverpool has nothing on me.

Knock off sheepskin jackets for goalposts

Brilliant pic from the '70s. Sadly, I will still dressing like this in 1981. I didn't stand a chance.

#ChildhoodTraumas

Boys’ pen, Anfield. Photo by Pete Marlowe

'89 (2017)

Kenny (2017)

Men in White Suits: Liverpool FC in the 1990s - The Players' Stories by Simon Hughes (Bantam Press 2015)

Mangotsfield United saw enough in Tanner to ask him to training, where he first met the late Ralph Miller, a legendary non-league manager, who was a builder by trade.

‘I enjoyed playing under Ralph more than Bobby Gould, Gerry Francis, Kenny Dalglish or Graeme Souness,’ Tanner beams. ‘He loved players that got stuck in, and I was one of them. He was an old-school psychologist, a bit like Bill Shankly, I suppose. The funny stories are endless.’

Tanner recalls one.

‘There was a player that he desperately wanted to sign for Mangotsfield. Problem was, the fella lived in South Wales. So he drove over the bridge in his van with a bicycle in the back. He pleaded with the fella at his front door. “Look, I’ve cycled all the  way over here from Bristol to sign you.” The lad looked at his bike. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You must really want me.” So he signed the forms there and then. Ralph rode around the corner and chucked his bike in the back of the van before driving home.

‘When I was about eighteen, we decided to go on our first lads’ holiday to Magaluf. To prepare for the holiday I decided to get myself fit, so I went out running every day – did sit-ups, press-ups, the lot. It was the fittest I’ve ever been. After our first pre-season session back at Mangotsfield, I got out of the shower looking all bronzed. “Fuck me,” Ralph went. “You’ve got a body like Tarzan and a prick like Jane!”’

In the mid-eighties, Bristol Rovers were, as Tanner puts it, ‘in financial shit’ and needing players that would play for practically nothing, so manager Bobby Gould scoured the Gloucestershire and Somerset county leagues for undiscovered talent.

‘Rovers signed Gary Penrice, Phil Purnell, Gary Smart and myself from Mangotsfield, all for the princely sum of two floodlight bulbs. I can still remember Ralph turning up at Eastville Stadium while all of us were playing in a reserve game, shouting at the top of his voice, “Where’s my money, Gouldy?” That was Ralph all over. In later years he came to Anfield to watch me play and said how proud he was of me, which touched me, coming from such a hard man.'

Various ‎– Letter To Brezhnev (From The Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1985)

Imposs-005

Red or Dead by David Peace (Faber and Faber 2013)

After their late lunch, in the late afternoon. The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club were sitting in the boardroom at Elland Road, Leeds. The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club heard the footsteps in the corridor outside. The fast steps, the heavy steps. The knocks upon the door. Fast and heavy.

The chairman of Leeds United said, Come!

Bill Shankly opened the door. Bill Shankly stepped into the boardroom at Elland Road. Bill Shankly looked around the board room. From director to director. And Bill Shankly smiled –

My name is Bill Shankly. I am the manager of Liverpool Football Club. And I’m here to buy Jack Charlton.

The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club stared down the long table at Bill Shankly. And then their chairman asked, And how much would you be willing to pay for Charlton?

Fifteen thousand pounds, said Bill Shankly.

The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club shook their heads. And their chairman said, Charlton will cost you twenty thousand, Shankly. Twenty thousand pounds. And not a penny less.

How about eighteen thousand pounds, said Bill Shankly.

Twenty thousand pounds, Shankly.

Fine, said Bill Shankly. Twenty thousand pounds it is then. But I’ll need to make a telephone call.

The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club smiled. And their chairman said, Then make your call, Shankly.

After his early dinner, in the early evening. Tom Williams picked up the telephone in his hallway. And Tom Williams said, Yes?

Mr Williams? This is Bill Shankly.

Tom Williams said, Good evening, Mr Shankly. What can I –

I’m at Elland Road. At Leeds. And I have fantastic news. Unbelievable news! Leeds United will sell Jack Charlton to us. They will sell him. It’s unbelievable. It’s fantastic news!

Tom Williams said, I’m very glad to hear that, Mr Shankly. And so how much are they asking for Charlton?

Twenty thousand pounds. Just twenty thousand pounds, sir.

Tom Williams sighed. And Tom Williams said, But we sanctioned eighteen thousand pounds, Mr Shankly.

I know that. I know that, sir. But for two thousand pounds more, just two thousand pounds more, they will sell him. And then Jack Charlton will be a Liverpool player.

Tom Williams sighed again. And Tom Williams said, Mr Shankly, as you know, I have spoken with the other directors and I am afraid we can go no higher than eighteen thousand pounds. That is our final offer. Eighteen thousand pounds.

But I know they will not sell him for eighteen thousand pounds, Mr Williams. They are asking for twenty thousand pounds. Just another two thousand, Mr Williams …

Tom Williams said, But our offer is eighteen thousand pounds.

Mr Williams, I have watched Jack Charlton since he was in his teens. I have watched him many times. He plays with authority. He plays with courage. He will be the very backbone of Liverpool Football Club. The very backbone, Mr Williams. And all they want is another two grand. Another two grand and he’ll be ours. Ours …

Tom Williams said, I am sorry, Mr Shankly. It’s eighteen thousand pounds. That is our final offer. Goodbye, Mr Shankly.

After their brandies, with their cigars. The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club were sitting in the dining room at Elland Road. The directors of Leeds United Association Football Club heard the knock upon the door. Not so fast and not so heavy.

The chairman of Leeds United said, Come!

Bill Shankly opened the door. Bill Shankly stepped into the dining room. Bill Shankly looked around the table. From director to director. And Bill Shankly waited.

The chairman of Leeds United said, Well then, Shankly? What do you have to say for yourself?

Our offer is eighteen thousand pounds, said Bill Shankly.

Close the door on your way out, Shankly.

Scully and Mooey by Alan Bleasdale (Corgi Books 1984)

I had to put Hovis to bed in the end. There was no one else to do it. Our Arthur was at the Cubs, Gran had a promise, Henry was in the cockloft playing with his train set, my Mam was painting her face and my dad had slipped down the Boundary for half a dozen quick ones before they went out. I wouldn’t mind if they were going to Alcoholics Anonymous or something, but they were only going down town on the ale.

After I’d told Hovis ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and threatened him a couple of times, he seemed to go asleep and I came downstairs. My Mam had followed after my dad, but she’d left thirty pence on the mantelpiece for me. That wouldn’t get much these days, no more than a bag of chips, but it’d still be twenty pence more than the rest of the gang’d have when I saw them, now that their old fellers were on the Social Security. At least mine had still kept his job painting and decorating on the Corporation.

Longest my dad has ever kept in work by all accounts, but he had to after what happened last year when my Mam threw him out and almost got a fancy feller for herself. He’s only back on probation now and there’s no sign of that ending. My Mam makes sure of that. One word out of place and she’s asking him if his bags are packed. She’s alright though, my Mam. She’s dead fair, she’s got no favourites — she’s rotten to the lot of us.

Things are a lot better than they were though. I think our Vera and Tony leaving home made the difference. I was glad to see the back of both of them.

Scully by Alan Bleasdale (Arrow Books 1984)

'I wrote SCULLY on the bus shelter as we walked back past the prefabs. I put SCULLY where I can. It's everywhere on our estate. It's me name, see? Coppers see us writing on the walls sometimes. And usually they don't bother. They're just like us, you know - they don't care neither. Most times they just shout at us, or get in their car and pretend to phone for reinforcements or the Marines or something.'

Stalin Ate My Homework by Alexei Sayle (Sceptre 2010)

It was only slowly that I became aware of the power of swear words. It was a gradual thing, a creeping realisation that blossomed into full comprehension round about my second or third year at grammar school. I heard bigger boys or ones from rough homes using these special, explosive, forbidden expressions, and once the realisation of their power dawned I knew that swearing was a thing I wanted to be intimately involved in.

Once I had got the most powerful obscenities straight in my head I came home from school determined to try out their effect on my mother. Full of excitement, I sat at the dining table in the living room. Molly put my evening meal in front of me, but instead of eating it I said, ‘I … I … I don’t want that. It’s … it’s … it’s fucking shit!’ Then I sat back, waiting to hear what kind of explosion it would prompt. After all, I conjectured, if the bathroom sponge going missing for a few seconds could prompt a screaming fit from my mother, a paroxysm of grief that might involve weeping and howling and crying out to the gods of justice, then me saying ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ was bound to provoke a tremendous reaction that would be heard at the back of the Spion Kop.

For a short while nothing happened as Molly considered what I had said in a calm and reflective manner. Then finally she said, ‘I don’t care if you eat it or not … but it’s not fucking shit and if you don’t fucking eat it I’m not going to fucking make you anything fucking else so you can fucking go and get your own fucking food in some other shit-fucking place you fucking little bastard shit fuck.’

After that day Molly rarely spoke a sentence without an obscenity in it, and I was often too embarrassed to bring school friends home because I was worried about them being offended by my mother’s foul language. 

(page 110)

And once they had finished buying old overcoats and worn out socks the Lascars could come to our stall and purchase copies of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?, Karl Marx’s Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy or Stalin’s History of the CPSU.

The stall itself had been made from an oak door that somebody had salvaged from a building site and was incredibly heavy — it took four of us to carry it the half-mile from the Simon Community hostel where it was stored. We didn’t know anybody who had a car. However, once we had put it up, Liverpool being the sort of place it was the stall did a reasonable amount of trade — better than some of the others that only seemed to sell twisted wire, broken fish tanks and rusted-up fuel pumps. There would always be some little old bloke in a flat cap coming up to us and saying, ‘Ere, son, do you have Friedrich Engels’ The Holy Family, the critique of the Young Hegelians he wrote with Marx in Paris in November 1844?’

‘No, but we do have Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.’

‘Naww, I’ve already got that.’

‘Make a lovely Christmas present for a family member.’

‘Eh, I suppose you’re right there. Give us two copies then, son.’ 

(page 156)

'Britain observed. The voices of the kids of Toxteth' (New Society 26 November 1981)

Another article from the Ian Walker archive. Written in the aftermath of the Toxteth Riots, this 1981 article was originally published in the November 26th issue of New Society.

'Britain observed. The voices of the kids of Toxteth' by Ian Walker

Mothers picked up pieces of tinsel and inspected the toy machine guns on the makeshift stalls set up by some waste ground. The market was opened six weeks ago, by shopkeepers who got burned out in the riots Tony said, hurrying on by.

Polythene around the stalls flapped in the wind. It was coming on to rain. Tony pushed open the door of Mac's cafe.

A sign on the fake-wood wallpaper told customers to use the ashtrays and not the floor. Sitting on red plastic chairs, two old men were talking about the second world war. The other customers, all teenagers, white and black, were clustered round the three electronic game machines. It was dinner time.

Pale and thin and dark-haired, Tony looked younger than his 17 years as he stood before the Galactica machine, trying to beat his top score of 25,000. He is a Liverpool white Catholic. About £3 of his weekly £15 social security goes on the machines, he said. Out of work since he left school a year ago, Tony is hoping his father will be able to get him in at Ford's Halewood plant when he is 18.

Like his parents and grandparents before him, Tony was born and raised in Toxteth, and he said he hadn't been to many other places. Went to Southport once on his bike. Drove with his uncle to Manchester airport a couple of times to meet his parents coming back from holiday in Spain. Tony lives just over the road from the cafe, in a yellow-brick terrace on Whittier Street.

The best thing about the riots, he said, was all the publicity. When Heseltine and Foot did their walkabouts, Tony joined the entourage. "The cameras were more importnat to us, BBC like," he said. "Had to get on TV."

The schoolchildren who'd spent their dinner hour at Mac's had all left, and Tony said he was going too, home to play some singles on his parent's stereo.

Over the road in the Albany pub, at 2.30, one of the six white men at the bar pulled out a porno photomontage of Lady Di for the landlady to recoil in mock horror. A white woman called Anne sat alone in the corner reading the Liverpool Post. She was working as a hotel chambermaid, but it was only on a government job-experience scheme, she said. She works the same hours as other girls, but only gets £23.50 a week.

The story on page three of the Post was about the trial of Leroy Cooper, whose arrest on 3 July helped spark off the rioting which began two days later. Cooper, who pleaded guilty to assaulting three policemen, stood in the dock holding a copy of Lord of the Rings, wrote the Post's reporter. The judge trusted that Cooper, who had four o levels, would be able to continue his studies at borstal.

Anne walked up Smithdown Road, and disappeared into the Quik Save Discount Food Store. Behind the shop, across a triangle of waste ground, a tramp stood outside the public library. Next door is the bingo hall and beyond that, on Upper Parliament Street, a church which is now a second-hand furniture warehouse.

Half a mile away, on the other side of Parliament Street, four black girls stood around in a small shopping precinct on St Saviour's Square, part of a new red brick estate. WELCOME TO HELL, PIGS, it sais on the wall opposite the supermarket.

It was just round the corner from here, by some bollards, that a young white was killed in one of the riots. His name and date of death are written in big white capitals on the red brick: DAVID MOORE, 28.8.81.

The four girls said they often meet up outside the shops at around four, before going home for their tea. Fingering her hair, which takes two hours every night to plait and bead, Joanne said that she loves Toxteth, even though it does get a drag being on the dole.

Her friend, Lita, who is the same age, 16, but still at school, nodded agreement. "Lots of action. Good atmosphere," she said, pointing to some fading yellow graffitti next to the tobacconist's, ten yards away. RIOTS ARE GREAT, it said.

"People think it's a bad area, but it's not," Lita said. "More safe here than anywhere. You feel protected. It's worse in town." She turned to watch two policemen walking slowly towards her, and all conversation stopped as they passed. When they were out of earshot, Joanne, clucking her tongue in annoyance, said how terrible it was Leroy Cooper getting sent away to borstal. "He was only trying to stop his relation getting arrested."

Beverley, at 18 the eldest of the group, just shrugged, stuck out her lower lip. What do you expect? her eyes seemed to ask. "Babylons," muttered Joanne, staring down at her red shoes, and then saying it was about time she went home. She lives in Entwhistle Heights, the tower block which dominates the neighbourhood. She had a great view of the rioting from up there, she said. "Used to watch every night before going to bed."

Before dispersing, the girls arranged to meet later at "the Meth," the Methodist youth club they go to most nights, but always for the disco on Thursdays, and dread night on Fridays.

Billboards for Carlsberg, the Daily Telegraph, Vladivar vodka, the Triumph Acclaim and Guinness were all lit up in the dark, ranged in a great five-sided curve at the junction of Parliament Street and Lodge Lane. "Used to be a Quiki [Quik Save store] on the Lane and everything. Used to be packed, but it all got burned down," said Donna, one of six young white girls sitting in a small room in the Solway Street youth club, just off the Lane.


'It was a good laugh'
Donna, who is 14 and black-haired, introduced herself as the only Catholic in the group. She wants to be an actress some day, and has already had a bit part in an opera at the Neptune Theatre in town.

Her father, she said, was waiting for his union card so he could start work as a lagger. Her mother is a barmaid. They were both out of the house the night the riots started: so Donna went away to stay with some friends. "It was a good laugh."

One of the girls, Elaine, said that her family had had enough, and were moving out into the suburbs. "Oh, I love Toxteth," said Donna. "I'd hate to go," She started telling everyone about the conversation she had with Prince Charles when he came on a visit, but the anecdote was interrupted by a girl called Tracey who flung open the door and made a short announcement:

"I'm 16 today. I live on Ashbridge Street and I wasn't in the riots. I want to be a dentist. I got in the semi-finals at the disco dancing at Butlin's, Pwllheli. It was my 21st time at Butlin's," she said, taking her seat to polite applause.
The girls usually have disco dancing lessons on Tuesdays but tonight the instructor's on the sick. Bad back, apparently. A bottle smashed on the street outside. Elaine got up to look out of the window, but the others just carried on talking.

Over the road at the Unity boys' club, Sean, another Liverpool white Catholic, had just pocketed the black to win his game of pool. "About 25 per cent of the police are all right," he said, leaning on a cue. "The rest are just shit." He is due to appear in court as a witness on 2 December, to help a friend of his charged with stealing a car. Sean doubts he'll able to do much good, even though he says he was with the friend talking to some girls when the offence was supposed to have been committed. Magistrates always believed the police, he said.

Hearing Sean's story, three small white boys started chanting, "We rob cars. Beat up the bobbies. Kick up the pigs." Garfield and Tony, both older, and the only blacks in the room, told them to shut up. "These little kids," said Garfield. "They still have their little riots down by Falkner Square every week. Stupid."

Garfield and Tony sat down on a window ledge. Through the glass behind them, young men in the gym were running, bending, turning, sweating. The two young blacks, who both went to David Moore's funeral, said that the riots started because everyone had had enough of the police, moving them on, picking them up on sus, calling them niggers.

I asked them what had happened since the riots. "Nuttin' at all," said Tony. "Well," said Garfield. "They are trying to do some things for the young, but not for the adults. We're getting a sports centre. The other day we had to write down what we wanted, din't we? A pool table, and all that."
Unimpressed, Tony moved to his next theme, the bias of the media. "On the television it was the rioters throwing bricks and bottles and that. Didn't have the baton charges, or the police beating people up. And the papers never even put down why the riots eventually stopped, which was when the guy in charge of the police came out and had a discussion with some of the leaders. The riots stopped after that discussion. That was it."

Outside, at nine o'clock, two little boys were throwing bottles at a wall. A five-a-side football match was in progress on the Unity club's floodlight pitch. Flyposted all along Lodge Lane was a black-and-white sheet which said: "I'm angry! I am in a box and I cannot get out."

Next afternoon at Mac's cafe, an 18 year old white boy called Kenny sat looking out of the window. He'd just come back from an interview at the local post office. He's hoping to get some work there over Christmas. They said they'd give him a ring. His friend, Arna, also on the dole, also white, walked in and sat down beside him.

Arna said he never really went to any schools, just homes. The last one, Dyson Hall, he got sent to for glue-sniffing. The police caught him in the park. "Wasn't too bad there," he said. "All right. Something to do. Makes a change." The phrases are ejected like a fruit machine paying out.

The eldest one of the gang, Peo, aged 19, finished playing the Galactica, and strolled to the table with his mug of tea. Peo, who's white, has done time in borstal. He was put away for stabbing someone outside a disco. "Did twelve months and two weeks altogether. Missed Crimbo [scouse for Christmas] and the New Year. Bastards."

Heads turned to greet Yozzer, who said he'd just got the hat and rack, meaning sack, and now, like the rest of this cafe society, was signing on. His father was an Arab, although which kind, Yozzerisn't sure. "I'd like to go into office work, myself, Computers or something, but there's no chance," he said.

"Nuttin's been done here for years", sighed Arna. "Only the Barratt's estate [a private development]. They knocked all these streets down because they said they were going to build a ring road. Next thing, they're not going to build a road, and all the fucking houses are knocked down."

"Want to have a riot to get things done," said Yozzer. "Look at all these playgrounds being built." Arna and Peo said they'd believe it when they saw it.

"Since the riots I haven't been stopped by the busies as much. That's one good thing," said Yozzer, looking on the bright side. "Used to get stopped at least once a week."

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly away in conversation about the kind of drugs they'd managed to get hold of recently, about the gang of bicycle thieves that Peo used to run, about the latest misdeeds of "the busies," the police, and about who had got what chrome, brass and copper plating on their scooters. All against the distorted background of the Radio One playlist, and the manic music of the electronic machines.

A news item about Reagan prompts Arna to say he was into CND. "I'd like to join it. But I can't be bothered. Haven't got the money to go up and down the fucking country. But I know what I know, know what they're talking about."

"The government'll be safe. Those who push the button, they're okay,' said Yozzer.

It is just assumed round here that politicians are liars, policemen are bent, school is a con, and the same goes for government training schemes. Adverts are deceitful, newspapers are much the same.

It was getting dark, and the boys drifted home. Yozzer, Kenny and Arna to their families. Peo to his second floor flat above a tobacconist's over the road. On Wednesday night, Lady Diana flipped the switch on the London lights, England qualified for the World Cup, and David Steel in a Liberal party political broadcast said that class was outmoded. Men got drunk, and sang hymns to their team on the way home.

Early on Thursday evening I called round at Peo's flat. There's no doorbell. You have to cup the hands and bellow up from the street. The top-floor window opened and Peo's flatmate, Paul, poked his head out. The living room upstairs was bare except for a bed, a wardrobe and a small music centre, which played Police and thieves. the reggae single by Junior Marvin.

Paul, who works as a printer, pulled a pile of riot memorabilia from the wardrobe: some cuttings from the Liverpool Echo, and two posters, one calling for the resignation of Kenneth Oxford, chief of police in Merseyside, and another which said, "Black and white, unite and fight>" Paul is white.

"Great that. Sound," he said, sticking them on the wall with Sellotape. "People think the trouble in Toxteth was heaviness between whites and coloureds. It was nuttin' like that at all. I was standing on the street one of the nights, and there was all this tear gas everywhere. Someone grabbed me on the shoulder. I thought, 'Oh, fuck, I've been nicked.' But it was this black guy handing me a rag. All dead sound."

The reason for the rioting, Paul insisted, was the Liverpool busies, that's all. "There is no such thing as getting arrested round here without getting hit. No such thing," he emphasised, his finger beating out the time. "They're worse than us, you know."

He asked if I remembered that story about the masked raiders going round on bikes, organising the rioters. He said that those raiders were him and his friends, driving round seeing what was going on. "If anyone organised it, it was the black guys and we backed 'em up. I was nuttin' to do with looting. We said, 'Don't loot, don't loot. Just fight with the coppers, brick 'em and that'," he said, getting up to put on another single, Bank robber, by the Clash.

Peo came out of the bathroom, which he'd spent all day decorating. He combed his hair, while Paul said that when the Welsh police were drafted in during the rioting: everything was cool. "Straight up, they used to give us ciggies. Dead good."

Down at the Methodist youth club disco, Joanne and Lita stood up in the TV room, looking down through the glass into the dark of the disco floor, which was illuminated only by the neon around the record decks. Posters stuck near the bar, which sold soft drinks and sweets, carried tough messages. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," said one.

Garfield and Tony were downstairs, playing pool. One of the very few white boys in the club said his father was black, and that as far as he was concerned that made him black too.

And at the Brooke Farm pub, Paul addressed his fourth pint of brown and mild, Peo his fourth of snakebite, which is lager and cider. Pulling a fiver from his pocket, Paul said he'd be broke by the morning. They spent Peo's last giro in two days. It was supposed to last a fortnight.

The boys around the brown-baize pool table, Paul whispered, were all in a gang called the Lawrence Road Lunatics. "They don't give a fuck," he said. "They just rob and rob, get put away, rob again. It's like that. They've no chance ever of getting a job. I'd be like that too, if I lost my job. I wouldn't go on the dole."

Paul waved his hand at a bearded old man, called Frank, carrying an Athena poster of Marx, and drained his glass. "Don't you go away telling everyone how black life is round here," Paul said to me. "Tell them it's . . . bright yellow."

He held his hands up in the air.

26 November 1981