Acclaimed photographer and former Daily Post picture editor Stephen Shakeshaft tells Peter Elson how Liverpool’s people and the fast-changing backdrop of the city inspired his latest exhibition
Liverpool people also included national figures like jazz singer George Melly, attending a teddy boy convention in New Brighton, egged on to perform by people dancing on the Prom.
“George always dressed like a teddy boy in bright red suits and fedora. I loved him as a subject, as he was so unpredictable,” recalls Stephen.
“Harold Wilson, Huyton MP and then Prime Minister, was a character who, with just one detective, would get off the London train in his Gannex coat, light his pipe and go straight to the Adelphi and stage a press conference.
“He nearly caused me to lose my eyebrows, as whenever he was asked a difficult question he’d light his pipe to make time.
“Once he fired his lighter and the flame shot up 16ins just as I came close in.
“I chose a picture of him at Huyton Labour Club waiting to become PM in his second term.
“He was a very approachable personality, very dry and in control. He knew what he was doing.
“I also photographed him at Downing Street. He was much easier than his successor Ted Heath, who was dreadfully pompous.”
In contrast, Michael Heseltine, Mrs Thatcher’s Minister for Merseyside, was a charismatic Tarzan in a double-breasted suit.
“He was ‘Mr Cool’, always marching round Liverpool with plans under his arm. He was an incongruous exotic, but followed everywhere by kids like a Pied Piper.
“One woman threw an egg at him, shouting ‘That’s me ’usband’s dinner’!
“All the time I knew old Liverpool was fading fast and did my best to visit places like the Wash House, in Lime Kiln Lane, off Great Homer Street.
“Women from tenements would push in prams filled with washing, holding onto kids.
“They always called you son, the atmosphere was so unusual, with non-stop banter and gestures from women called Daisy, Flo and Mary.”
These places and others like Paddy’s Market were the true repository of camaraderie.
“I’m glad I wasn’t too late to miss it, and feel privileged to have recorded these lost lives to share again with others.”
STEPHEN SHAKESHAFT: Liverpool People Exhibition, at National Conservation Centre, Whitechapel, Liverpool, from Friday to January 24.
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