Episode 4 A House Through Time


Episode 4

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Transcript


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When we live in a house, we're just passing through.

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People have occupied it before us,

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others will take our place when we leave.

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100 human dramas played out in every room.

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Every house in Britain has a story to tell, but in this series, I'm

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going to uncover the secret life of just one -

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a single townhouse here in Liverpool...

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UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS

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..a city that rivalled New York in the late 19th century,

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yet 100 years later was one of the poorest places in Europe.

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In many ways, 62 Falkner Street is an ordinary house.

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But as I'm going to show you,

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in reality it's an amazing treasure trove.

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He leaves them not just £100 but all also number 62 Falkner Street.

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In March 1885, again in this house,

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he grabbed her by the throat and assaulted her.

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The life that you can see recorded in these old documents is

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extraordinary. Delving into the archives,

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I'll use the personal histories of the residents of this house to

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reveal the story of Britain over almost 200 years...

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..a period of seismic social change,

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from the early years of Victoria's reign,

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right through to the present day.

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In this episode, the swinging '60s engulf Liverpool...

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..a famous neighbour arrives...

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The door burst open and the arrival of John Lennon, see.

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The residents witness riots, destruction,

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and the coming of an epidemic.

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And the very existence of our house hangs by a thread.

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And if the house is vacant, then it was at serious risk of

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being demolished.

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I'm going on the ultimate detective hunt, to discover lives that haven't

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been recorded in the history books,

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but which can tell us a new version of our nation's past -

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a new history of Britain hidden within the walls of a single house.

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Welcome to number 62 Falkner Street.

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This Georgian-style townhouse was built as a gentleman's residence

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in one of the Empire's great trading hubs - Liverpool.

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The area in which it sits,

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Liverpool 8, has gone from being a middle-class enclave to a mixed

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neighbourhood where people of different races,

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classes and religions live cheek by jowl.

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The house, too, has slid down the social scale.

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It's gone from smart, single dwelling house, to boarding house,

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to a series of cheap rented rooms.

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Its first resident - a Liverpool

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customs clerk, had moved in back in 1841,

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and since then, more than 50 people had called this house their home.

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I want to find out what happened to the house from the post-war years

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until today.

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As well as sifting through electoral rolls, directories

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and newspapers,

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for the first time, I'll meet some of the people

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who actually lived there.

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My search begins in the year 1945.

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The house has new occupants.

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The family living here are called the Stotts.

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There's Reynold, who's 48 - he's an electrician.

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His wife, Ada, who's 45 and a shorthand typist.

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And their daughter, Audrey.

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Frustratingly, we've been able to find very little evidence with which

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to build up a picture of this, family.

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and we can't find any trace of any living relatives.

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But we've spoken to people who knew them at the time, and we do strongly

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believe that they were the owners of 62 Falkner Street.

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The family moved in in 1945,

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when Liverpool was picking up the pieces after the war.

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German bombs had left the city's docks in ruins,

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and 6,000 homes either destroyed or beyond repair.

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With a wave of service personnel returning from the war,

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the pressures on housing were intense.

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Many young adults had no choice but to share with parents

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or grandparents.

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Rental accommodation was in short supply.

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So it's no surprise that the Stotts decided to rent out rooms in

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their large house.

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The electoral roll reveals the names of their tenants.

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They are John and Beryl Quayle.

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And they move in in 1947, which is also the year that they get married.

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And 62 Falkner Street is their first home as a married couple.

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The Quayles were a typical young couple setting up their

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first home together.

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John was a returning serviceman.

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He'd spent the war with the RAF's Fleet Air Arm,

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repairing aircraft on a jungle airstrip in Sri Lanka.

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He'd come to Liverpool to get a job as a motor mechanic.

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His new wife, Beryl, was from the local area.

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She worked as a dress fitter in a ladies' fashion house in the centre

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of Liverpool.

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We know the couple rented the two attic rooms at the top of the house,

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originally used as children's bedrooms or servants' quarters.

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So this is the top floor.

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-Yeah.

-This will have been your parents' flat.

-Huh!

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Wow! Beautiful, big old house.

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We have a wealth of information about John and Beryl's life here,

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thanks to their son, Bill Quayle.

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Never been inside the building.

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I knew about it, anecdotal, from my parents, and they loved it here.

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They were very, very happy here.

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-And this is where it all began?

-Oh, yeah.

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The Quayles moved in straight after their honeymoon.

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Beryl was just 20, John 22.

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The accommodation was far from grand, but it was a big step up.

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This was the first time Beryl had lived away from her family home.

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It was brilliant for them,

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particularly for mother, cos she grew up with seven siblings in a

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semidetached house with three bedrooms,

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so she was used to sharing a room with four sisters.

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So this would be palatial for her, cos she had her own room.

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Her and my dad for the bedroom, and then the front room is like,

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"Wow, we can actually stretch out in here and do what we want."

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For her, it was paradise.

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-So this was a really special place in your parents' life?

-Yeah.

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-It was their first home together.

-Yep.

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But not an easy place to live, I imagine?

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Well... Um, there was no water up here.

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So they had to get a bucket of water and bring it up the stairs to use

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for washing and stuff.

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Cos they used to have a washstand in the bedroom.

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And they used to have a Primus stove in the living area,

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so they could actually make a cup of tea and do the cooking.

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But they had to bring all the water all the way up the stairs,

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and to go to the toilet, all the way down to the ground floor.

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How did your parents get together?

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The story I got told was the fact

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that my mother was persuaded to go to a dance organised by the Army.

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It was a TA dance.

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1940s JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

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And my father was also persuaded to go, as well.

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So they both went to the dance, and that's where they met.

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They spent the whole evening dancing together.

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And they went on from there.

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It's a universal story -

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a young couple meet, fall in love, marry, and set up home.

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But what was different for the Quayles was that they were doing it

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amidst crippling austerity.

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The war effort had left the country with next to nothing -

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it was bombed-out, exhausted and drab.

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It's queue for everything.

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In fact, it's far worse now than it was during the war.

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One of the Quayles' biggest

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challenges was furnishing their new home.

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I think the thing that's interesting about John and Beryl

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setting up home in 1947 is that furniture was in very short supply,

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and it's restricted through the rationing system.

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The couple's choices were very limited.

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The production and supply of new furniture was tightly controlled by

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the Government under its utility scheme.

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Even if it's utility furniture for priority customers only on the

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points system, we can all take it as a hint that peace production

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is on the way.

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The idea that peace and plenty would return together just wasn't true.

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Beryl and John didn't go to a furniture showroom to choose the

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furniture, because the furniture showrooms weren't allowed to have

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any furniture on display.

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They would have chosen, probably, from this utility furniture catalogue.

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The local District Assistance Board would issue you 60 units

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to spend on furniture.

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Now you could only have these 60 units if you were bombed-out

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or newly married.

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And even then, there were restrictions placed on the kinds of

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things that you could buy. So if you wanted a sofa bed,

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you could only have a sofa bed if you lived in a bedsit.

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You couldn't have one if you lived in a house or a flat.

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So they were even able to control what the public were able to buy.

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Despite the day-to-day hardships,

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John and Beryl loved their rented rooms in Falkner Street.

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But they didn't intend to be carrying pails of water upstairs

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and cooking on a Primus stove forever.

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They knew they wanted to start a family,

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but as far as bringing kids up, this was not an ideal place.

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So they knew they were going to be using this as a stepping stone

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to save up to be able to afford the deposit on a terraced house,

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because they wanted their own place.

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As you get a bit of money, you try and get yourself something with a bit of greenery.

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Like many post-war couples, the Quayles wanted an escape

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from the grime and the bomb damage of the city centre.

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Their aim was to buy a house in the suburbs.

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And their route out of Falkner Street was through hard work and careful saving.

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Beryl kept her job in retail,

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John worked his way up from mechanic to bus driver.

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And the man who has spent a lot of his life in uniform,

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he looks quite at ease in his bus driver's uniform.

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Yeah, he used to iron his own shirts every morning.

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Yeah. He wore a uniform most of his life.

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After saving for seven years,

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the Quayles had enough for a deposit on their first house.

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In 1954, they moved in.

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Their new home had a separate kitchen,

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a proper bathroom and a spacious living room.

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It must have seemed unimaginably luxurious after life in Falkner Street.

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It's difficult for us to entirely remember, even though

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it's only 50, 60 years ago,

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but back then, millions of people regarded houses like this as relics.

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Of an age that they wanted to escape from, not commemorate.

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A year after they moved in, Beryl gave birth to her son, Bill,

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the child she had always wanted.

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By fleeing the inner city, the Quayles were typical of the age.

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The buses that John drove connected Liverpool to a whole series

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of newly built settlements.

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Housing developments were springing up in outlying towns

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like Speke, Kirkby and Halewood.

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New industrial estates provided jobs for their residents.

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According to a post-war survey,

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52% of women wanted to live in a suburb or small town.

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This is the Daily Mail Book Of Britain's Post-War Homes,

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based on the ideas and opinions of four-and-a-half million women.

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And there's a lovely quote here, it says,

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"Today, the women of the city are crying aloud, 'give us space,

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" 'space in which to breathe, space in which to bring up our children,

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" 'space in which to live, move and have our being.' "

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After John and Beryl Quayle's departure, the house was rented out

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to a succession of different people.

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The landlords changed too.

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When the Stott family left after 15 years in the house,

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62 Falkner Street was sold to a local investment company.

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Then came the '60s.

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There was an explosion of painting, music, poetry and counterculture

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from the coffee shops, pubs and art studios of Liverpool.

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How can we account for this great outburst of creativity

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in this city at that moment?

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Well, for a start, there were lots of young people in the population,

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thanks to the post-war baby boom.

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And Liverpool being a port town, had always had strong connections to the

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wider world and it absorbed lots of cultural influences.

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But more than that, Liverpool has always had a very strong sense of

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its own identity.

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A creative, nonconformist streak

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that's often found expression in the arts.

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Not far from the house lives June Furlong.

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She has vivid memories of the neighbourhood at the time.

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If you walked that way, you get into all the art establishments.

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You walked that way, you get into the Liverpool University.

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And then you walked that way, and you got to the Rialto.

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So it was all going on.

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There were social clubs that were quite nice along there.

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You just go up here and turn left - Falkner Square...

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..and that Embassy Club...

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In the daytime, it was a sort of eating club, you know,

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dining club and all that.

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At night, it was changed completely.

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I'd go with a big group of artists

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because you could get a drink after hours.

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And the Gladray Club in Upper Parliament Street, oh, God.

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I mean, the things you'd see there, we'd only go in for a drink.

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That was all swinging.

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It was a very good scene, really, in the '60s.

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The nearby social clubs reflected the make-up of the neighbourhood.

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Decades of immigration had led to a fantastic diversity

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in the population.

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So there was the Nigerian Club,

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the Somali,

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the West Indian,

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the Polish and Mediterranean clubs,

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along with many others.

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They played the latest imported records -

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R&B, ska, jazz and calypso.

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In the hipster area of Falkner Street,

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there were some famous neighbours.

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John Lennon moved with his new wife, Cynthia, to number 36.

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June got to know Lennon when she was working as a life model

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at the art school.

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I remember sitting in the room where I had sat all my life,

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the door opened, burst open, and the arrival of John Lennon, you see.

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And he looked at me and said, "My name is John Lennon,

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"I'm enrolled to do a fine art degree here,

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"and I'll be drawing you.

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"Is that all right?" I said, "Well, that's all right, you know,

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"get yourself an easel, get a chair and sit down."

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He was very entertaining, but he used the place

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like a big cocktail party, you know.

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I mean, if I had kept all those letters that John Lennon,

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who came here regularly looking for me to go to parties,

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if I'd kept all those notes from him,

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I'd be in blooming South Kensington now, I wouldn't be sitting here.

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The street was at the centre of the city's social,

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cultural and intellectual scene.

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But the '60s didn't swing for everyone.

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In 1962, a family moved into the house.

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-Robert.

-Hi, David.

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-Hi, nice to meet you.

-And you.

-And this is...

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-This is where you were born?

-I was born in that very house, yeah.

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Robert Mercer Jr was born soon after his family moved into the house.

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He spent the first seven years of his life here.

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His father, Robert, did casual jobs,

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his mother, Dorothy, was a former nurse.

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He had three siblings, Trevor, Sandra and Jackie.

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And what about the community that lived here? What sort of people had come to Falkner Street

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-and the streets around?

-Well, there was a mix, really.

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I mean, next door and around the corner in Bedford Street was a

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friend of my mother's - Alice and her husband.

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They were from Jamaica. He was a docker.

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It was a nice community, you know, no problems.

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It was really nice.

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A nice mix of the different people.

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Different ages, as well.

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-Shall we go and see...

-Certainly, yeah, let's go in.

-..what it looks like now?

-Yeah.

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Wow! It looks a lot smaller.

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-The house looks smaller?

-Yeah, well, I was seven when I left, wasn't I.

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So, bound to be.

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Hey, look at that, original, still.

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Still the same original staircase that was fitted here.

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The family rented two rooms and a landing on the first floor.

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This is where we slept, in here.

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The year after they moved in, Dorothy had a fifth child,

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and soon seven family members shared this space.

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-This was a bedroom?

-Yeah, with a difference.

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It had a partition wall in.

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Up, along and then down, with a doorway about here.

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Mum and Dad slept in a bed there, and all five kids slept in there.

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-Five siblings?

-Yeah. So they could watch telly as well as us.

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-The television...

-The television was about there, yeah.

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Where's the bathroom?

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Well, no bathroom. It's just a corridor,

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at the end of the corridor was a toilet.

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-Where did you wash?

-Well, we'd wash in the sink.

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We were only little kids, so we would fit in the sink.

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The Mercers' situation was mirrored all over the neighbourhood.

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Families crammed into decaying,

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old houses with nothing but the most basic facilities.

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70% of the city's old housing was regarded as substandard.

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A massive slum clearance programme saw houses demolished and residents

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moved to new high-rise and overspill estates.

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But the speed of rebuilding utterly failed to keep pace with demolition.

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18,000 households remained on the list for council housing.

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And huge gaps began to appear in the once-elegant terraces

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around Falkner Street.

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I would sit on the field, we used to have bonfires.

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-When you say field, you mean an area that was bombed?

-Bombed-out.

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-It's hardly countryside!

-You mean a bomb site!

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Yeah, a bomb site, yeah. Opposite, there was a little

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corner shop, stood on its own.

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Tobacconist/sweet shop, you used to go in there for sweets.

0:21:110:21:13

Stood on its own cos everything else around you was bombed-out?

0:21:130:21:16

Everything else, yeah. Stairs going up into the shop.

0:21:160:21:18

Certain things stick in your mind, don't they?

0:21:180:21:21

I've got this picture, which is from the late '60s,

0:21:210:21:23

taken in Liverpool.

0:21:230:21:25

Do you recognise these sort of conditions?

0:21:250:21:27

Yeah. The oven there, the stove on the landing, just outside there.

0:21:270:21:32

-Because there is no kitchen?

-Yeah.

0:21:320:21:34

Exactly like that.

0:21:340:21:36

We'd get tinned potatoes, meats, peas,

0:21:360:21:39

put them all in the pan and make, like, a stew.

0:21:390:21:42

And it's tinned food because I'm not seeing a fridge.

0:21:420:21:44

No, never had a fridge.

0:21:440:21:46

So...

0:21:470:21:48

It was just them times, wasn't it, you know?

0:21:480:21:51

Even though it wasn't the best conditions, was it fun being here as a kid?

0:21:510:21:54

Oh, yeah. It's home, isn't it?

0:21:540:21:56

If you didn't live here and then come here you'd think, "What a slum that is,"

0:21:560:21:59

type thing, wouldn't you? No, it was fantastic. We loved it.

0:21:590:22:02

In 1969, after seven years in the house,

0:22:050:22:08

the family moved out to a new home,

0:22:080:22:10

16 miles away in Runcorn.

0:22:100:22:12

After years of casual work,

0:22:180:22:20

Robert's father had got a new job at a chemical works.

0:22:200:22:23

The year that the Mercers left,

0:22:280:22:30

a photographer was travelling around Britain.

0:22:300:22:33

He'd been sent by the housing charity Shelter to all the most deprived parts of the country

0:22:330:22:38

to take photographs of the conditions there.

0:22:380:22:41

And perhaps, inevitably,

0:22:410:22:42

that journey took him to Liverpool 8 and to Falkner Street,

0:22:420:22:46

where he took a couple photographs, including this tragic image

0:22:460:22:50

of a young girl and her baby sister.

0:22:500:22:53

It looks like they got dressed up to have their photograph taken,

0:22:530:22:56

and yet they're standing in appalling conditions.

0:22:560:23:00

Broken windows, damp running down the walls.

0:23:000:23:03

These are the conditions of Falkner Street at the end of the 1960s

0:23:030:23:07

and the beginning of the 1970s.

0:23:070:23:09

This could be a Warsaw in 1944, but it isn't.

0:23:140:23:18

It's my own city, Liverpool, in 1972.

0:23:180:23:21

By the '70s, slum clearance schemes had moved 160,000 people

0:23:210:23:26

out of central Liverpool.

0:23:260:23:29

Entire streets were now abandoned.

0:23:290:23:31

This coincided with a downturn in the local economy.

0:23:330:23:36

There were multiple factory closures, huge sectors of the docks,

0:23:370:23:41

once the lifeblood of the city, were shut down.

0:23:410:23:44

In Liverpool 8, the neighbourhood around Falkner Street,

0:23:450:23:48

unemployment was rife.

0:23:480:23:50

There's no jobs anyway.

0:23:520:23:54

There is only them scheme jobs, and they're not...

0:23:540:23:56

Are you resigned to the fact that you'll never get a job?

0:23:580:24:00

-Yeah.

-Really?

0:24:000:24:02

62 Falkner Street in the midst of this blighted,

0:24:040:24:07

forgotten neighbourhood was sold again.

0:24:070:24:10

Another company, Rankmore Properties, bought it in 1971

0:24:100:24:15

for £620.

0:24:150:24:17

Around two thirds of what it had cost back in the 1840s.

0:24:180:24:22

As far as tenants go, there don't appear to have been any.

0:24:240:24:27

On the electoral roll from the years 1970 to 1977,

0:24:280:24:32

there is no listing for number 62.

0:24:320:24:35

And if the house is vacant in those years in Liverpool,

0:24:350:24:38

then it was at serious risk of being demolished.

0:24:380:24:42

But there was hope for number 62.

0:24:430:24:46

Attitudes towards old Georgian and Victorian houses were beginning to

0:24:460:24:50

change, because many of the new estates that had been built to replace the

0:24:500:24:55

so-called slums had turned out even worse.

0:24:550:24:59

They had been built in haste.

0:24:590:25:00

They were unpleasant to live in.

0:25:000:25:02

Their residents felt isolated.

0:25:020:25:05

Have you any criticisms about the new sort of life you're living here?

0:25:050:25:08

You come out onto the landing to come to the shops,

0:25:080:25:10

you never speak to anyone.

0:25:100:25:12

You know, I never see my neighbours at all.

0:25:120:25:15

A few years ago, the architects and planners thought they'd got the

0:25:150:25:18

answer to all the problems of urban deprivation.

0:25:180:25:21

They roared their bulldozers up and down working-class streets,

0:25:210:25:25

destroying the traditional communities.

0:25:250:25:27

And now, while those architects are no doubt sitting at home planning their next project,

0:25:280:25:33

people have to remain in what's left of their last experiment.

0:25:330:25:36

It's not surprising some of the people get pretty angry about it,

0:25:360:25:40

not surprising to find messages scrawled up on the wall,

0:25:400:25:42

messages like, "Get us kids out of here".

0:25:420:25:45

What did this all mean for 62 Falkner Street?

0:25:500:25:53

I've unearthed a trail of evidence revealing what happened to it next.

0:25:530:25:58

Two events took place in the 1970s that were to save

0:25:590:26:02

number 62 Falkner Street.

0:26:020:26:04

The first took place in 1975,

0:26:040:26:06

when an inspector from the Department of the Environment walked down the

0:26:060:26:10

street and decided that all of the houses were of such architectural

0:26:100:26:14

significance that they had to be saved,

0:26:140:26:16

that they had to become listed buildings, Grade II.

0:26:160:26:19

And here's the listing for number 62.

0:26:190:26:23

There's not much here,

0:26:230:26:24

a brief description of the basement window band,

0:26:240:26:28

wedge lintels, the Doric doorcases,

0:26:280:26:31

but what this listing meant was escape from the wrecking ball.

0:26:310:26:34

The house was now protected in law for future generations.

0:26:360:26:41

Anyone altering or extending it without permission

0:26:410:26:44

could incur a fine, even a prison sentence.

0:26:440:26:48

The second event took place in 1976.

0:26:490:26:53

I have uncovered a planning application,

0:26:530:26:56

a proposal to turn 62 Falkner Street

0:26:560:26:58

from a single dwelling house into three flats.

0:26:580:27:02

It's been lodged by a social housing organisation called the

0:27:020:27:06

Liverpool Housing Trust.

0:27:060:27:08

During the '70s, the trust bought up hundreds of old empty houses in

0:27:110:27:15

Liverpool 8 and refurbished them for rental to low-income tenants.

0:27:150:27:19

And 62 Falkner Street was one such house,

0:27:210:27:24

which they bought for just £400.

0:27:240:27:27

I've tracked down their former director.

0:27:290:27:32

What happened was a recognition that actually investing money in existing

0:27:330:27:38

housing could save it,

0:27:380:27:41

and so Liverpool Housing Trust ended up buying

0:27:410:27:45

about 150 of these large properties, which made about 400 flats,

0:27:450:27:51

and, all told, the whole area was systematically tackled

0:27:510:27:56

over a period of about ten years.

0:27:560:27:58

These are the plans that were produced by the Liverpool Housing Trust

0:28:010:28:04

for the conversion of 62 Falkner Street.

0:28:040:28:08

Each floor is to become a self-contained, one-bedroom flat,

0:28:080:28:12

with its own bathroom and its own kitchen.

0:28:120:28:14

The basement, where the kitchen and scullery used to be,

0:28:180:28:21

was sealed up and used for storage.

0:28:210:28:23

The ground floor, originally the dining room and morning room,

0:28:250:28:28

became Flat 1.

0:28:280:28:30

The first floor, designed as a drawing room and master bedroom,

0:28:350:28:38

became Flat 2.

0:28:380:28:40

And the small attic bedrooms became Flat 3.

0:28:450:28:48

Now what's of course lost in all of this are the original features,

0:28:520:28:56

the ceiling rose, the cornicing, the panelled doors,

0:28:560:29:00

all the things that really mattered to the first Victorian owners

0:29:000:29:04

of this house are, I'm sad to say,

0:29:040:29:06

stripped out, put in a skip and thrown away.

0:29:060:29:10

Of course, now we value period features and houses,

0:29:200:29:24

so we might think of it as cultural vandalism,

0:29:240:29:27

but I think if we see it through the lens of the time,

0:29:270:29:30

it was about looking forwards.

0:29:300:29:33

And of course, lots of the kinds of furniture that people were now using

0:29:330:29:37

were a bit incompatible with these older houses.

0:29:370:29:40

What we wanted to do is put in these lovely, tall, fitted units,

0:29:450:29:50

and then the focal point of the room really changed, as well.

0:29:500:29:55

The family would no longer sit around the fireplace,

0:29:590:30:02

they would be much more likely to all crowd around the television as

0:30:020:30:06

the focal point. So maybe there was no longer the need for this kind of

0:30:060:30:11

decorative focus in the room.

0:30:110:30:13

By 1979, the conversion was complete.

0:30:240:30:27

The most radical transformation in the house's 130-year history.

0:30:280:30:33

The first tenants moved in.

0:30:340:30:36

An elderly railway engineer lived in Flat 1 on the ground floor.

0:30:370:30:42

A single woman, remembered only as Miss French,

0:30:440:30:47

lived in Flat 2 on the first floor.

0:30:470:30:49

And on the top floor lived Brian Nicholson,

0:30:520:30:54

who worked as a printer for the local paper.

0:30:540:30:57

We tracked Brian down, and his ex-partner, Gale Ewart,

0:30:590:31:03

who still live locally.

0:31:030:31:05

So what first brought you to Falkner Street?

0:31:050:31:08

I was lucky enough to get a flat, the offer of a flat,

0:31:080:31:12

from Liverpool Housing Trust, which was 62 Falkner Street.

0:31:120:31:16

So I moved in. That would probably be '79, somewhere around there,

0:31:160:31:20

so I would be about 28 at the time.

0:31:200:31:22

It was a nice place.

0:31:220:31:24

And then, sometime later, you moved in with me, didn't you?

0:31:240:31:27

Yeah, I moved in in about 1980, when I was 19.

0:31:270:31:31

I lived about half a mile away in the centre of Toxteth.

0:31:310:31:34

I eventually moved into that flat from home.

0:31:340:31:37

So this period in your life was the beginning of your time together as a

0:31:370:31:40

-couple.

-Mm-hm.

-We lived our lives, and then I got pregnant,

0:31:400:31:44

and we had a daughter there, which was fabulous, wasn't it?

0:31:440:31:47

In 1981, Brian and Gale brought their baby daughter, Kerry, home

0:31:490:31:53

to their tiny one-bedroom flat.

0:31:530:31:56

So this is Brian and I at the time, with our daughter in the bath.

0:31:590:32:04

And so this is her with our gorgeous fireplace.

0:32:040:32:07

It's amazing to see the inside of the house from that period.

0:32:070:32:10

-It was a nice flat. It was a happy place.

-Yeah.

0:32:120:32:15

A new chapter in Brian and Gale's life was just beginning.

0:32:160:32:20

But outside their front door,

0:32:230:32:24

the area still faced desperate social problems.

0:32:240:32:28

One commentator said that a pall of defeat hung more heavily over the

0:32:290:32:33

neighbourhood than any place he'd ever visited.

0:32:330:32:37

Unemployment was running at nearly 40%,

0:32:380:32:41

and the local black community faced discrimination and harassment.

0:32:410:32:45

In July 1981, a few minutes' walk from Falkner Street,

0:32:480:32:52

the arrest of one young black man led to a scuffle

0:32:520:32:55

between police and the public.

0:32:550:32:58

This sparked a sequence of events that became known

0:33:000:33:03

as the Toxteth Riots.

0:33:030:33:05

# Babylon's burning

0:33:070:33:09

# You're burning the street

0:33:100:33:12

# You're burning your houses... #

0:33:130:33:15

'More than 100 white and coloured youths fought a pitched battle

0:33:150:33:18

'against the police.

0:33:180:33:20

'Ammunition was all around in derelict sites and empty houses.

0:33:200:33:24

'Police faced a hail of stones, bottles, iron bars and petrol bombs.'

0:33:240:33:30

What can you remember of that?

0:33:300:33:31

-Do you remember we were sitting in The Clock pub?

-Yeah.

0:33:330:33:37

We were sitting in the pub, and we were looking out,

0:33:370:33:39

and there was a line of policemen with shields one side,

0:33:390:33:42

and a gang of young men the other side, sort of attacking them.

0:33:420:33:45

The police lines were shoved further and further back.

0:33:450:33:48

I can recall at one point bricks and things coming back over the police

0:33:490:33:53

line, they were actually throwing bricks back at the people who were throwing them at them.

0:33:530:33:56

A very strange night.

0:33:560:33:58

# ..with anxiety

0:33:580:34:00

# Babylon's burning

0:34:000:34:02

# Babylon's burning... #

0:34:020:34:04

The next morning, when you woke up, what did Toxteth look like?

0:34:040:34:08

It was the smell you noticed first before you actually came out,

0:34:080:34:10

you could actually smell burnt rubber, you know, that strange smell.

0:34:100:34:14

And there were cars and things dotted around.

0:34:140:34:17

The tarmac was just all burnt on Parliament Street,

0:34:170:34:21

and the buses had stopped running that way.

0:34:210:34:23

It was a main road through.

0:34:230:34:25

I remember the milk floats.

0:34:250:34:27

A dairy was broken into, and you know the electric milk floats,

0:34:270:34:30

they were actually driven at the police.

0:34:300:34:32

There were tensions the whole time, you know, my whole life as a child,

0:34:320:34:35

so I understood, we both understood why the riots at the time happened,

0:34:350:34:40

because of the way people were treated, and the way

0:34:400:34:44

society had sort of left local people behind.

0:34:440:34:48

It was not a good time to be young and black, I don't think,

0:34:480:34:52

in the early '80s.

0:34:520:34:54

So we understood, and we were sort of very aware of what was happening.

0:34:540:34:59

After the first four days of rioting,

0:35:020:35:04

much of the main battle ground on Upper Parliament Street

0:35:040:35:07

was in ruins.

0:35:070:35:09

150 buildings had been burnt down.

0:35:120:35:15

Shops looted.

0:35:170:35:19

And injuries sustained, on both sides.

0:35:210:35:24

The causes of this mass uprising would be debated for months to come.

0:35:280:35:33

Members of the community were in no doubt about why it had happened.

0:35:330:35:37

Jimi Jagne was just 17 at the time.

0:35:390:35:41

What were the difficulties facing people living around here and in

0:35:430:35:46

Liverpool 8 in the years leading up to the riots?

0:35:460:35:49

There was no desire by the authorities

0:35:490:35:51

to assist people in breaking out of the community

0:35:510:35:54

and, in fact, on a social level,

0:35:540:35:56

whenever young black people tried to venture outside,

0:35:560:36:00

the racism that they'd encounter in surrounding districts was such that,

0:36:000:36:04

you know, you yearn for home, sweet home.

0:36:040:36:07

So you'd find yourself pushed back to Liverpool 8 because the

0:36:070:36:11

-welcome outside wasn't exactly warm?

-It was not good at all.

0:36:110:36:13

The biggest problem was the relationship between

0:36:160:36:19

the black community and the police.

0:36:190:36:21

The police in this city were practically masters of their own universe.

0:36:210:36:27

They were a very powerful police force.

0:36:300:36:33

They felt untouchable. We knew that they had a problem with us as black youths,

0:36:330:36:36

because they saw us basically as troublemakers.

0:36:360:36:38

How had things got that bad between the police and the black community?

0:36:410:36:45

It had always been bad for as long as I remember,

0:36:450:36:47

but growing up as a kid during the '70s,

0:36:470:36:50

it was obvious that there was a difficult situation with the police around here.

0:36:500:36:54

Their presence was felt all the time,

0:36:540:36:56

they'd be driving around in vehicles,

0:36:560:36:58

and you'd always hear stories of kids and teenagers and older people

0:36:580:37:03

being stopped on the streets by the police.

0:37:030:37:05

The Merseyside Police force had these problems,

0:37:070:37:09

now not all officers saw black people as criminals,

0:37:090:37:12

and not all the people who were living in L8 were black,

0:37:120:37:15

so this was a mixed community, wasn't it?

0:37:150:37:17

That's right, it was a very mixed community.

0:37:170:37:20

In terms of race, we were living really comfortably here,

0:37:200:37:23

everybody seemed to understand what the issues were for the next person,

0:37:230:37:27

and in fact those same issues more than likely impacted on yourself,

0:37:270:37:31

if not someone else in your family.

0:37:310:37:32

So there was no reason, really,

0:37:320:37:34

why there had to be any troubles here between people of different races.

0:37:340:37:40

We got along just great.

0:37:400:37:42

The disturbances of that summer, not just in Liverpool 8

0:37:430:37:47

but in Brixton, Moss Side and elsewhere,

0:37:470:37:50

were the result of years of simmering frustration and anger.

0:37:500:37:54

What we had was a system that seemed to rail against us so completely

0:37:560:38:00

that we had no outlets. There was no way that we could express ourselves,

0:38:000:38:04

outside of this particular situation.

0:38:040:38:06

There were no guarantees that all that we were going to fix or remedy

0:38:060:38:10

our problem, but you had to die trying.

0:38:100:38:13

Looking back now, 35 years later,

0:38:130:38:15

what was the significance of those events?

0:38:150:38:18

Although this neighbourhood suffered for so many years as a consequence

0:38:180:38:21

of those riots, it was a pivotal point in race relations in this country.

0:38:210:38:25

It was brought to the attention of the whole country that we had problems here.

0:38:250:38:28

The riots of 1981 were a low point in the relationship between the

0:38:320:38:36

police and the Liverpool black community.

0:38:360:38:39

But they also marked perhaps the lowest point in the decline of

0:38:390:38:43

Liverpool as a city, because in the aftermath of the riots,

0:38:430:38:47

a programme of urban regeneration and renewal was put in place.

0:38:470:38:51

There was no overnight transformation in Liverpool 8.

0:38:540:38:58

Social problems persist to the present day,

0:38:580:39:01

but the recovery had begun.

0:39:010:39:03

Money flowed into Liverpool to tackle infrastructure,

0:39:040:39:07

housing and employment.

0:39:070:39:09

More than 850 acres of dockland,

0:39:120:39:15

most of which had been closed for years,

0:39:150:39:17

was restored and reopened.

0:39:170:39:20

The city's famous Albert Dock began to trade again,

0:39:200:39:23

though the money came now from tourism, not shipping.

0:39:230:39:27

62 Falkner Street continued its existence as social housing.

0:39:300:39:35

The tenants during the late '80s describe it as a happy place.

0:39:380:39:42

Life followed familiar routines.

0:39:430:39:45

Visits from family, nights at the pub.

0:39:450:39:48

In the early '90s, I moved to Liverpool to study history at the university.

0:39:550:40:00

At that time, the area around Falkner Street was run-down,

0:40:000:40:04

but it was regarded as exciting, diverse and Bohemian.

0:40:040:40:07

So the next wave of people who were drawn to the area came not just

0:40:090:40:12

because of the cheap rents, but because of its vibrant culture.

0:40:120:40:16

And they weren't labourers and bus drivers, they were sculptors,

0:40:160:40:19

musicians and poets.

0:40:190:40:21

Among these new tenants was Jeff Young, who moved in in 1992.

0:40:250:40:31

Of all the people I've traced,

0:40:310:40:33

he was the easiest to find because he's an acclaimed playwright

0:40:330:40:37

and screenwriter.

0:40:370:40:38

What drew you to living in this part of Liverpool?

0:40:390:40:42

I just always wanted to live in Liverpool 8,

0:40:420:40:45

from when I was a kid.

0:40:450:40:46

I was drawn to it romantically, physically, architecturally.

0:40:460:40:50

The life on the streets, the whole West Indian feel to it, you know.

0:40:500:40:53

But many people outside of Liverpool would have thought that's where the

0:40:530:40:56

-riots were.

-Yeah, to me, the riots kind of fed into that atmosphere,

0:40:560:41:01

you know. You could feel the energy of the riots was still there.

0:41:010:41:05

A romantic, poetic, kind of Bohemian beatnik thing,

0:41:050:41:09

a little bit edgy, you know, after dark.

0:41:090:41:11

You know, but that's exciting, you know.

0:41:110:41:15

So this is you back in the '90s?

0:41:150:41:17

This is me probably in the mid-'90s, slightly wild.

0:41:170:41:22

Wild-eyed, glassy-eyed, I think.

0:41:220:41:26

And which flat did you live in?

0:41:260:41:27

I lived in flat two, on the first floor.

0:41:270:41:29

I've been looking trying to find some photographs.

0:41:290:41:31

These were both in the living room.

0:41:310:41:33

-That's me and my...

-You and your cats?

0:41:330:41:35

Cats and my dad. My reluctant father in the photo.

0:41:350:41:38

Then, if you looked at the front of the house, it was intact as a

0:41:390:41:43

Georgian facade, as a Georgian building.

0:41:430:41:45

Inside, it was like living in cardboard boxes, you know?

0:41:450:41:48

The, kind of, dividing walls were paper-thin,

0:41:480:41:51

and it was almost like the identikit structure that they slotted into the

0:41:510:41:54

inside of the buildings, you know?

0:41:540:41:56

As a freelance writer, the flat was Jeff's office,

0:41:590:42:02

the neighbourhood was where he found his inspiration.

0:42:020:42:05

So yeah, I was working as a writer.

0:42:060:42:08

I was working as a stand-up poet,

0:42:080:42:10

and then I got into theatre pretty quickly.

0:42:100:42:12

But it was the hanging-outness of it.

0:42:120:42:15

You'd get up late, you'd get some breakfast together, and then when it

0:42:150:42:18

seemed like a sensible enough time, you go to the pub.

0:42:180:42:21

You know, and you'd meet other people in the pub.

0:42:210:42:23

And you'd be sitting with a painter, or a musician and you'd talk.

0:42:230:42:26

And so, that was it. That was the height of the dream for me.

0:42:260:42:29

I was a deadbeat.

0:42:300:42:31

Can you remember the other sort of people who were living in the flats

0:42:310:42:34

-in Falkner Street?

-Yeah, you know, it's fluid, it changed all the time.

0:42:340:42:38

Upstairs was a musician and his daughter.

0:42:380:42:42

And downstairs was a guy who ran a tapas joint

0:42:420:42:46

up in the business quarter.

0:42:460:42:49

And he would play the organ in the evenings.

0:42:490:42:51

So quite often we would hear the music coming up from the...

0:42:510:42:55

Through the cardboard floors, you know.

0:42:550:42:57

He was very separate, he was very self-contained.

0:43:000:43:03

You would hardly ever see him.

0:43:030:43:05

But... I didn't get to know him.

0:43:050:43:07

I start a search for the mystery musical neighbour

0:43:110:43:14

from the ground-floor flat.

0:43:140:43:16

The electoral roll reveals his name, Mark Merino.

0:43:190:43:22

A native of Merseyside, of dual English and Spanish Basque heritage.

0:43:220:43:26

Although it's listed in an old phone directory from 1993,

0:43:280:43:32

Mark's restaurant no longer exists.

0:43:320:43:34

But then, I track down Mark's younger sister, Miranda,

0:43:360:43:39

who agrees to meet me.

0:43:390:43:42

My brother spent a bit of time living down in London

0:43:420:43:45

in the early '80s, and then he moved back up to Liverpool -

0:43:450:43:49

Falkner Street... and started the tapas bar.

0:43:490:43:53

Oh, it was just fabulous, the food, the atmosphere.

0:43:580:44:01

All the chefs were Basque.

0:44:010:44:03

Mark made a lot of effort.

0:44:030:44:05

You know, he would be up early in the mornings to go to the fish market, you know.

0:44:050:44:09

And he drove all the way to Valencia in Spain

0:44:090:44:13

to get the jamon serrano on the bone, you know,

0:44:130:44:16

because that is proper, proper, proper food.

0:44:160:44:20

And he'd put on flamenco evenings or piano evenings,

0:44:200:44:27

great musicians would come and play.

0:44:270:44:29

He was extreme and extravagant...

0:44:290:44:32

..but all in really good ways.

0:44:340:44:37

Mark's restaurant operated out of this building in central Liverpool.

0:44:410:44:45

His old friend Kath Charters used to visit back in the '90s.

0:44:450:44:49

So what was this place like when it was Mark's tapas bar?

0:44:530:44:57

Oh, it was really, really amazing because it was kind of a beautiful

0:44:570:45:01

spot in amongst a lot of not-quite-so-beautiful spots.

0:45:010:45:05

And it was, as well as being the first tapas bar,

0:45:090:45:11

it was part of the gay scene in Liverpool.

0:45:110:45:13

It was part of the gay scene in Liverpool,

0:45:130:45:15

I mean, all the piano players were gay, all the staff were gay,

0:45:150:45:19

and it was a place where people could go and be fed beautifully,

0:45:190:45:23

maybe have a little bit of quiet time, also have a little bit of fun time.

0:45:230:45:26

It was enjoyable and it was creative.

0:45:260:45:29

And what was the gay scene like in Liverpool in those days?

0:45:290:45:32

It was very joyous and very raucous.

0:45:320:45:34

I mean, there's always been and still is a camaraderie

0:45:340:45:39

in the gay community in Liverpool

0:45:390:45:41

that I don't personally experience anywhere else.

0:45:410:45:44

But in 1993, while the restaurant thrived,

0:45:470:45:50

Liverpool's gay community was in the grip of the HIV epidemic.

0:45:500:45:55

From just a handful of cases a decade earlier,

0:45:560:45:59

there were now around 150 new diagnoses every year.

0:45:590:46:04

Many of the people in Liverpool most affected by the virus lived within a

0:46:050:46:09

short distance of the house.

0:46:090:46:11

What was the impact of HIV on the gay community here in Liverpool?

0:46:140:46:18

It was very devastating, as it was in lots of places.

0:46:180:46:22

I mean, where I lived and where Mark lived,

0:46:220:46:25

there was maybe, like, five to seven streets around that area

0:46:250:46:28

where numbers of gay men lived, and you would just kind of begin

0:46:280:46:33

to be aware that you weren't seeing that person on the street any more.

0:46:330:46:37

There were just people, young men, dying all the time.

0:46:370:46:41

We were literally attending a funeral every couple of weeks,

0:46:410:46:45

if not weekly. And there was that sense of desperation at the time

0:46:450:46:49

that people were not going to recover from this.

0:46:490:46:52

Kath worked for a local HIV charity supporting people

0:46:560:47:00

living with the virus.

0:47:000:47:02

We had a very big therapeutic

0:47:040:47:07

team at that time.

0:47:070:47:09

And the people used to go and assist people with their shopping.

0:47:090:47:13

Maybe assist people cleaning, decorating the house.

0:47:130:47:17

Those kind of tasks that people may no longer be able to do.

0:47:170:47:21

But equally, that family members might be afraid to do.

0:47:210:47:24

Because people, even relatives, didn't want to go near their...

0:47:240:47:29

-Anyone who had HIV.

-Yeah, and there was that whole thing...

0:47:290:47:32

-And touch them.

-Yeah, or you might share cups with them, and that kind of thing.

0:47:320:47:36

This was thought to be a route of transmission, in those days,

0:47:360:47:40

by, you know, the outside world really.

0:47:400:47:42

In 1994, Kath came to 62 Falkner Street to support a new client.

0:47:470:47:52

Mark himself had contracted HIV.

0:47:520:47:56

Mark was someone you had known from this bar, from his restaurant.

0:47:580:48:02

-Yeah.

-Then you got to know him in a different way, through your work.

0:48:020:48:05

Then I got to know him in a different way, yeah.

0:48:050:48:08

I was going out with one of the woman here in the bar.

0:48:080:48:11

I know the people who were actually associated with the bar would go

0:48:110:48:15

around to Mark's house when he was getting ill and we would cook and

0:48:150:48:18

talk to him and, you know, kind of be with him.

0:48:180:48:20

Mark got increasingly frail and he wanted to eat particular things

0:48:230:48:28

cos his big thing was to feed himself and food was his medicine.

0:48:280:48:34

So, we really spent a lot of time with him at home.

0:48:350:48:38

He didn't particularly want to be in hospital,

0:48:400:48:42

had a bit of an aversion to hospitals. He wanted to be at home.

0:48:420:48:45

So he was determined to spend his... What time he had left in Falkner Street?

0:48:450:48:49

Yeah, he wanted to be there.

0:48:490:48:51

-So you would sit in front of those big sash windows and...

-Yeah, yeah.

0:48:510:48:54

-And eat and talk?

-Yeah, we talked a lot.

0:48:540:48:58

At that time, in the early '90s, HIV treatments were largely ineffective.

0:49:000:49:06

The majority of people diagnosed went on to develop AIDS-related illnesses.

0:49:060:49:11

Mark's health went into rapid decline.

0:49:120:49:14

He was living in Falkner Street and he was just getting progressively

0:49:160:49:20

more ill. His stints in hospital would be longer,

0:49:200:49:24

and then the time out in between

0:49:240:49:26

when he went back into hospital would be less and less.

0:49:260:49:31

He started deteriorating quite rapidly.

0:49:310:49:34

The end was very, very unpleasant and very painful for him.

0:49:370:49:42

And for the observers as well.

0:49:420:49:46

It was tragic.

0:49:470:49:49

We didn't waste time in being morbid.

0:49:530:49:56

We made every single moment

0:49:580:50:02

that we could spend together...

0:50:020:50:05

..as wonderful as possible.

0:50:060:50:08

Because it was going to have to last me a long time, those memories.

0:50:090:50:13

Yeah.

0:50:150:50:17

Mark died in November 1994.

0:50:190:50:22

He was 36.

0:50:230:50:25

Mark was not the first resident of 62 Falkner Street

0:50:360:50:40

to have had his life cut short by an epidemic disease.

0:50:400:50:45

But somehow, when such a death happens in the Victorian Age it

0:50:450:50:49

comes as no surprise to us.

0:50:490:50:51

And that's perhaps what was so shocking and disorienting about

0:50:520:50:56

AIDS and HIV, was that it took place at a time and to a generation

0:50:560:51:02

who had got used to the idea that medicine would always have an answer.

0:51:020:51:07

We had grown accustomed to the idea that it was other people,

0:51:070:51:12

at other times in the past,

0:51:120:51:13

who lived under the shadow of epidemic disease and not us.

0:51:130:51:18

And it makes it very real to me

0:51:180:51:21

to think that when I was a student living in this city,

0:51:210:51:23

my bus between university and home went down the bottom

0:51:230:51:26

of the street, that Mark was in this room facing the reality

0:51:260:51:32

of what HIV and AIDS meant.

0:51:320:51:34

I watched it on the news, I worried about the reports,

0:51:340:51:37

for him it was all too real.

0:51:370:51:40

In the new millennium, 62 Falkner Street was home

0:51:470:51:50

to a new crop of tenants.

0:51:500:51:53

The house was now one of 16,000 properties owned

0:51:550:51:58

by the Liverpool Housing Trust.

0:51:580:52:00

But when their funding began to dwindle,

0:52:010:52:04

the trust took the decision to sell off their most valuable houses.

0:52:040:52:08

After 25 years as rented flats,

0:52:100:52:13

plans were drawn up to convert 62 Falkner Street

0:52:130:52:16

back into a single dwelling.

0:52:160:52:18

The basement became two bedrooms and a bathroom.

0:52:210:52:24

The ground floor became a family kitchen and reception room.

0:52:270:52:31

The first floor, a play room and second sitting room.

0:52:340:52:37

And the top floor, three bedrooms.

0:52:400:52:42

The Falkner Street of today is unrecognisable from the place it was

0:52:450:52:49

in previous decades.

0:52:490:52:51

Liverpool's Georgian and Victorian terraces are now amongst the most

0:52:520:52:56

desirable properties in the city.

0:52:560:52:58

Liverpool historian John Belchem lives in such a house himself.

0:53:000:53:04

Falkner Street, or at least the parts of it that survive, look today

0:53:040:53:09

as beautiful as they must've done when it was first built.

0:53:090:53:11

This has been, has it not, an amazing story of regeneration?

0:53:110:53:15

It is a very successful story of regeneration

0:53:150:53:18

and an area of regeneration to a city centre.

0:53:180:53:21

Yes, as tastes have changed and people have come to appreciate

0:53:210:53:24

Georgian, early-Victorian architecture, a lot of care has gone

0:53:240:53:28

into restoring them and making people realise that

0:53:280:53:31

the architectural aesthetics of this really do

0:53:310:53:33

make a lovely area in which to live.

0:53:330:53:36

It's hard to imagine that these beautiful houses were ever seen as

0:53:360:53:40

-not having enormous value, but they were.

-Indeed so,

0:53:400:53:43

because they were sort of in the wrong place at the wrong time, as it were.

0:53:430:53:47

But in a strange way it has come back full circle,

0:53:470:53:49

because that's what it was built to be.

0:53:490:53:52

Precisely, this was built to be exclusive.

0:53:520:53:54

I mean, it looks as if we might be going back that way.

0:53:540:53:56

So it is becoming more monocultural, and I think that is the downside

0:53:560:54:01

of what otherwise is a wonderful process.

0:54:010:54:04

So the sorts of people who can buy a house on Falkner Street today,

0:54:040:54:07

they are the modern equivalents of the Victorian merchants for whom

0:54:070:54:11

-these houses were first built.

-That is absolutely true.

0:54:110:54:14

Today, number 62 Falkner Street is home to Gaynor.

0:54:180:54:21

She lives here with her two children.

0:54:230:54:26

-Hello.

-Hello.

-How are you doing?

0:54:270:54:30

-All right, thank you. Come in.

-Nice to see you again.

0:54:300:54:32

So, tell me, how long have you lived here?

0:54:320:54:34

About seven-and-a-half years now.

0:54:340:54:37

We lived a little bit further out of Liverpool city centre but we

0:54:370:54:40

wanted to move into the city.

0:54:400:54:42

Just the character of the area, the space of the house,

0:54:420:54:46

so we could have friends and be hospitable and have lots of people around.

0:54:460:54:51

How much do know about the history of this house?

0:54:510:54:54

I don't really know much.

0:54:540:54:56

I know that the houses will have been very grand

0:54:560:55:02

when they were built.

0:55:020:55:04

And I know little bits because of what neighbours have said.

0:55:040:55:06

Erm...

0:55:060:55:08

But I don't really know.

0:55:080:55:09

So, shall we meet some of your forebears who have called this house their home?

0:55:090:55:14

-Yes, please.

-OK.

0:55:140:55:16

This house is almost 180 years old.

0:55:180:55:22

And the first resident moved in in November 1840,

0:55:220:55:25

and his name was Richard Glenton.

0:55:250:55:28

And this is a copy of the lease.

0:55:280:55:31

Oh, my goodness.

0:55:310:55:33

-So this is the first owner to live here.

-Gosh.

0:55:330:55:37

That is interesting.

0:55:370:55:39

132 people have lived in this house

0:55:420:55:45

from the year 1840 until now.

0:55:450:55:48

There may be more, who never appeared in the records.

0:55:490:55:52

Customs clerk Richard Glenton walked through this front door

0:55:540:55:57

when the house was brand-new.

0:55:570:55:59

Then came James and Ann Orr, former servants who made a fortune.

0:56:000:56:05

Wilfred Steele,

0:56:070:56:09

the cotton broker who deserted his family for a new life in America.

0:56:090:56:13

Widowed Elizabeth Bowes rented rooms to Danish immigrant Edward Lublin.

0:56:160:56:20

Ann Robinson,

0:56:240:56:25

the wife of the drowned watchmaker Alfred, gazed out of these windows.

0:56:250:56:29

The Snewing children slept in these rooms at the turn of the 20th century.

0:56:340:56:39

In the 1940s, Jack Greenall would have climbed these stairs

0:56:400:56:44

after a hard day at the docks.

0:56:440:56:46

And John and Beryl Quayle would have collected coal for their fire from

0:56:480:56:52

this basement.

0:56:520:56:54

Does this make you feel like you are part of a story?

0:56:540:56:57

Because you are one of these people that we have traced?

0:56:570:57:00

You are the latest chapter.

0:57:000:57:02

The history has been put here right in front of me.

0:57:030:57:06

And it is not until you hear stories like these folk here

0:57:060:57:10

that you realise that actually the variety of people that lived in the

0:57:100:57:13

house because of the changing times.

0:57:130:57:17

And actually it makes you think about the situations that they found

0:57:170:57:20

themselves in and how they went about their life,

0:57:200:57:22

and how they conducted themselves.

0:57:220:57:25

And what they thought was important.

0:57:250:57:27

You can empathize with the situations that they were in.

0:57:270:57:31

And that's, that's quite special.

0:57:310:57:34

It's the end of my time at 62 Falkner Street

0:57:370:57:40

uncovering the extraordinary life of this house

0:57:400:57:43

and the people who called it home.

0:57:430:57:46

Just like us, the residents of 62 Falkner Street lived in uncertain times.

0:57:480:57:53

They had no idea what events lay ahead of them and their lives were

0:57:530:57:58

gloriously messy and unpredictable.

0:57:580:58:02

But if you stand back and you look at this long chain of people spanning two centuries,

0:58:020:58:07

they are far more than just a random collection of individual stories.

0:58:070:58:12

The life of each resident is a chapter in a bigger historical story.

0:58:120:58:18

One that links the history of this house to Liverpool,

0:58:180:58:22

to Britain and the wider world.

0:58:220:58:24

And all of this told from behind one front door.

0:58:240:58:27

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