Liverpool grew from a network of communities, and now an exhibition is being planned to revive that old, neighbourly spirit. David Charters reports.
by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post
THE young man from Pansy Street stared from the wide window on the 10th storey of the tower. Below him the cars seemed small and the people even smaller, as they moved silently along the straight and curling streets and trunk roads, broken here and there by churches, high-rise flats, factories and demolition sites.
Beyond his vision, he knew that the web spread still further, embracing a huge population.
Yes, this was Liverpool. But in all those streets and towers and tenements, there were hundreds of communities, all with their own ways and customs - rascals and heroes, the full span of the British class system, the respectable, the holy; and those skidding from day to day, guided by eternal hope or wit sharpened by experience.
At street level, all people are big.
"And what is this city but the sum total of its people and their communities?" says Ron Formby, now 58, who was that man looking from the window in wonder. "The history of Liverpool is very much the history of its communities."
Now, assisted by a £44,000 grant from the National Lottery, he is organising an exhibition for Easter to be called the Changing Face of Local Communities. He hopes it will become an important part of this year's celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of Liverpool's Royal Charter.
Ron edits the monthly Scottie Press, Britain's longest-running community newspaper, founded in February 1971 and published by the Vauxhall Neighbourhood Council (VNC), which serves the old Scotland Road area.
Many of Liverpool's commun- ities first settled here - the Welsh, people from various parts of North Western England, the Irish, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Lithuanians, Jews, Greeks and others.
Rising from the docks, it was Liverpool's most cosmopolitan area, linking Britain to her vast empire.
Article
