The poster outside The Jacey cinema is advertising Black Orpheus, a 1959 film about the Rio Carnival, but this is 1970 and the end of an era for Brown’s department store. Clayton Square was once Liverpool’s finest city centre square but it had gradually become rough at the edges and in need of serious investment. Had it got it, back in the 1970s, we would be admiring an interesting mix of late-Georgian/Victorian buildings which would have softened the brutal impact of St John’s Market. What we got was a repeat of the same mistake. Rip out the character and erect a shopping mall which, after little more than 20 years, is already showing its age. As is always the case, commercial interests run rough-shod over the sensibilities of the public – the very people they are trying to entice into their crumbling malls. In truth the public has voted – which is why these ’shopping experiences’ are emptying out. Sadly, the damage is already done and no amount of hand-wringing can restore the period character to the area.
I suppose you have to be a certain age but back in the 1950s and early 60s, the Saturday film show aimed at children was a fantastic institution. The films usually had a Hollywood B movie feel to them, with a preponderance of ‘cowboys and indians’. For adults, the 1950s were, at the start, difficult years as the country adjusted to post-War life but talk to most of those (now 50+) who were kids at the time and a different picture emerges – of freedom to roam, play in the streets and be your own age.
The Gaumont, in Camden Street off London Road, was one of four to bear that name in Liverpool (the other three were at Dingle, Anfield and Allerton). Originally named the Trocadero, it was renamed the Gaumont in 1950 and was the first cinema in Liverpool to install CinemaScope with stereophonic sound (in 1954). Its close proximity to the Odeon on London Road was its undoing. The final straw came when the Odeon converted to a multi-screen (four screens by 1973). The Gaumont limped on until its final performance in May 1974. It had a brief life as a snooker hall but was demolished in 1996. It may have gone but for a generation of kids it was a magical place for a few hours every Saturday morning.
Here is another previously unpublished colour photograph of a prosperous looking London Road, in the days when it was an important shopping centre serving a densily populated neighbourhood. The year is 1960 judging by the film on show at the Odeon – Swiss Family Robinson – which was released that year.
What catches the eye are the well-maintained shops and the unmistakeable facade of the Legs of Man pub (with two workers precariously balanced on ladders – no Health and Safety in those days). I last called into the Legs back on June 26th 1996. The day was an unfortunate clash of two unmissable events – England v Germany at Euro 96 and Bob Dylan playing at the Empire in his first return to Liverpool since 1966. No contest – I watched Dylan play a scintillating set (with Al Kooper on organ) to a two thirds full auditorium. Fancy giving up your seat to watch the inevitable penalty shoot-out!
The Legs went soon after – as have most of the other buildings. London Road is a shadow of its former glory, with only TH Hughes offering any real connection with the past.
