Category Archives: Travel
The National Theatre Museum Has Closed
The National Museum of the Performing Arts closed ‘for good’ yesterday. This is a disaster for London (where it has had its home, in Covent Garden) and for the whole of the U.K. If the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum – in whose ‘care’ the Theatre Museum resides – cannot maintain the collection as an entity, perhaps the Theatre Museum should pass to those who can do better? The Chair of the V & A has close Merseyside connections; why not re-open the Theatre Museum in Liverpool?
No-one believed it could happen, but the announcement has been made – the National Museum of the Performing Arts in Covent Garden, London, closed yesterday (Sunday 7 January 2007) because the Trustees decided they couldn’t commit further resources to the venue. This is despite the description of the Museum by its own Trustees, the Victoria and Albert Museum Board, as a ‘world-class collection’.
The protests of people as diverse as Alan Ackbourne, Judi Dench (Guardians of the Theatre Museum) and Ken Livingstone have, it seems, had no effect. Somehow,
the performing arts are not compelling to the Museum Trustees. Apparently there is to be a website and some collections are to be shown at the V & A in Kensington in 2009, but basically that’s it. Just at the time when London is preparing to host the 2012 Olympics, and when Covent Garden can never have been a more popular visitor attraction, the doors have closed. Firmly.
Nonetheless, after the experience we as CAMPAM had in the late 1980s / 1990s of ‘resurrecting’ the Liverpool Everyman – which actually went dark – and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (which just about clung on) I don’t think anyone should give up all hope yet.
So come to Liverpool
I have already suggested that, if Londoners really don’t want their Theatre Museum, it should come to Liverpool. Here, up
North, we’re preparing for an event even more imminent than the Olympics. 2007 is Liverpool’s 800th Anniversary, and 2008, as everyone knows, will be our year as European Capital of Culture. The arguments for Liverpool taking this venture on have already been rehearsed; and I have been assured (though I await the evidence) that the City Council is considering things, as, one gathers from recent Minutes of the V & A Board, are the NWDA and Blackpool Council.
In the meantime, though, there is one other interesting aspect of this strange situation: The Chair of the V & A is Paula Ridley, a person with strong connections on Merseyside. It would be fascinating to know her view of the proposition that the Theatre Museum come to Liverpool.
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Today is the Winter Solistice – the shortest day of the year, if by ‘day’ we mean daylight hours. Yet, in this so-far extraordinarily warm Winter, even at this point in the annual cycle of birth and rebirth there is much to see when we venture out into the great urban spaces such as Liverpool’s Sefton Park.
This is the Winter Solstice, a time when little is expected of an urban park, a time of anticipated bleakness and dank dark days. Yet in this month of nothingness Liverpool’s Sefton Park, just a mile or two from the city centre, has life in abundance. The small creatures of the secret places continue to roam their tracks, there are birds both of the water and of the air, and humans too, of every sort, take their ease with their companions, their children, their partners and their four legged friends.
A park for all
Here are young and older couples, parents and children, kids looking for a bit of fun by the lake, people exercising seriously and people intent on doing nothing. The short day offers no excuse for staying indoors, whether there be sunshine or showers. The opportunity to take the air remains, for so far this Winter there have not been many really wild or soakingly wet days when the only place to be is home. Even in this, the solstice week, walking in the park is what the people of Liverpool have been doing.
Mists and mellowness, not biting winds
This is still, in Winter 2006, the season of mists and shadowy silhouettes against the sky. It is not as yet the season of ice and snow, though doubtless this will prevail as the year turns on the coming Spring equinox, for a short while
covering everything in a shining blanket of white.
But for now the mildness of Autumn stays with us whilst the temperament of Winter fails to claim the expectations of the park. The days are short but the fierceness of wind and sleet which usually accompanies this brevity of light has not on the whole been forthcoming. We continue, urban ramblers at our leisure, unchallenged by the elements in the brief hours of light and even sunshine which this strange solstice is affording.
The sun, golden
Yes, we have seen rain – and on a few days much rain, though not bitingly cold and cutting – but we see also setting suns against the faded former glories of the bandstand, we watch that same sunset against the snowy-looking clouds behind the trees, and we gaze until it disappears at the liquid gold of the lake, reflecting the sky which illuminates all below it.
Waiting for Winter
This is a time of waiting. The solstice will very soon be forgotten as Christmas takes a hold on the park, the city and, it seems to us from where we stand, the entire world. Perhaps this year the many strollers who occupy Sefton Park on Christmas Day and Boxing Day will be sporting not their usual new, thick Winter 
scarves and woolly hats, but the lighter attire of Autumn and Spring. This year we may, it seems, be spared the cruel inclemencies of deep Winter, thereby
Liverpool Hope Street Farmers’ Market Gets Going
The regular calendar of Farmers’ Markets in Hope Street has at last begun. From now on the third Sunday every month is scheduled as Market Day for Hope Street Quarter. Farmers’ Markets are something different to look forward to: a great day out for adults and children alike, with fun opportunities to learn where our food comes from and who grows it.
After a false start in October, yesterday was the long-awaited commencement of the regular calendar [see schedule at the end of this article] of Hope Street Farmers’ Markets. At last, with luck, we have lift-off, and not a moment too soon.
And we were incredibly lucky with the weather, brilliant sunshine for the duration, not even really cold. The atmosphere of the event was cheerful and relaxed, just the right ambiance for a happy family Sunday outing – though I have to say I was surprised just how few children were actually around….
It’s really good to see the grown-ups enjoying themselves in such a time-honoured and positive way, but are we missing a bit of a trick here if we don’t bring the kids? Perhaps someone will begin now to think how this could be an occasion for them as well. It’s not often the opportunity arises naturally in the city centre for youngsters to meet people who have themselves grown the food and prepared the produce displayed before us.
Varied and fresh
Having said that, here was produce for everyone. Vegetable and fruit – including a variety of cauliflower (romanesca, a brassica with stunning tiny, spiral green florets) that I’d never seen before – plus cheeses, food of all sorts to eat right now, and much else, including candles and preserves for the coming festive season. Judging from the public response, everyone loves this sort of browsing and shopping.
One of the many attractions of farmers’ markets is that much of this produce had been grown or made by the actual people who were selling it – not a connection which is often so direct these days, when much of what we buy comes shrink-wrapped and complete with a fair number of attached food miles.
This was an opportunity for locally-based people to purvey their wares; hand-made goods and food which may well still have been in the field a few hours before.
Trading busily
The people running the stalls were pleased to be there, trade was brisk. I suspect that over time the current size of the market will grow considerably, if the regulations allow – already it stretches all the way along the Hope Street wall of Blackburne House.
We know of course that, locals though some of the growers and sellers may be, Geraud Markets, the organisation behind the venture, is big business; but someone has to organise all the detailed arrangements which these events entail. It seems Geraud now have a contract with Liverpool Council to do just that on several sites around the city.
Knowing more and feeling good
That however is only part of the story. This is the sort of enjoyable meeting-friends event that offers, especially, young people in the city a chance to see that fruit and vegetables don’t of necessity arrive covered in plastic.
It gives us a feel, too, for seasonal food. It reminds us, walking out in the open air as we make our purchases, that there is a cycle to things; we can eat for a whole year without bringing produce from across the world, should we decide to do avoid doing so. We can be ‘eco-‘, and enjoy, at the same time.
The market reminds us about nutritional quality – seeing produce presented so directly perhaps also helps us to think more carefully about what we are actually eating. Of course, food sold in supermarkets can also be fresh and nutritious – canned can be as good as ‘fresh’ – but the connection with its production is less overt.
Encouraging a healthy life-style
By a strange co-incidence, just today there have been articles in the local Daily Post about vegetables and health -the local Primary Care Trust has a Taste for Health campaign -and The Guardian, which offers thoughts by Zoe Williams on <a href="‘Vegetables and how to survive them’).
Liverpool people have the worst health in England and we owe it to our children to make sure their diet is as good as it can possibly be, encouraging them to understand the connection between what they eat and where it comes from. How better could we do it than by bringing them to a farmers’ market where they can see for themselves what it’s all about?
Liverpool City Council have contracted with Geraud to provide farmers’ markets. Perhaps they can now follow the example of the authorities in continental Europe (where Geraud began) such as Valencia and Aix-en-Provence, where, as I have seen for myself, the local markets make children really welcome?
It would do us all good, in every sense of the word.
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Calendar of Geraud Farmers’ Markets in Liverpool [subject to change, please contact to check as below]:
Monument Place Farmers’ Market (Lord Street) ~ Every 1st & 3rd Saturday of the month
Lark Lane Farmers’ Market ~ Every 4th Saturday of the month
Hope Street Farmers’ Market (Blackburne House end) ~ Every 3rd Sunday of the month
Other Geraud Markets in Liverpool:
Broadway (Indoor) Monday ~ Saturday
Garston ~ Friday
Great Homer Street ~ Saturday
Monument Place ~ Thursday, Friday & Saturday
Speke ~ Thursday
St Johns’ (Indoor) Monday ~ Saturday
Tuebrook ~ Thursday & Saturday
Toxteth ~ Tuesday
For more information contact: 0151 233 2165 / info@geraudmarkets.co.uk
The Garston Christmas Camel
Garston is rather unfashionable part of Liverpool’s hinterland – which hasn’t stopped Alex Corina and others from campaigning for an arts village, complete with massive festive camel designed by local schoolchildren.
Impressions Of Prague
Prague is much more than a ‘great city’; it is testament to a people who have within easy living memory overcome enormous odds. When this is combined with the depth of history and the spectacular cultural vistas of the city, Prague becomes irresistible. Yet, to thrive in the twenty-first century Prague must also take in its stride challenges of a very contemporary kind – the influx of a myriad visitors and of modern investment capital. Perhaps lessons might be learnt from experience elsewhere.
I’ve been to Prague quite a few times in the past decade or so.
My first few visits were in the company of musicians in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, who have a very real relationship with that city – the Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate is Libor Pesek KBE, the feted international maestro who over the years has done such great things with his Liverpool colleagues. The RLPO, with Pesek, was the first-ever non-Czech orchestra to open the famous Prague Spring Festival.
And then, more recently, I have visited Prague on my own as part of my work with European Renaissance, which of course brought a whole new perspective to my experience. So I’ve now seen a little of Prague through the eyes both of artists and of business people. What good fortune.
So much to see and learn
This is a city I could never tire of. As I’ve learned to navigate Prague’s historic heart I’ve realised you could explore forever – always the mark of a great capital city. First, one finds the physical place, where things lie; and then the depth of history and culture starts slowly to unfold. Why is that statue there? Why did that building survive, but not the one next to it? What’s the story behind this type of trade or that kind of cultural offering?
There are things which will always stay in one’s mind: The enormity of Staromestske Nam, the beautiful cobbled old town square, which has seen such extrordinary events over the centruries. The dramatic beauty of adjoining Tynsky Chram, the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, backed by its intimate piazza cafes and boutiques. The fact that Vaclavske Namesti, Wencelas Square, scene of the Velvet Revolution, is in reality a central shopping boulevard with Narodni Muzeum, the striking National Museum, towering above that boulevard at its furthest point from the river.
Then there’s the majesty of Katedrala Sv. Vita, St. Vitus’ Cathedral, and the attached area of Prazsky Hrad, the Castle, approached from the old town via the Vltava River (Moldau) over Karlov Most, Charles Bridge. How could one not be
eternally taken with all this?
Living heritage
All these splendours unfold before you even get to the ancient Josafov (Jewish Quarter), huddled, heart-achingly small, down near the river and the Rudulfinum with its Dvorakova Sin, the Dvorak Concert Hall, home of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nor, on this ‘virtual tour’, have you yet seen the great triangular Obecni Dum (Municipal House, with its concert halls, including the Smetana Hall, home of the Prague Symphony Orchestra), at the other end of the historic quarter.
Nor indeed, until you have crossed back across Charles Bridge with its painters and jewellers, then travelling on high up to the Castle once more, have you viewed the contrast from the mighty symphonic halls which is found in the tiny, ancient, craft workshops of Zlata Ulicka (Golden Lane).
All these venues are alive with artists and artisans exercising their skills much as they might have done some centuries ago.
Big changes
Prague is nonetheless a modern city, changing all the time. It has lost its grey, concrete sadness, imposed for so long by the Soviet authorities, in favour of a cosmopolitan , almost festive, demeanour. Now the city centre is bedecked by art works of all sorts, some of them huge and eye-catching if not always demure.
Nothing illustrates these changes better than Duta Hlava, the Architects’ Club situated by Betlemska Kaple in Betlemska Nam (Bethlehem Chapel and Square) in the Stare Mesto, the Old Town. The first time I encountered this underground cafe-restaurant was a decade or more ago; the best way to descibe it then would have been ‘bohemian’.
When we last dined there, fairly recently, it could have been described, instead, as suffering from its own success: it was much smarter, heaving with well-heeled people (the students seemed to have migrated elsewehere) and the serving staff were stretched to the limit.
Commercial vs. nostalgia?
And much the same applies to the commecial and retail centre of Prague, based around Wenceslas Square. More cyncially savvy commentators may deplore the arrival in the Czech Republic of Marks and Spencer, Debenhams and Tesco, but these surely are seen by others as indicators of the business coming-of-age of this extraordinary country.
To compete and develop in the international market Prague needs these stores, as indeed they need Prague. There is no doubt that the citizens of Prague will need to keep their wits about them as they emerge even more into the gaze of international capital and all that comes with it. But the costs of not doing so, especially in a state where until so recently the autonomy of the market did not (officially) exist, would be unthinkable to most.
Here is a city on the move but with its heritage very largely still intact. Long may it stay so.
Challenges and opportunities
Much of what Prague offers is priceless. With care, even more of it could be. As in other cities – Liverpool in the U.K. amongst them – there are opportunities which as yet have not been fully grasped. These include a reliably consistent level of delivery, especially in some public services.
But Prague has the huge advantage of having seen how other European cities have dealt (or not) with such challenges. No two situations are identical, but there is enough commonality in the scenarios to learn the lessons, one city from another.
The uniqueness of Prague lies elsewhere, in the very heart of this capital city. That is what Prague must defend and develop for itself.
This article is also published (as ‘Prague: The Must-See Western European City’) on the European Renaissance website.
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Free Enterprise Moves East: Doing Business from Prague to Vladivostok
Liverpool 2007 And 2008 – Different Emphases, Similar Opportunities?
Liverpool is excitedly preparing for its big years in 2007 (the city’s 800th anniversary) and 2008 (the European Capital of Culture year). With such a long and dramatic history of diaspora, who knows what the city will be like by the end of the celebrations? The scope for enterprise – both in Liverpool and by other cities and regions – to build relationships across Europe and beyond is enormous.
BBC Radio 3 hosted a fascinating Free Thinking event in Liverpool’s FACT building last weekend, with presentations, discussions and performances by an impressively eclectic array of debaters and artists. And, perhaps appositely, the very next day the City launched its initial plans for the 2008 European Capital of Culture year.
One of the sessions at the BBC event focussed on the question, ‘Is Liverpool an English city?’. ‘Everyone in the country knows Liverpool is special – and unique,’ says the blurb, ‘but do they secretly mean it’s “unenglish”?’
Sadly, I couldn’t be at the debate, but it’s an interesting question – and one that, although I’ve lived in Liverpool for over three decades, I’d find difficult to answer. All of us have only one shot at life, so comparisons are difficult, but is it usual for people who have been resident in a place for over a third of a century still to be asked where they ‘come from’?
Ports are meeting places for the world
Working up the hill, away from the ports in the education and cultural sectors, it actually took me a while to realise that for some of my fellow citizens, Liverpool’s maritime history is the city’s autograph feature. Indeed, until the Heseltine interventions in the 1980s it was not even possible really to see much of that history. At least the reclamation of the southern docks for retail and leisure use (the Tate Gallery and Maritime Museum are situated there) helped us to see what an important port Liverpool was – and in fact still is, for freight rather than passengers.
So Liverpool is cosmopolitan in a particular way. In the mid-eighteenth century that one port was involved with 40% of the world’s trade. Liverpool is therefore home to many whose predecessors reached the city by sea, or who in some cases had intended to travel onwards, but halted when they got this far.
We have communities of several generations from the Caribbean and parts of Africa, from China (Liverpool’s China town is a large and important feature of the city) and the Indian sub-continent, who travelled from the West; and, from Eastern and Central Europe, reached us from the East. With these historic influxes has come of plethora of religious and cultural understandings – Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Orthodox and many others.
Ireland and Continental Western Europe
What is less evident in our overt cultural mix is the direct influence of Southern Europe – though it is certainly there, especially in the sometimes overarching ethos of Roman Catholicism and Southern Ireland (Eire). And then there is the strongly Protestant Orange Order influence of Northern Ireland (Ulster), whose descendants in Liverpool, like their southern counterparts, have traditionally lived siloed in tight-knit communities with little knowledge or tolerance of other ways of seeing the world.
As is well known, the clash of Southern and Northern Irish influences (Catholics ‘versus’ Protestants) was only be resolved when, in the 1980s and ‘90s, the leaders of Liverpool’s two great cathedrals (Bishop David Sheppard and Archbishop Derek Worlock) by their personal example called time on this damaging friction.
Liverpool 2007 – 800 years and proud of it
Given the particular diasporas from which Liverpool has benefited historically, it will be fascinating to see what the city can make of its opportunity to shine on the world and European stage in 2007 and 2008. There are a number of factors here, even apart from the celebrations as such, which should enhance the opportunities for Liverpool at this time – amongst them, the massive privately funded Grosvenor ‘Liverpool 1’ commercial development (at £950 million reputedly the largest project of this kind in Europe) which is currently taking root in the heart of the city centre.
The 2007 event will celebrate Liverpool’s 800th Anniversary. (The city’s charter was signed in 1207.) This surely is the opportunity of a lifetime to acknowledge and embrace the rich and diverse cultures and traditions of the city, to look back at our past but also forward – not only to what follows in 2008, but also much further into the future.
This is in a very real sense ‘Liverpool’s year’, a ‘birthday’ (as the locals insist on calling it) worthy of pulling out the stops. 800 years as a city, even if others can also claim it (Leeds’ charter is also dated 1207), is an important milestone.
The birthday party will be for the people of Liverpool. Others will be very welcome to join us – what’s a party without honoured guests? – but the style, the scene itself, needs to be determined by those, the citizens of Liverpool, whose ‘birthday’ it is.
Liverpool 2008 – European Capital of Culture
But what does Liverpool’s history mean for its year as European Capital of Culture? It has consistently been said that it was ‘the people’, Liverpudlians themselves, who won this award. Is there a danger that 2008 could be ‘more of the same’, an extension of the scenario for 2007?
If we return to our first question, is Liverpool “unenglish”?, we need to note that, so it is said, some 60% of Liverpudlians have never even been to London (and I’d guess that maybe 90% of people living in England outside the North West have as yet never been to Liverpool).
Given this situation, we must ask how many of the citizens of Liverpool so far have a real knowledge of Europe outside the influences we have already noted? How many are fluent in other European languages? How many have business or other formal connections across Europe? The answer is surely that here is a city at the start in every way of its journey into the twenty-first century.
Unique opportunity
Liverpool 2007 / 8 offers a unique opportunity to establish two-way connections with the city. The very next day after the BBC debate on Liverpool’s ‘englishness’ or otherwise, the city launched its initial programme for the 2008 year with a grand civic event in St. George’s Hall, and another one in London for the wider world. 2007 is for Liverpool; 2008 is intended for the world,
2008 offers business and cultural entrepreneurs from around Europe and beyond a real chance to establish themselves in the city, whilst Liverpool’s eyes are firmly fixed on the global stage – and, we hope, theirs on us.
The full extent of the outward-facing Liverpool ‘offer’ for 2007 and especially 2008 remains to be seen – there is increasing confidence that something interesting and worthwhile will be made of these unique opportunities.
The scope for inward investment, connection and synergy with elsewhere is however already established as truly enormous.
Here is a city ripe for growth of every kind, and increasingly ready to jump at the chance. This is a virtuous circle for anyone enterprising enough to recognise it.
Global players
Whether Liverpool is “unenglish” we must leave the BBC debaters to determine. Whether that same city is now positioned once again to take its place as a major player at the European and global levels we can answer for ourselves.
The answer is Yes.
And, in contrast to the last time Liverpool was a great trading city, when the odds were stacked against ‘outsiders’, this time Liverpool will be trading on an even playing field with its external partners.
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This article is also published (as Liverpool: Ripe For Growth in 2007 And 2008) on the European Renaissance website.
Will Merseyside Miss Out? The Gormley Statues And The Theatre Museum Are Must-Haves.
Sefton Council says Antony Gormley’s Iron Men may soon leave Crosby Beach. The national Theatre Museum, which it has been mooted should come to Liverpool, has yet even to be considered by the City Council. Where’s the cultural leadership and vision which could mark Merseyside as a fascinating place to visit?
Here we go again. The cultural drag, if I may call it that, which afflicts so many places is once more theatening to relegate our sub-region to the ‘might have beens’, a place which could have been braver and better.
In just one evening last week (on Wednesday 18th October ’06) Liverpool City Council took the extraordinary decision not even to discuss a motion about how the city might acquire the national Theatre Museum, whilst on the same evening Sefton Council voted not to keep Antony Gormley‘s one hundred Iron Men on Crosby Beach.
There is a real danger that we on Merseyside will end up looking as though the last thing we want is to support culture, just at the time when the mantle of European Capital of Culture is about to be ours.
Time is short
The Daily Post and others have already started a campaign to reverse the Gormley statues decision, with some success already. It is now necessary for others to ensure that Liverpool Council does the same, and makes a real effort to bring the national Theatre Museum to Merseyside …. of, if they can’t, for someone esle to do so The benefits of doing this are clear and have already been discussed on this website.
The reputation of Liverpool and Merseyside in 2007/8 rests on imaginative and forward-looking leadership and real vision in culture and the arts. It’s time everyone in Merseyside pulled together on this.
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
John Belchem’s ‘Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History’ (1207-2007)
For three years Professor John Belchem and his University of Liverpool colleagues worked on a scholarly publication to record Liverpool’s eight hundred years as a city (1207 – 2007). Academically impressive, the book offers vibrant testimony to the human actions and achievements behind the dry facts – just as those attending made the official launch of this publication, in the setting of Liverpool’s splendid Town Hall, such a warm and memorable occasion.
Liverpool Town Hall is always a spectacular venue in which to celebrate a special occasion. It reminds us vividly of what the City of Liverpool must have been like in its prime, and what indeed it could still be again.
Nowhere, then, could have been more appropriate as a location for the formal launch on 18th October 2006 of Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History, the University of Liverpool Press book edited by Professor John Belchem about the first eight hundred years of this sometimes infuriating and always fascinating city. Liverpool is on the verge of another momentous era in its long history, as 2007 and 2008 approach. (You can see just some of the many special aspects of Liverpool life and legacy in the books listed immediately below this article.)
Liverpool 800 is an impressive publication which charts as honestly and openly as it can the ways in which Liverpool has progressed over the past eight centuries, from its ‘small beginnings’ in 1207. As the book’s back cover reminds us, Liverpool rose, not always by admirable means, to become one of the world’s greatest seaports, so that by 1907 it was the second city of the empire. But what happened thereafter resulted in a vastly different prospect for this enigmatic city. John Belchem’s book, in charting the rise, fall and we trust rise again of Liverpool, will I know be a big hit; and I hope it will also offer a focus for just how we can now move forward to a second period of success and (this time, benign) global influence.
New friends and old
<img alt="Peter Brown Img0151.JPG" src="http://www.dreamingrealist.co.uk/Peter%20Brown%20Img0151.JPG" width="104" height="120" /
Not withstanding the importance of the occasion, one of the nicest things about the Liverpool 800 launch was much simpler than all this. It was, as on other similar occasions, an excellent opportunity to catch up with friends old and new.
In the course of the evening I chatted with many people, including the Lord Mayor, Councillor Joan Lang, with whom years ago I sat on the City Arts Festival Committee, as well as those stalwarts of Liverpool’s civic history, such as John Vaughan, a local historian, now retired from the University of Liverpool Libraries, Christina Clarke JP, a ceaseless advocate for the preservation of our built heritage, Dr Peter Brown, chairman of the Merseyside Civic Society, and Andrew Pearce, at one time an MEP for Merseyside and now chairman of the Liverpool Heritage Forum. Others with an impressive knowledge of our civic heritage whom I know from the Liverpool Echo Stop the Rot campaign were there too.
In the same room, also chatting happily with everyone assembled, were people such as Rodney Holmes of Grosvenor,
who is in charge of our huge new Paradise Project ‘Liverpool One’ commercial development, and others from the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool Culture Company and the City Council, all in their day jobs busily engaged in promoting our future prospects as a city.
And then there were folk ‘from the community’ such as Tom Calderbank and his wife, who have worked so hard to raise the profile of places like Toxteth Town Hall and The Belvedere.
In all, a richly diverse assembly of people, with their varied focuses on the past and the future, to celebrate the richly diverse history of our city.
A history which brings us together
I could go on, but lists are never complete and after a while inadvertent omissions start to become obvious. However one looks at it, this book launch was an event which brought together people from many parts of Liverpool.
But of course the main person on this occasion was the man who with his co-authors has seen it through from beginning to end, linking all these varied threads into one cohesive whole. John Belchem spoke to us about his book without notes and with much passion. It was good to see him so delighted with the interest in, and support for, his finally completed project.
A welcome message
John’s theme when he addressed us was one to which we can all subscribe: History tells us, he said, that Liverpool has always thrived on celebration. The city’s fortunes prosper when, whatever the reason, there are parties and festivities to be had! The launch of Liverpool 800: Culture, Character & History, in our fabulous Town Hall, was an excellent practice run for what we all hope will also be an outstandingly excellent couple of years for Liverpool, in 2007 and 2008.
Will The National Theatre Museum Come To Liverpool?
Sometimes things move quickly. The proposal to bring the national Theatre Museum to Liverpool when it closes in London seems to be one of these times. Just ten days after being mooted on this website, a proposal to take action will be debated tonight by City Councillors in Liverpool Town Hall.
The idea of the national Theatre Museum (the National Museum of the Performing Arts) coming to Liverpool took a step forward this morning, when the proposal first posted here ten days ago appeared as an article in today’s Daily Post.
Liverpool City Councillors Joe Anderson, Paul Brant and Steve Munby (Labour) will this evening put a motion entitled NATIONAL THEATRE MUSEUM to full Council, proposing that:
Council notes that the national collection of performing arts memorabilia, at the Theatre Museum in London, part of the Victoria and Albert Museum, is to be dispersed when the Theatre is closed in January 2007.
Council calls on the Leader to explore the possibility of bringing it to Liverpool to develop as a special national element of our celebrations in 2007 and 2008? Liverpool has a great tradition of theatre, opera and the performing arts in this city, and the V&A could open the revived exhibition as a ‘V&A in the North’, as the Tate has done with Tate Liverpool.
To the national exhibition we could explore adding the archives of our own theatres, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society’s archive and the history of Hope Street, Liverpool’s performing arts quarter.
Progress indeed
I am very hopeful that the motion will be carried with cross-party agreement, since Cllr Mike Storey (Liberal Democrat), Liverpool’s executive member for special initiatives, has told the Daily Post that he would support examining such a move for the Theatre Museum collection, and Cllr Steve Radford (Liberal Party) has also indicated his general support to me.
This is how we in Liverpool should all be working when it comes to the arts and culture. HOPES has produced, and the politicians have made progress with, a potentially good idea which would enhance parts of our civic ‘cultural offer’ in a very positive way. Just as with the development of the Hope Street Public Realm works, I hope we can deliver here something which involves both public and community voices in a virtuous circle, and so secures added value locally, regionally and even nationally.
We await the outcome of this evening’s Council Meeting with interest….
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
Hope Street Farmers’ Market Is Deferred – But Why?
The Farmers’ Market scheduled for Liverpool’s Hope Street today has been cancelled because of pressures on officialdom. This is not a new scenario when it comes to efforts to enhance the local community’s engagement and enterprise. What could those ‘in charge of granting permissions’ do to prove themselves, rather, as partners and enablers?
The Daily Post this morning reports that the intended monthly Farmers’ Markets in Hope Street (third Saturday of the month) willl now begin in November, not today. After two very successful test runs (last October and during this year’s Hope Street Festival – though why not as we suggested before then, I don’t know) there was a real head of steam for the event today. People just love markets, with all their variety and colour!
But it seems the authorities can’t cope… not enough time for the policing (in Hope Street? – probably Liverpool’s most sedate throughfare till now at least), not enough notice, and so forth…. and the Farmers’ Market organisers, Geraud Markets, are upset.
Not a new problem
Sadly, this ‘not enough notice’ and / or ‘can’t be done without big payments’ scenario is not new. It caused the delay of this year’s Hope Street Festival, originally planned for June, and it has been the undoing of several other events along Hope Street (as well, I suspect, as elsewhere).
It is fair to say that perhaps Geraud Markets, who have a joint venture arrangement with the City Council, might well have made appropriate contact with the authorities earlier – they are a big organisation – but that doesn’t really explain the history of City Council ‘can’t do’ which seems to overarch so many attempts to engage and involve people in our local community. The thwarted efforts are too many to list here.
Basic objectives put aside
Whether you look at the very worthy stated objectives of the Farmers’ Markets joint venture with Liverpool City Council, or at those of much smaller organisations such as HOPES: The Hope Street Association, you will find a serious intent to improve the health, environment, general quality of life and enterprise climate of our Quarter.
The City Council may well claim to endorse these fine words – and individually some of its officers certainly go the extra mile in doing that – but overall their actions speak don’t do much to demonstrate the commitment when it matters.
Supporting local communities – or not?
The question that perhaps those in charge at Council HQ have to ask is, ‘What are we actively doing to help? And is it actually enough?’ No private organisation or individual is obliged to support the enterprise and engagement of Liverpool communities, and some of us feel sorely tested. But it seems the message still isn’t getting through.
Dreaming Realist 
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