As the historic centre of international trade, Liverpool is the first host of a conference dedicated to the past and future of the world’s great waterfront cities. David Charters reports

IT WAS an evening for fastening overcoat buttons and blowing into your hands. A mean wind was sweeping in from the river and the sky was as grey as a hangman’s smile.

"Soon be too dark," whispered Tracey O’Neill, the photographer, as clocks chimed and the sprightly academic appeared on the scene to have his picture taken.

And then, by happy chance, the clouds broke, allowing us to see the dark yellow gauze left by the sun sliding behind the Welsh hills. Shadows stretched again beneath the monuments overlooking the Mersey.

It’s like that "on the waterfront". Those very words suggest a people apart, who, through all their senses, experience life differently to their inland compatriots. From the mysteries of ancient Carthage to the regeneration of Liverpool, there has been a bond between the ports of the world, where wide-legged sailors have known the buck of the waves and the rope’s burn.

That is why Liverpool is rightly proud to be hosting the first international On the Waterfront conference at the BT Convention Centre in the Echo Arena complex on the Kings Dock, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Among more than 200 delegates are representatives from the port cities of Lagos, Antwerp, Shanghai, Mumbai (Bombay), London, Savannah, Niagara, Dublin, Preston, New Orleans, Hull, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Bristol, Gdansk and Rotterdam.

The event, hosted by English Heritage, is supported by the Liverpool Culture Company, Liverpool City Council, the EU, Liverpool Vision, National Museums Liverpool, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, Liverpool University and the Education and Culture Directorate-General.

After posing for his photographs, Robert Lee, starts talking in measured terms about the importance of this gathering, which seems to be another grand opportunity for Liverpool to reinforce its status as a World Heritage Site.

As the Chaddock Professor of Economic and Social History at Liverpool University and co- director of the centre for Port and Maritime history, he has been invited to give an address called Distinct and Different.

"Port cities have played an important role in the global process of urbanisation and are major drivers for population growth and national development, as the examples of Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore illustrate," he wrote in the introductory notes. "What unique factors make port cities different from other types of urban communities both in Europe and elsewhere?"

WELL, he asked the question. What’s his answer? "Culture and ethnicity remain the hallmarks of most major port cities because over time they have attracted in such a diverse range of peoples reflecting the nature of their trade links," he says.

Although parts of this city’s regeneration, particularly the Liverpool One shopping centre, have been praised widely, the professor is less enthusiastic. "Singapore, for example, has made some effort to almost celebrate that element of diversity. They have a Little India. In that sense, they are trying to create what we would term ethno-spaces. If you think back at Liverpool, can you envisage any approach like that being put in place that symbolises the historic and continuing contribution of those ethnic communities to the life of the port and to the life of the city?"

Prof Lee, a father-of-four from Birkenhead, feels there should be something "far more tangible" to symbolise our role as a great international port, located near the middle of the world. In a romantic mood, you could think of a fan with its stem here, spreading to reach almost all the coastal countries.