Scousers - The Knock-on Effect

I recently made a rather tongue-in-cheek comment on a previous thread about Liverpudlians. It was a quick throw-away remark that meant no harm. But, as is often the case, someone got offended. You have to be so pc nowadays. (Are we losing the ability to laugh at ourselves and our situations?)

Unfortunately, this contributor responded in a fashion that many would say personifies the violence that may be commonplace in certain areas of Liverpool. However, I’m sure he was also being tongue-in-cheek, and it would be as ridiculous for me to be offended – or indeed feel threatened - by his remarks as it was for him to be offended by my own. However, as always, if I’ve offended anyone I offer my apologies. It certainly wasn’t my intention.

But it did get me thinking about Scousers, especially old friends of mine who’ve hailed from that city, and in particular how I was personally responsible for the directions a number of Liverpudlians – many unknown to me – have taken with their lives.

That’s rather a grand statement, isn’t it? At least it would be if I fully believed it. In truth, that’s just the way things happened and I was nothing but a simple cog, but I am interested in the knock-on effects fellow ABCtalers may have been responsible for in the grander scheme of things.

Allow me to tell my tale, for tale-telling is what this site is all about (or simply switch to another thread if I’ve bored you enough already).

1976 was my first season and Bournemouth was my choice of seaside town. Great times, all documented elsewhere on this site. There were many Leicester lads in Bournemouth at the time, and indeed many of them are still there to this day. Torquay, and to a lesser extent Newquay, were known as the favourite haunts of Liverpudlians.

I travelled abroad a fair deal over the next few years, always coming back to Bournemouth for the summer season. Early in 1980, a buddy of ours returned from the States with stories of what the life was like out in California. Captivated, a pal and myself headed out there, and over the next few months several other mates followed. I was at the time working on the door of a particular pub, and even some of the regulars came across. We easily settled into the ex-pat scene, setting up our own community in the already-thriving English community.

There are several English boozers in the Santa Monica area of greater Los Angeles, but the King’s Head was – and still is today – THE English pub. My first job as an illegal alien was as a bouncer in the King’s Head, so I worked at the hub of the English Community of ex-pats. And at the time, there were very few Liverpudlians in L.A.. I personally only knew of one, Laine, a mate from Bournemouth. She often worked as a barmaid, so was always good for Freeman’s Ale whenever we were skint, which was often.

I returned to England and Bournemouth after two years, and immediately got my old job back on the door of the Palace Vaults. But changes had taken place over my absence. Mickey Mousers had taken over the town.

They were at first greeted with wariness and mistrust, for before them came a reputation for skulduggery. A not undeserved reputation in many cases. But they’d gradually worked their way into the community of “workers” and become accepted.

I must admit that initially I wasn’t too happy at this turn of events, but everywhere I went friends introduced me to Scousers, and it wasn’t long before I numbered quite a few amongst my acquaintances. The names come flooding back as I write – Peter Fitzpatrick (who I worked with on the doors and who I once saw knock two men down with two punches), Bobby and Kenny Kershaw, Stevie and Sally Madden, Fred and many others. I ended up sharing a large house with six Scousers and two Brummies.

If I tell you they were all thieves, then you’ll learn more about me from that remark than about Scousers. For fairly obviously not all Scousers are thieves. Just the ones I hung about with at the time. And I repeat, this is more an indictment of my own personality than the good nature of the majority of honest Scousers.

To a man, though, my Scouse friends all possessed a great sense of humour and they were always good company. Which again, may or not tell you something about my own personality. Please feel free to make your own judgement on the fact that I once enjoyed the company of thieves with a self-deprecating sense of gallows humour.

I stayed in Bournemouth for a full two years before making my way once again out to the States. And during that time I raved about the lifestyle the English lads were enjoying in Southern California. So much so that Bobby Kershaw and his elder brother, Dave, decided to chance their arm, closely followed by Kenny and more of their mates.

The knock-on effect was that more and more Scousers made their way out to Santa Monica and there are now possibly hundreds of them in the area. I never went back there to live, choosing instead to go on the road for five years, only visiting L.A. occasionally. When I did, of course, I looked up my old mates and even bumped into Bobby, Kenny and Dave. They’ve made a life for themselves, acquiring Green Cards either through the lottery (yes, the UK was not then excluded from that annual draw) or through the more expensive means of a solicitor.

But I maintain that if I had not returned to Bournemouth and raved so much about California to Bobby Kershaw, it would never have occurred to him to venture abroad and invite his mates and they theirs. If I had not talked so much about it, there would not now be hundreds of Scousers in the greater Los Angeles areas.

I believe, rather, that if they were destined to make their lives out there then they would have done so, regardless of my intervention. And as mentioned above, I was merely a small cog in a wheel with my pal who fired up my own imagination initially on one side and Bobby Kershaw on the other side. And the wheel kept turning – and would have found a way of doing so regardless of me.

But what knock-on effects have you instigate in your own lives? Or rather, what small part have you played in an ever-turning wheel with massive implications?