What we learned at Liverpool’s Big History Weekend…

It’s amazing how much we can learn, just by talking to each other.  At the BBC Merseyside Big History Weekend on 8th-9th September, held at St George’s Hall here in Liverpool, ‘Memories of Mr Seel’s Garden’ took part by having a stall, at which we enticed visitors to learn more about our project, with the offer of an Everton mint (other mints were also available for supporters of other teams!). Everyone was really interested in what we’ve been up to, with lots of people signing up to learn more about the project and, hopefully, come along to one of the events we’ve got planned. Stay tuned for more about this in our next post… Our most common question was, of course, ‘Who’s Mr Seel?’, followed by ‘Where was his garden?’  But once we got chatting, we found that everyone had interesting memories to share with us, several of which have been added to our Google map. We learned about more bakeries in Everton, and how they would bake bread dough made by locals (cheaper than a shop-bought loaf or baking bread at home)

However the most reminiscences we heard related to food production in terraced houses with just a back yard, particularly in North Liverpool.  When I started this project, I imagined that we wouldn’t find much evidence of domestic agriculture, because Liverpool terraces characteristically have very small yards, often dark and surrounded by high walls.  But instead we heard of rhubarb, tomatoes, lettuces and even vegetables grown in pots outside the back door. Less surprising, but still notable for the prevalence, was back-yard chicken keeping.  Almost everyone within a certain age range we spoke to seemed to have kept hens themselves, or had neighbours or relations who did so.  Hens were delivered as day-old chicks and we heard of inventive home-made incubators in box-rooms, in the bath or even in the range, once it had been damped down.  Chickens were fed on domestic scraps, such as old bread dried out in the range and pounded up with boiled potato peelings in real waste not, want not spirit.  The range was also put to good use in providing cinders for the hens to scratch amongst.  Nevertheless, not all memories associated with chicken-keeping were happy.  One of our visitors remembered being terrified by the pecking of the hens on visits to the outdoor privy, others recalled the trauma of birds they had regarded as pets being eaten at Christmas.

On the whole, however, the nostalgia provoked by our project seems to have been warm and welcome.  Several visitors shared their childhood memories, when confectionary was rationed and raw carrots were sweet enough to seem a delicacy, and when children had more freedom to ask for food from neighbours (or steal it, on scrumping missions in local back gardens) and contrasted them with the experiences of modern children, who are believed to have both more choices and more restrictions.  Poverty was widely felt to be less of a problem when everyone was in the same situation and the lives of the rich were less on show via the media – the communal war effort was also felt to be a social unifier, as rationing applied to everyone.  It was generally agreed that things had started to change in the 1960s, when rationing was over and supermarkets, with processed food, such as sliced bread, began to open.  Smaller, more specialist, shops began to close and new leisure activities, particularly the television, started to become more widely available and drew people inside.  Nevertheless, many of our visitors were still happily involved in growing their own food, either in back gardens or allotments, or were enthusiastic about the idea of starting to grow fruit and vegetables, aware that whatever the causes, the climate is changing and our reliance on imported food may not be sustainable.

Carnatic House

It was also good to meet with members of other local projects.  I was particularly pleased to meet up with the Everton History Society, some of whose members had participated in our research, and to see a copy of the St George’s Church cookery book, reprinted from an early twentieth-century original.  Our stall was adjacent to the friendly parish historians of St Michael’s in the Hamlet (along with St George’s, Everton, the remaining iron churches designed by architect Thomas Rickman), so we attracted a few more South Liverpool memories.  Being based at the University of Liverpool, I was particularly amused by the story of the cows of Coulthwaite’s Dairy on Penny Lane, driven daily down the road to graze on the lawns of Carnatic House, later the site of the University’s Halls of Residence.

All in all the weekend was both enjoyable and productive and I’m looking forward to seeing some of our visitors again at our planned events.

Alex Buchanan