Love, Liverpool: an A to Z of Hope // Letter 1
Hello and welcome to the our first letter. We're starting where all good stories start...the beginnings of an adventure. Jump on board and come with us, as we travel to our city...
Letter 1: On our way to Liverpool
Jump to: Audio stories // Picnic by Frank Cottrell Boyce // Video stories // Written stories // Thank you
As always, we'll start with our audio stories, you can listen here or download them, wherever you get to your podcasts, to listen to later.
Todays audio story starts with Mandy Redvers-Rowe's A Love Letter to Merseyrail, read by Chloë Clarke. Mandy's letter takes us on a journey into her love of Merseyrail. Come with her, as she navigates the well known route with Sally, her sometimes naughty guide dog, and a few other friends along the way.
We are also joined by screenwriter, novelist and friend of the theatres, Frank Cottrell Boyce, as he takes a quick pause from his back garden break to tell us about his time in the Everyman Youth Theatre. He's also left us a treat of goodies further on in the letter.
Woven inbetween is the stories from the amazing people of this city, todays audio stories are by Dan Thompson, Freya Hannan-Mills, Julie Culter & Sam Batley.
A full transcript of our audio stories is available here.
Like every great journey, you need to pack a good picnic. We've got some friends of the theatres to provide some goodness for us along our journey through each letter. Today your picnic of substance on this journey from is from Frank Cottrell Boyce. You can listen to our audio stories above where Frank also shares a memory of the theatres.
A favourite joke.
A priest, a vicar and a rabbit all go together to kindly give blood.
The rabbit says “I think I might be a Type O”
A poem.
I love this poem for these days. It reminds you that moments of fleeting happiness are not in fact fleeting at all. Primo Levi said something similar. It’s called Bright Field and it’s by R.S.Thomas.
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
A simple recipe.
Frank’s recipe for So Simple Soda Bread
This is not just a recipe - it’s a life skill. Soda bread is a beautiful bread that you can make much quicker than any other bread so it can save the day if the shops are shut or the cupboard is bare, and it feels like a great treat if visitors call.
There’s something primal and beautiful about making bread - the magic of working with a tiny invisible creature that can miraculously make the dough rise with its breath, the sense that you’re doing something that humans have done since the beginning of history. But it’s complicated and it can go wrong.
Making traditional Irish soda bread has some of the same wonder - you’re using those really ancient ingredients wheat and milk - but it’s much easier. So easy that if you run out of bread you can knock up a wee soda loaf quicker than going to the shops. It also tastes of Ireland which is a lovely thing in itself.
Traditionally you should use buttermilk or sour milk but I’ve substituted natural yogurt because it’s easier to get hold of. Having said which if the milk in your fridge has gone off - never throw it out! Always use it to make soda bread.
250g white flour
250g whole meal flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
A tub (400 ml) of natural yoghurt.
- 1 Heat the oven to 200 and get a baking tray ready (grease it or line it with grease proof paper)
- 2 Mix the flours, salt and bicarb in a big bowl. Pile it up and make a well in the middle. Pour half the yogurt into the well and push the flour into the yogurt using your fingers. Keep adding more yogurt until you’ve got a ball of sticky dough (you may not need all the yogurt - just keep going until it’s a ball you can work with).
- 3 You’ve got to do the next bit quickly as the yogurt and bicarb are already reacting - drop the dough onto a floured surface and work it into a ball with the ball of your hand.
- 4 Put the ball onto the baking tray and then — very important — use a sharp knife to cut a deep cross into the surface of the ball. You should cut nearly right through but not quite. Dust the top with a bit of flour.
- 5 Bake for 30 minutes - or until it looks good. You can tell if it’s done by smacking its bottom. It should sound hollow. Put it on a wire rack to cool and then eat it.
If you’ve got any left the next day it’ll still taste great if you toast it.
Some people add cheese to the recipe because they are philistines. Best to avoid them.
A favourite picture.
This little sketch by Rembrandt is my favourite work of art.
It shows some women teaching a toddler to walk. It gets the moment exactly. The thing that astounds me about it is that this is a moment that almost everyone has experienced - both as the toddler and as the grown-up. It’s a massive moment of becoming in almost everyone’s life. Historically, somewhere in the deep past, one of our ancestors did this and kick started the human race. Despite all that I can’t thing of any other artist who has captured it. It was the inspiration for my last book. But even though it’s now served that purpose I still keep going back to it.
Here are some more of our public responses, in video...
Love Letters to Liverpool by The B Collective
Video & audio by local Liverpool Theatre company The B Collective, who responded to our public call our for stories.
Crossing Over by Freya Hannan-Mills
Video & audio by Freya Hannan-Mills, responding to our public call our for stories.
Freya's story was also featured in our audio stories - this is her accompanying video.
We we're over-whelmed by the responce from our public submissions, here are this weeks written stories...
by Cat Gransden
I’d heard about you from other people.
And wanted to know more.
An infatuation
Could you be the one?
Then I did it. Made the first move.
Aged 18.
The first few years raced by
With passion and unrivalled joy.
Then we bit the bullet.
Got more serious.
Finding out more about each other,
Getting to know the hidden parts of you.
And suddenly, boom.
It’s been 20 years.
It’s a different kind of love.
And I’m ok with that.
The streets are filled with forgotten loves
And once upon a sometimes.
New faces exemplify all that you are
And all that I love about you.
Now I’m getting to meet you
And fall in love with you all over again,
Looking through my small ones’ eyes.
A pretty magical view.
You’ve never let me down.
And I’m glad we’re in it for the long haul.
Liverpool, my love.
Goodnight Vienna by Peter Grant
Hand in hand at the Pier Head
'You know the Danube?'
I said.
'Well, it's like the river Mersey.
'They say that if it looks blue
then you are in love.
'Does it seem blue to you?'
We boarded the ferry to Birkenhead
I wasn't sure if she heard what I said.
She threw a penny in the water
and the ripples went on endlessly...
They still do, you see.
'No, 'she sighed.
'It looks absolutely murky...
to me.'
New Brighton Rocks by John Scottie Collins
I meet him at New Brighton station. We’ve been friends since our schooldays, in Edinburgh, but I haven’t seen Brendan for more than a decade. I notice a real changed in him. He’s thin and frail looking. We shake hands, ‘Hello Brendan, good to see you. You’re looking well.’
‘Don’t give me any of that baloney. I’m sixty nine, same as you, and I look every day of it. Anyway John, I see you still enjoy your food.’ We both laugh.
‘What do you fancy doing ? A drink; coffee?’
‘I’m off the booze and I’ve been drinking coffee all morning. Why don’t you take me to that Site of Special Scientific Interest you’re always banging on about in your emails? On the way, you can tell me what’s so “special” about it. Is it far?’ When I tell him it’s less than a mile, he decides that we’ll walk. So we stroll through streets of terraced houses towards the Mersey estuary. It’s early November, the sky’s overcast and there’s a chill in the air. We chat about the past. ‘You’ve lived in New Brighton for a while now. How long has it been?’
‘Nearly fifteen years.’
‘You’ve always loved the sea, you were never away from Portobello beach when you were a boy.’
‘New Brighton’s a bit like Portobello. Maybe that’s why I’m happy here. A Victorian seaside resort, right next to a big city. The place we’re heading for is, “Mersey Narrows”. What makes it “special” is that in autumn it attracts large numbers of migrant shore and wading birds; Dunlin, Redshank, Sandpiper, Curlew, Turnstone and rarer species, like the Bar-tailed Godwit. They breed in Scandinavia and Russia then fly here when the arctic summer ends.’ We arrive at Magazines Promenade, by Vale Park. The shore below us is rock and sand flat.
‘So, is this it? Looks bleak. All I can see are seagulls. Where are the wading birds?’
‘They’re really well camouflaged. But if you look carefully you can spot them foraging in the surf and among the rock pools.’
‘Why do they come to such an exposed place.’
‘Good question. It’s chilly enough now, but from December until March, it’s freezing and windswept. It’s a rich source of food though, and that’s the attraction.’
At that moment the wail of a police car siren can startles the feeding birds. We watch them rise from the beach in great piping flocks, colourful and incongruous against the grey sky and the tall cranes of Bootle docks. ‘Have you ever seen a more beautiful, uplifting sight?’ I ask. ‘I’m so glad they defy the elements to spend the winter here.’
‘I never realised you were such an old romantic.’
‘Romantic? Compared with me Wordsworth had the soul of a chartered accountant.
by Ray Hannaway
I went on the train to my city one day
and all the buildings were in the way
I could not see St James Church
or even Christ The King,
I could not even hear
St Nick's church bells ring.
I went up to look at the Liver clock
and could not see the tick-tock.
I even went to look out to sea
and could not see the ferry.
I jumped back on the train
I don't think I will be going back there again.
The future's not for me
because i'm an old scouser, you see.
A thank you from local actor Jodie McNee. If you are in a position to help us continue to create brilliant, inspiring & entertaining work, help us continue to work with our communities & develop talent and young people then please do consider a donation, we'd be so grateful. You can find out more about how to support us here.
We hope you enjoyed this weeks letter, see you soon.
Love,
Liverpool
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