Idle Hands, Clenched Fists: The Depression in a Shipyard Town

by Stephen F. Kelly

In July 1981, violence erupted on to the streets in Liverpool. In Toxteth unemployed blacks and whites launched an assault on the Liverpool police. For much of July of that year Toxteth was embroiled in a savage, unrelenting battle. The conflagration was born out of the frustration and boredom of unemployment, with the police initially providing a target for the hostility of those on the dole. But there were some watching the rioting in Toxteth who had seen it all before. In the autumn of 1932, those on the dole in Birkenhead had reacted similarly. For a week they had battled with the local police as their frustration finally reached breaking point. So many stories of those earlier riots have been passed down by word of mouth, much of it to become myth, while very little that is accurate has actually been written about them. This book, for the first time, records in detail the events of that autumn on Mersey side.

105 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1987

About the author

Stephen F. Kelly is an English author and broadcaster, born in Liverpool, England in June 1946. He is the author of many books, mostly on football and in particular on Liverpool Football Club. He has written a number of biographies of football managers including Bill Shankly, Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish and Gerard Houllier as well as an oral history of Liverpool Football Club. He was one of the first writers in Britain to explore sport through oral history, not only with The Kop but also with his oral history of Manchester United Football Club, Red Voices, and a further book on Liverpool, The Bootroom Boys.

Reviews

[Jack Burnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

1920s birkenhead socialist history. vivid