New documentary about Liverpool’s waterfront
Jul 12 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post
Phil McCabe and Roger Appleton with their Passport To Liverpool DVD _320
What makes Liverpool so special? Just ask the locals, as a new documentary film proves. Peter Elson reports
IN A rather overcrowded market, film-maker Roger Appleton has hit upon a winning formula to produce a film dissecting what makes Liverpool so special.
What makes his documentary, Passport To Liverpool, stand out is that there are no celebrities involved.
No plastic Scousers were used at all in the making of this film. Organic and seemingly wholesome home-grown types represent different aspects of the city and tell its story through their lives.
Cleverly interspersed is footage of Liverpool pilot John Curry bringing safely into port the giant container ship, Atlantic Conveyor.
The spiritual journeys through life and the ship’s one over water are inextricably bound up with the Mersey itself, which has provided the life-blood of the city.
It is this gateway to the world which has allowed life from all over the globe to flow in and shape the city into such an individual place.
"Underpinning this documentary is the notion that Liverpool is not English and is moulded and built on maritime activity," says Roger, 50, producer and director, whose company is Liverpool-based Bright Moon Films.
"It was important to us that we see Liverpool not through the eyes of some well-known personality who doesn’t live here, but its local characters who come to the fore with their own voice."
The film also has commentaries from Prof John Belchem and Dr Graeme Milne, both of the University of Liverpool, and Prof Marcus Rediker, of the University of Pittsburgh.
"One of the great moments for me was hearing Marie Baurres, a former market stall worker, of Irish descent, declare that she was an immigrant and wouldn’t be here otherwise," says Roger.
"She is an archetype, a hard- working street-trader, from a large family with an unshakeable Catholic faith and a take on life which is entirely Liverpudlian."
Likewise pilot John Curry, with his white beard and rolling gait, looks like he has been sent by central casting.
He effortlessly guides the huge Atlantic Container Line’s ship through a complex series of manoeuvres, amid sudden weather changes, into Gladstone Dock.
"Not only that, but John Curry is a scholar of Norman French and, having studied period documents, has an alternative translation of Liverpool’s name as springtime anchorage," says Roger, a former art and design teacher from Halton College.
The BBC has bought the programme and Phil McCabe, 23, associate producer, says: "We are taking a local subject that has national resonance which can be broadcast across the country."
Prof Belchem says: "Liverpool is exceptional in England, as it’s a great seaport that was built around casual labour and irregular earnings.
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