There She Goes: Liverpool, A City on Its Own. The Long Decade: 1979-1993

by Simon Hughes

Liverpool was once one of the greatest cities in the British empire but it no longer feels like it is in England, if it ever did. It had retreated as a significant port after the Second World War and by 1979, it was already on the brink. What it needed was support but instead, a Conservative Party with aggressive new ideas allowed it to slide. Thirty-years after the Toxteth Riots, classified government papers revealed that the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was urged to abandon the city and embark on a programme of 'managed decline'. Why did Liverpool's fortunes change so dramatically? Why did it fight back when other cities did not? This is the untold story of what it was like for Liverpool's people and how the period defines who they are.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, 20th Century, Cities

283 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 26, 2019

About the author

Simon Peter Hughes is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor Peter Hughes, and the brother of historian Bettany Hughes.


Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

One man’s basket case is another man’s beacon of rebellious defiance. That’s the essential theme of “There She Goes”, the football writer Simon Hughes’s account of perhaps the most tumultuous, most divisive, most chaotic era in the history of the city of Liverpool. It covers the ‘long decade’ of 1979 to 1993, taking the election of Margaret Thatcher and her radical right-wing Conservative Party as its starting point, and running up until the still-incomprehensible murder of the toddler Jamie Bulger in North Liverpool in the early nineties.

The book begins with the decimation of Liverpool’s docklands in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Having originally attained its status as the ‘second city of the British Empire’ through the activities of its massive port and proud maritime tradition, when the docks went into decline they took the rest of Liverpool city with them. “There She Goes” (the title comes from a song from the mercurial 80s Liverpudlian band, The La’s) relates how mass redundancies and automation at the docks – the city’s primary source of employment – doomed the Merseyside region to a cycle of unemployment, poverty, and desperation. This was exacerbated by a newly-elected hostile Government in Westminster, scornful of the city’s collectivist nature, and determined to use the region as a laboratory for their demented creeds of monetarism and neo-liberalism.

A central dividing line in “There She Goes” is the resistance of Liverpool – in the guise of Derek Hatton’s Militant-led local council – to the Thatcherite assault on public services and the welfare state. A further focus of resistance that Simon Hughes describes are the 1981 Toxteth riots that broke out in that traditionally-poor and racially mixed district of Liverpool in response to official neglect, mass unemployment and racially-motivated police harassment. In the latter case, “There She Goes”, through its use of first-person testimony, is very illuminating about the tensions that caused the riots to erupt, particularly about the lived experiences of black youths in Toxteth having to deal with institutionalised police racism under the guise of ‘stop and search’ laws. Along the way, Hughes depicts a city in crisis – possibly on the precipice of collapse – by weaving in accounts of the appalling heroin epidemic that consumed Liverpool’s youths during this era, and the effect that mass unemployment and a haemorrhaging population had on the city’s music and football scenes.

When writing about the political battles of the 1980s, Simon Hughes has a tendency to follow the easy narrative that ‘Liverpool stood alone’ against the Thatcherite onslaught, overlooking that other cities such as Sheffield, Glasgow and Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council were also prepared to take the fight to the Tories. On the totemic clash between Derek Hatton’s hard left Liverpool council and the Conservatives, Hughes is a little too eager to skate over the bitter sectarianism and paranoid infighting that were hallmarks of far-left Trotskyite organisations like Militant.

The author also gives too much heed to half-baked conspiracy theories like the notion that the Merseyside police – in the aftermath of the Toxteth riots – were relaxed about seeing the city of Liverpool being flooded with cheap heroin as it would supposedly ensure a docile youth population. Similarly, Hughes gives unnecessary space to the long debunked theory that National Front hooligans from London bore some responsibility for the tragic events at the 1985 European Cup Final at the ill-fated Heysel stadium.

Hughes, to his immense credit, goes out of his way to seek out countervailing arguments from adversaries like former Tory cabinet ministers Michael Heseltine and Norman Tebbit, and the arch-Thatcherite economist Patrick Minford. The interviews with these (at times repellent) figures give a tremendous insight into the distaste with which the British political establishment – and, quite possibly, much of the rest of the country – viewed Liverpool, and makes you understand their perverse motivation for the planned ‘managed decline’ of the city (essentially being content to see it slide into the Irish Sea).

There are few glimmers of light and optimism in “There She Goes”, and many a reader will be struck by the almost unrelenting misery of Liverpool during this ‘long decade’. Even the comparative bright spots of the era – the dominance of the city’s two footballing giants of Everton and Liverpool football clubs – are tinged with rancour and regret due to the clubs’ bans from European competition and the Heysel and Hillsborough stadium catastrophes. Indeed, the final two chapters of “There She Goes” that deal with Hillsborough and the horrifying murder of Jamie Bulger are quite unbearable to read.

And it is there that “There She Goes” quite abruptly - and rather curiously - finishes. I feel Hughes could have done with writing a concluding chapter, partly to make the link between how Liverpool has developed/survived during the subsequent quarter century, and partly to end the book on a more optimistic note that a future was still possible for this once-mighty city. “There She Goes” is frequently an uneasy – and sometimes quite sad – chronicle of post-industrial decline, and the appalling effects this economic decline had on the lives of the city’s citizenry. It is, however, a worthwhile account of the bloody-minded defiance of a city in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and utter hopelessness.

[Stephen Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a well written insight in to what it felt like to live in Liverpool from the period 1979-1993. The descriptions of what it was like to live in Liverpool in this period, based on interviews with those who lived through it is very well done and a strength of the book.

I found there were peaks and troughs in this book with some bits being much stronger than others.

The opening chapter was very good as it gave an insight in to Liverpool's history based on three areas: economics, society, politics. He weaved it in to own personal story and used it to set the scene for the book he covered. What I also liked is this contained interviews with those he disagreed with in Tebbit, Minford and Hessletine.

The chapter on the Toxteth riots gave a good insight in to relations between black people and the police in Liverpool, the racist attitudes of those leading the police and the impact of unemployment.

Whilst the chapter on Militant was interesting, for me through a lot of it, this was less insight than propaganda for Militant. It also seemed strange given how often Neil Kinnock was mentioned, he was not interviewed to provide a counterfoil to Hatton whose loathing of Kinnock was frequently mentioned. He also could have interviewed those such as Jane Merrick, a Labour supporting journalist whose mum was a teacher and abhorred Militant due to the redundancy notices sent in the post. I know he interviewed Peter Kilfoyle, but I think these people would have added depth to this chapter. The writer also takes as gospel Militant's record on housing. Whilst it's true to say new houses were built, what this ignores is that a lot of the housing already built needed rebuilding and this was largely ignored by Militant.

The chapter on heroin and the Liverpool music scene was a strong chapter which I connected more with as it went on. It really gave you a bird's eye view of the ravages heroin can have on your life and the economic and social conditions which were key to its use spreading like wildfire. I did think Hughes brought in to a conspiracy theory on how heroin became so widespread- saying the authorities saw it as a way of doping and calming the population. That's a serious allegation which was only backed up by circumstantial evidence and it added nothing to the book.

The best writing unsurprising given he is a football writer were on Heysel and Hillsborough. Hughes wrote well on how Everton and Liverpool doing well in the 1980s was a lifeline and escapism to so many in the cities at a time when the city was suffering from devastating levels of unemployment, de-industrialisation and a massive drugs problem. Hughes highlights how football fed in to politics and society, as well as the contempt Thatcher had towards football fans. The chapter on Heysel was both good on hooliganism and decrepit stadiums. Once more a conspiracy theory about the National Front playing a role in Heysel, again with little but circumstantial evidence.

The chapter on Hillsborough was soul-destroying, bleak and incredibly well written, especially on how it was reported and the prejudice towards Liverpool supporters which assumed the worst, whilst ignoring the catastrophic policing and the utter mess of football stadiums in the 1980s, which design wise were disasters waiting to happen.

The last chapter on the murder of James Bulger was heart-breaking, incredibly bleak and powerful.

The book lacked a concluding chapter as it just abruptly stopped after the chapter on Bulger, meaning it felt unfinished. You needed a concluding chapter to bring everything covered in the book together and draw some conclusions from it and then maybe a small insight in to what Liverpool is like now compared to the period he covered. I wonder if a newer edition does include this as my copy was only 211 pages and the Goodreads copy of the book is 283 pages long.

I did notice some other drawbacks in the book. Monetarism seemed to be the bogeyman for everything, making it seem a much wider ideology than it was. Whilst no doubt it played a role, I felt far too often in the book it was just thrown out there as a catch all term of blame, taking away from analysis.

The book would have benefited from in each chapter hearing from views which challenged the writer's assumptions, as happened in the opening chapters.

I also realise my own bias on this. We are all shaped by our backgrounds, including me and the writer. My political views are different in many aspects to the author's. That said I think its important to read from authors with perspectives and backgrounds that are different to yours and challenge your views and assumptions. This book certainly did that and a major strength of the book was he presented it from the views of ordinary people living in Liverpool in the time as well as using his own upbringing in Liverpool to add authenticity to the writing.

The writer highlights well the economic and social devastation of the period he covers. However, although it was touched on, the mess of the winter of discontent etc would have highlighted well that the country and indeed Liverpool was hurting before the Thatcher era. Whether we like or loathe Thatcher, she was a reaction to the winter of discontent in part and I would have liked a bit more focus on this and the overall state of the country in the 70s throughout rather than just in the opening chapter.

This was a decent book with high quality writing and it certainly gave you an insight in to how people living in Liverpool felt from 1979-1993. Some chapters were of the highest quality, but the standard did vary. I do think at times the writer could have benefited from highlighting other viewpoints and perspectives, as well as a concluding chapter.

[Colin A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book. Great insights into key events that happened in Liverpool during this period. Well worth a read. 4.25.

[David Stanfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

A confession: since the age of nine years old, I have followed the fortunes of Everton Football Club, whom, along with their close neighbors and rivals, Liverpool, form two of the sporting and cultural institutions of the city of Liverpool.

Beginning in 1977, I started to seriously follow Everton, both home and away. As Simon Hughes shows in often painful detail, the decline of Liverpool as a major port city was already well under way by the end of the decade.

It hadn’t always been that way. As Hughes points out in his introduction: “Liverpool had been one of the riches cities in the British Empire, producing more wealthy families in the nineteenth century than any other urban area outside London”.

Along with the wealth, there existed deep poverty. The welfare state – the creation of a post Word War II Labour government – would not emerge for another half-century.

Liverpool’s fortunes were intimately connected to those of the British Empire, which were, in turn, centered around the movement of goods and people over the great oceans of the world, the lifeblood of that Empire.

The precarious nature of the work – with dock workers and stevedores dependent on the tides and the number of ships entering the port – led to a lot of uncertainty and spilled over into relationships and family life. Seamen, in particular, would often be absent from home for months at a time, and this greatly impacted the stability of family life and the conditions in which children were raised.

Furthermore, Liverpool’s dependence on its port made it uniquely vulnerable to economic and industrial changes over which it had tenuous control. Despite this, the sheer size and apparent permanence of the port and the myriad jobs in other areas – such as at the Cammell Laird ship yard across the Mersey river at Birkenhead – gave assurance to the people of Liverpool that employment would be available for their children for the foreseeable future.

Liverpool, along with many major ports, both in the United Kingdom and beyond, enjoyed the benefits of a ‘golden era’ of capitalism following World War II. However, by the time Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, Liverpool’s star had begun to wane.

The nature of maritime work had also begun to change. The revolutionary technological and industrial development of containerization dramatically reduced the demand for large numbers of workers; this coincided with a reduction in the demand for ships, and what ships were being built were bigger and required fewer workers to build them.

It would be incorrect, however, to assume that this was somehow an inevitable process created by shadowy and mysterious forces beyond anyone’s control. Critical decisions were made that compounded Liverpool’s decline and the scale of the challenges facing the city.

Margaret Thatcher came to power with an instinctive dislike – some would say hatred – of the idea that government can play a key role in improving people’s lives. Much like her contemporary soul-mate across the Atlantic, Ronald Reagan, it is not stretching credulity to say that Thatcher regarded government as the ‘problem’, and not the solution to society’s ills.

It was Margaret Thatcher who uttered the words, “There is no such thing as society”. For her, in order for individuals to thrive, the weight of the state must be lifted, thus allowing them to thrive. Specifically, it would mean people being able to buy their own homes, not be in ‘thrall’ to the local council; having the option not to join a trade union, and so on.

In the years preceding the fateful election of 1979, Great Britain had been wracked by a series of industrial disputes and confrontations. The Tory government led by then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, had been forced into a humiliating climb-down by the powerful miners unions, led by such charismatic figures as Arthur Scargill, a communist. The energy sector’s dependence on coal meant that in essence the miners were able to slow down the economy to such an extent that Britain experienced three-day work weeks, with people using candles for light in their homes during the winter of 1978.

Margaret Thatcher came to power determined to rein in the power of the trades unions, to cut what she viewed as unnecessary spending by local councils and, wherever possible reduce the role of the state in the economy. These ideas formed the core of what came to be known as the economic theory of ‘monetarism’.

As with any other theory whose time has come, monetarism’s true-believers were dismissive of awkward realities that challenged their sense ideological certitude. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Margaret Thatcher was on record as being an admirer of the economic policies of the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, notwithstanding the thousands who either died or were ‘disappeared’ in that country in the early seventies.

Furthermore, countries that undergo severe periods of economic and political turbulence are vulnerable to what may best be described as wild ‘course corrections’ in the other direction, politically and ideologically. To a certain degree, this is what happened in Great Britain in the late seventies, with the decline of large, state-owned industries, and the rise of a brash, ‘thrusting’ financial sector, based almost exclusively in and around London.

For Liverpool, these developments would have not only deep and lasting political and economic consequences, but also severe social ones, too. Perhaps the most dire were the shattering of family and personal ties that had held whole communities together for many years.

By the early 1980’s, only two years into the leadership of Thatcher, unemployment in Liverpool among those in their last teens to late twenties had climbed to over fifty-per cent. While other towns and cities all over the United Kingdom were suffering similarly, the situation in Liverpool was especially dire.

The sense of hopelessness was palpable. Among the young, lacking career and job prospects, escapism in the most self-destructive ways became rampant: widespread drug use, escalating toward heroin, ravaged whole communities.

Liverpudlians, or “scousers”, as they are often more commonly called gained a reputation for being ‘lazy’, ‘feckless’, ‘scallies’ (always looking to rob, or gain an advantage, legal or otherwise). Stereotypes gain their power for the grain of truth they hold, but in the process, the larger context is ignored: Liverpool’s heart had been torn out through massive economic dislocation and the cruel and misguided policies of the Thatcher government.

Liverpudlians also have a reputation for sticking together, for resilience, and for fighting back when times are hard. The responses to the problems engulfing the city took both creative and destructive forms.

As Hughes describes it, relations between the police and the inner city areas of Liverpool were not great before the economic collapse. Young people – particularly those of color – frequently reported being stopped for no apparent reason; being treated harshly and in some cases being both physically and verbally abused; being called ‘nigger’, ‘wog’, ‘darkie’, and so on. Hughes’ interviewees included those who recalled being picked up by the police at random, being threatened, then driven and dumped in a part of the city far from their home.

Resistance among the young also took on more creative and constructive forms: the cities music scene spawned a number of young bands and musicians, some of whom would go on to national and international recognition: Echo and the Bunnymen; The La’s, The Teardrop Explodes, among others. Perhaps this is not surprising in a city that was, after all, the birthplace of The Beatles.

Unsurprisingly, the music of that time reflected the rawness and anger of living in a city in which hope had all but dried up. Dark humor abounded, encapsulated by the following joke: “In Liverpool, there are only four ways out: soccer, boxing, crime, and the cemetery.” The increasingly moribund port and all the accompanying jobs that were once plentiful, no longer provided a stable employment option.

The dry tinder had been set, just waiting for the match to begin the conflagration. It came on July 3, 1981 in the Toxteth area of Liverpool. Tensions had been building for a considerable period of time between the police and neighborhood youths, white and black. Kenneth Oxford, the Chief of Police for Liverpool was ‘old school’; he had little time for the niceties of community policing, he fostered a culture in which officers were encouraged to not just police, but to rule the streets and if by doing so they instilled fear in the local populace, all well and good.

The riots that ensued between July 3, and 4, 1981 would see some of the worst destruction of property and injuries to police and others ever seen on mainland Britain. For many outsiders, the destruction only confirmed their biases regarding the people of Liverpool, as a ‘lost-cause’.

Hughes goes on to detail how Margaret Thatcher dispatched Michael Heseltine to Merseyside to speak with local officials, partly motivated, he believes, by her wariness of Heseltine as a potential rival for the leadership of the Conservative party.

Heseltine listened attentively to the perspectives of police, councilors, ordinary people. He devised a number of economic initiatives designed to ameliorate some of the worst conditions facing the inhabitants of the city, without really addressing the root causes.

From this ferment, Militant emerged. Militant took a hard left position in relation to the Labour Party and ruling Conservatives. Miliitant’s leaders were scornful of what they saw as the timidity of Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader, and of much of the rest of the Labour Party.

Predictably, Militant’s combative stance toward the Conservative government, its call for resistance to redundancies and the loss of funding for the city immediately galvanized a substantial number of supporters. Just as predictably, it roused furious opposition from the Liberal and moderate Labour members of the city’s council.

Hughes writes about these tumultuous times with great insight and sensitivity. Crucially, he grasps the social, economic, and political context that influenced decisions taken by those both in, and out of, authority.

While reading those sections of the book that covered the social unrest in Liverpool during the eighties, I could not help but have a feeling of ‘deja vue’, especially given the recent social unrest in urban centers in the United States.

The same issues come up, again and again: racism, unemployment and underemployment in jobs that barely meet the bare minimum for survival; the police being used in situations for which they had neither the training or understanding, being used basically to cover up the failings of leadership and policy by those who create those policies yet avoid the consequences.

To Hughes’ credit, he avoids painting the primary characters of this tumultuous era in ‘black-and-white’. It would have been tempting, for example, to present someone like Norman Tebbit as the cosh-wielding thug portrayed in the memorable eighties puppet comedy, ‘Spitting Image’. Instead, Hughes allows Tebbit’s own words to reveal him as someone moulded by the influencers of his class, upbringing, and history.

Derek Hatton, one of the founders and leaders of Militant, is treated similarly, as an individual both effected by the forces in play, yet also someone whose force of personality shaped those forces.

Hatton is a fascinating individual, precisely because he defies stereotypes, with his penchant for sharp suits and champagne; he is easy to label as a hypocrite because he confounds how, for many, a self-styled socialist should behave.

For his part, Hatton remains to this day defiantly unapologetic, proclaiming that, simply because someone was a socialist, that did not mean they should not enjoy some of the nicer things in life, a stance that no doubt attracted adherents to Militant.
Anyone attending soccer games in Britain throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties, in stadiums where standing was the norm, will testify to the fright and – let’s be honest – the thrill of being subject to the whims of huge crowds, of being literally lifted off one’s feet during an exciting passage of play.

I personally experienced those sensations on more than one occasion, perhaps none being more memorable than the night in April, 1985, at Tottenham Hotspurs’ old White Hart Lane stadium.

Everton were on course to become Division One champions, something they had not accomplished since 1970. Victory at Tottenham, and the title would be all but won. I went to that game with my brother. Given the importance of the match we knew a large crowd could be expected. One whole end of White Hart Lane was reserved for the thousands of Evertonians who attended that night.

It sounds cliched, but there was an amazing atmosphere both outside, and inside White Hart Lane, almost an electricity in the air. After visiting a local pub, the police herded us (really, there is no other word for it), into the end reserved for the Everton fans.

In all the years I had attended professional soccer games in Britain, I think for the first time, I felt scared. I literally could not remove my arms from my side. I could feel a shortness of breath in my chest, not to the extent that I was gasping for air, but of dealing with a constant feeling of discomfort. What made it worse was that there appeared to not one square yard of that terrace that was not occupied by heaving bodies.

Writing this now, all these years later, it seems unbelievable that those were the conditions to which we were subjected, and to which we acceded; they were the norm. As the saying goes, “hindsight is twenty-twenty”, but given my personal experiences, I could easily have imagined myself one of the ninety-six crushed to death at Hillsborough, four years later after my own frightening experience.

[W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is genuinely one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ve learnt so much about the modern history that my dad who grew up in Wavertree in 70s and 80s only touches on.

“It was shite for years” he claims before moving over the water to raise the massive wool I’ve came to be.

This book is a journey from a prosperous industrial city as the pride of the empire to the darkest depths of social deprivation and immense poverty against the truncheon of a despicable government leaving the city to rot. Spoken honestly and intimately of the people who were there in the thick of it.

Hughes doesn’t paint Liverpool as the socialist utopia or the fuck the tories paradise that some may see it as today. He paints it as a place with a lot of problems but a lot of heart and dominant personalities who tried to get by.

Liverpool has and has had its problems, some yes caused by National Goverments unwieldy gavel but also from social divisions within the city that some still claim don’t exist. The lasting effects of this tumultuous decade still exist in scouse society today.

The Scousers vs the world mentality I feel can be damaging if the proclaimers don’t know how we got to where we are. This book aides this and educates it.

Touching at the start of the emergency of Thatcherism in the late 70s, the impact of industry leading Liverpool’s docks and the resultant mass social problems that lead to he speaks directly with right-wing leaders of the time within Thatchers emerging government.

Hughes discusses immense, bigoted and deep institutional racism within Merseyside Police in the late 70s and early 80s, in part which lead to the Liverpool 8 riots. Speaking to non-white community leaders of L8 we hear intimate, stark and eye opening first hand accounts of a community thriving within itself but at the mercy of racial predjudice from the outside . I particularly enjoyed the account of Irene Afful, MP’s first black female detective inspector.

He talks smack with Wylie, Power and Hooton as the musical icons of the time dive into the horrors in which Heroine ravaged communities and the socio economic reasons behind how the smack was able to flood Liverpool with a damningly depressing case study of life on the Ford estate and Birkenhead.

Discussing the rise of Militant with Derek Hatton as the far left leader to break down the Thatcherite Tory cuts to the city it delves into the political rise of the party within in the disparaged city and the heated battles that took place between Hatton, Thatcher and Neil Kinnock as the latter saw Hatton as a maggot looking to tear the Labour Party apart, an act which actually helped Thatcher. This I believed really set the ideology as us vs them deep in the politics of Merseyside.

Football the lifeblood of the city is discussed with first hand accounts of the damning events of Heysel and Hillsborough. A totally tragic mess and touches on the vitriolic aftermath in the media with an account of Kelvin McKenzies newsroom before the infamous The Truth front page. May that urchinous cunt rest in piss when he finally dies.

Finally and most starkly we learn about a tale that still haunts Merseyside families as the direct effects of social deprivation, loss of the family unit and decline in morality reaches its damning peak as the case of James Bulger is discussed.

Any scally shouting the fuck the tories at a Jamie Webster rally need to read this. The Londoner on a match day singing feed the scousers at games need to read this. The bigoted Manc gammon who tells people to watch their hubcaps driving through Liverpool need to read this.

[Simon Woodrup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you find a book that you think to yourself, "this topic is so interesting to me that if I could write a book, it would be about this subject".
Personally, I have a deep fascination of Social History, British politics and all things Liverpool/Merseyside...so I pretty much knew I'd love this book.
It covers, almost in self-contained chapters, various struggles that Liverpool went through in the 1980's: of course with an initial focus on Thatcher's economic policies and the plan of "managed decline" (still a chilling concept). Then the Toxteth riots are explored with Hughes interviewing people with unique perspectives (imagine being a Black police officer in Liverpool during that period). Besides socio-economics it covers the remarkable cultural and music scene and then, of course, sports...both the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters. And the book concludes with the murder of toddler Jamie Bulger by a couple of 10 year olds in 1993.
Some critics I've seen have somewhat cruelly and ignorantly dismissed this book as Liverpool "self-pity"...I'm surprised that anyone who read it would draw that conclusion. It is much more nuanced and realistic than that.
Simon Hughes writes in such an engaging manner and you never doubt his knowledge or passion for the subject.
My only (very minor) criticisms would be it is perhaps too "reportive" with not enough of the author's thoughts and opinions explicitly told, that the assumed knowledge of the reader about the subject is sometimes over- and/or under-estimated and that it ends too abruptly...a final chapter (like a good nightcap!) to draw all the previous chapters together, with perhaps a look to the future would have been appropriate.
But for anyone who loves to read and learn about that particular time periods' history and/or any Liverpool history this book is a pleasure to read.

And a final note: the cover photograph is one of the best book covers in relationship to the book's content that I've seen!

[Gráinne Brady · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Bootle to the Dingle, you can hear the same old cry,
"Stop mucking round with Liverpool, at least until I die".

I think it's fair to say my admiration and sense of pride of being from Liverpool started properly in 2008 during the summer Liverpool celebrated the Capital of Culture. I was in year 4 and we had a local singer come in and teach us old songs about Liverpool for our part in the play we were putting on about the history of Liverpool - this was my favourite thing. Our era was about the 1950-60s.

My second round of love affair for this place came as I moved away for uni, up to Newcastle - a city not too dissimilar. Generally, telling people you're from Liverpool comes with a good response and good stories about someone they know, or family etc, others, put politely can be twats about it. But, I only seemed to feel the real sense of what Liverpool was when I wasn't there and stepping off the train at Lime Street for the first time coming home on a cold October evening in 2018, looking at St George's Hall and hearing the accent, I knew it was THE place.

The history is a long and at times painful one, I don't fully remember the city before it was redeveloped and received proper investment, but the photographs are very weird to see. Both my grandfather's went away to sea, so the stories of traveling and coming and going were prominent growing up. The music - even though I'll admit I found the La's far too depressing and did (somehow) prefer Manchester bands when I was 17-19.

The politics is a whole other topics that's too long to write about, but I will say this. It was clear my Pa was not a fan of the Tories, in-fact, he fucking hated them, but during the Easter holidays in April 2013, when I told him Margaret Thatcher was dead he laughed and laughed and laughed. Then, he laughed even more when I showed him a video of a black cab driver playing ding dong the witch is dead. Tommy Murphy was the epitome of an old Scouser, 'one of life's greatest gentlemen' coined by a family friend. He had the charm, humour, stance and confidence of a true scouser, something I wish I'd had more time to appreciate.

There's no need for me to touch on Hillsborough pre 2009 because I was too young. Although, I will never forget Andy Burnham's speech at the 20th Anniversary at Anfield, and hearing the crowd chant 'Justice for the 96'. I watched and re-watched it on youtube for years, until he came back in 2014. Moments I knew were important and knew change was coming. I will also never forget standing on the Kop, singing You'll Never Walk Alone on a windy and cool mid April. Then, standing on the steps of St George's Hall looking out over Lime Street awash with Red and White again singing at the top of their lungs after the unlaw killings verdict was delivered. I don't think I will ever experience anything like that again.

This is my city, and it's the best fucking city in the world.
The city that never gave up, who carried on fighting.
A city, on it's own.

An ode to scousers and all they have faced.
The Brady's and The Murphy's and everyone in-between.

[Erlend Bergsagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book tries to give an insight of how it was to live in Liverpool of the 80's and early 90's.
The Thatcher years. Didn't go to well for the city of Liverpool.

This is a period in which I know only a little and small parts.
The book grasp a huge area. From Liverpool and history, economican politics, the Toxteth riots, Militant, Heroin, Heysel and Hillsborough, and at the end James Bulger.
Each chapter could be a book in itself.
think about what has been left out!

I give the book 3 stars, but maybe it should be 3,5 or even a little bit closer to 4.
and after reading this I know that I should read more about this period in Liverpool.
It is an interesting time. This was maybe a little to condensed for me, i missed so essential info or small parts of knowledge beforehand.

[Clive Lillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to find a book that presented the evidence as to how and why Merseyside had developed as it did in the 80s, during my growing up. This book sets out the pieces of history that almost conspire against Liverpool, ideas set up by national sl media with perverse agenda’s.
It’s far more complex than that, and Hughes, in my opinion, does his best to report fact and avoid bias, despite being a local.
Nostalgia is in here too, alongside an important lesson in how governments can grab you by the balls, should they choose.

[Matthew-Thomas Plant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, always been fascinated by the history of this city. The book offers a great depth of knowledge about Liverpool’s rich history of the docks in the 1800’s until its eventual demise. A lot more political than I was expecting but in hindsight of course it had to be.

[Troy Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written, and full of details, but hard for me to follow as an American (totally my fault).

[Manic Booksy Dreamgirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devastating read. More of an Oral History than I expected but extremely impactful.

[Lucy Ob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love history and I love Liverpool, so for me I really enjoyed this. Some parts are hard to read however thoroughly recommend.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of a turbulent time in the life of my home town. From the attacks by Thatcher and battles of Militant, past the Toxteth riots to Heysel, Hillsborough and Jamie Bulger, Simon Hughes analysed them with interviews and statistics. It may be from a left of centre viewpoint but his account should be read not only by Liverpudlians but all those who remember that unfortunate decade.