I’m Cathy Serafinowicz, I was born in 1951 in Liverpool.

THELMA DONOHUE

My name is Thelma Donohue. I was born in Liverpool in 1947.

ALEX BRIDGE

My name is Alex Bridge. I was born in 1984 which makes me 14 and I’ve lived in Liverpool all my life.

Cathy

I’d describe the 60s as being a very exciting time, and it was just a time of innocence and fun. And the music made it so exciting and The Beatles put Liverpool on the map.

Thelma

You used to get high on the music. You didn’t need any type of stimulation, it was just the music that got you really high on. Everywhere you went there was live bands.

Alex

My favourite kind of music has got to be 60s music and I’m not sure why it is. I like most kinds of music, I’ll listen to opera or anything really. I like the Beatles but I also like modern music as well, like The Stereophonics.

Thelma

Today’s music is good, but nine times out of ten they are copying the 60s anyway, they’re bringing some of the old songs back and there’s just that little kick missing.

Alex

In the 60s they wore all really zany, boss clothes. Now in the 90s we’re just a lot more toned down, but I think my age group is a bit easily led. They’ll wear anything which has got a name on it.

Thelma

The 60s fashion was absolutely fabulous. It looks like fancy dress today, but to us it was real high fashion. It was just absolutely different, and more original I think.

Alex

What did you feel was the atmosphere of the 60s? If you had to describe it, how would you describe it?

Cathy

It was incredibly exciting because before The Beatles came along, I would say, not a lot of the world had heard of Liverpool, but it was then it was suddenly the in place to be and we were here and we were part of it.

ARCHIVE COMMENTARY

The Mersey Sound. Yes, Liverpool is selling pop music. Liverpool is setting the fashion in Beatle hairdos that baffle you as to a person’s gender. Liverpool kids are proud of the fact that their city is providing the world with beat music and an offbeat cult of fashion that has knocked their great docks, as a municipal money-spinner, well into second place.

Alex

I know you had to get the boat to go and see bands. What bands did you go and see on the boat?

Thelma

We went over on the boat to New Brighton, to New Brighton Tower and I saw The Kinks, which are still going I believe, The Kinks and The Walker Brothers, I’d seen them on New Brighton Tower.

Alex

Did you come up here on the top deck when you travelled to see the bands?

Thelma

Yes. We were so excited anyway so we didn’t care what we looked like, our hair blowing everywhere, but before we got off the ferry, we’d go downstairs and sort ourselves out before...

Alex

Did you do that, go and fix your make-up?

Cathy

I can remember one time when I thought I looked gorgeous because I had a beautiful green crocheted top on, and a bright orange skirt which was my pride and joy and I came upstairs, up on the top deck and sat down on one of the benches which had been newly painted but there was no sign there. So I had all black stripes on the back of my skirt...

Alex

Did you care? Did you still go?

Cathy

I still went, I still carried on with my night — tried to keep my back to the wall.

Alex

So if you said you came from Liverpool you had some sort of identity then, some sort of cultural identity people could recognise?

Thelma

Wherever you went, if you said you came from Liverpool, it was either, ‘Do you know The Beatles or Liverpool Football team?’ They were always brought into it. We did have… we’ve got Everton as well but I’m a Liverpool girl myself.

VINNIE MCKEAN

My name is Vinnie McKean, I was born in 1955. I’ve been an Everton supporter all my life. In the 60s the music was really important throughout Liverpool. There were lots of bands coming up and it was the first time I’d ever experienced music in a football ground, I remember hearing The Beatles being played over the tannoy. I did enjoy music but for me, football was brilliant. The great Bill Shankley once said, ‘Football is more than just...’ I’ve forgotten what he said! The great Bill Shankley once said that football wasn’t a matter of life and death, it was far more important than that!

Alex

So Vinnie, what’s changed about the stadium since the 60s?

Vinnie

The stadium has changed an awful lot. They’ve put seats in now. It used to be all standing, except in this top tier and that used to be seats. But down below we were all standing, it was good fun.

Alex

Do you think it was better standing or do you think it’s better now, when you are sitting?

Vinnie

I think when I was that age, I really enjoyed standing. It was great fun and much bigger crowds. The crowds were forty and fifty thousand in those days, it was brilliant. You used to be swaying forwards and swaying backwards and a lot of jokes and banter going on.

Alex

How old were you when you first came to a match?

Vinnie

I must have been about 8 or 9 years old, so about 1964,65. I remember walking up the steps and it just suddenly hit me this green swathe of grass. I’d never seen such a green grass in my life, it was unbelievable. And all the colours and the sound and the smells, it was all different, it was fantastic.

Alex

How much was it to get into a match?

Vinnie

It was about two and six, which is about twelve and a half pence in today’s money. But that was quite a lot of money for pocket money. And a game every fortnight it meant that you had to save an awful lot of money and wash an awful lot of dishes, because there were no dishwashers in them days, just to get the money — an odd sixpence here, an odd sixpence there.

Alex

Did you do ever anything naughty to try to get to a game?

Vinnie

I shouldn’t tell you this because my mum doesn’t know I’ve done this, but I did do something wrong once. It was early 70s and it was the miners’ strike and it meant it was a three-day week. They couldn’t have electricity for the flood-lights. So Everton were playing on a Wednesday afternoon and I decided I had to go and see the game, there was no two ways around it. I had to go and see that game. So the only time in my life I bunked off school. I got over the fence at school — I had my season ticket in my pocket and got a bus to the ground and came here. And as I arrived outside Gladys Street I noticed there was a teacher from my school and I was horrified! Oh my Goodness! But in fact he was going to the game as well. When we got inside the ground here, about half the crowd, and the crowd was really down on a normal attendance — there was still about 30,000 people here — about half the crowd were in school uniform and it was brilliant. And I got home a bit late and I just told my mum that I’d been kept on detention and I asked what the score was and she told me that Everton had won and to this day she still doesn’t know that I bunked off school to watch Everton. Sorry Mum!

Alex

Were football matches screened on telly?

Vinnie

No. I can’t remember seeing any football at all on television when I was a kid. All the games I saw were live and there were huge crowds here. Even for a reserve game in mid-week, you’d still get 20,000 people here. Everton in the 60s were the top team, they were much...

Alex

Didn’t last very long, did it?

Vinnie

No, but every dog has its day.

Alex

So what did your parents think about you going to all these clubs?

Thelma

I used to go to the all-nighters. My Mum used to let me go but my father wouldn’t let me go and...

Alex

Did you have to sneak out?

Thelma

No, I didn’t have to sneak out, I had to sneak in. There was some footage on the television, a documentary on The Merseysound, and my Dad happened to see it and there I was in the queue, going in to The Cavern.

Alex

And he went mad?

Cathy

He just found out.

Thelma

‘I told you, you shouldn’t go there.’ But it was 25 years on, I was 40 at the time, he couldn’t do much about it back then.

Alex

When was the last time you came into The Cavern?

Thelma

It’s the 60s, isn’t it?

Cathy

It is, yes. I’d say about 1968 for me.

Thelma

The thing that hit you most was the smell.

Cathy

It was like a damp type of a smell.

Thelma

Damp, musty smell as you were walking down. But it got your adrenaline going. As you walked into The Cavern, the heat from the atmosphere and all the body heat, the walls and the ceilings just absolutely dripped. It was wringing, pools of water everywhere.

Cathy

It was so packed with the people...

Alex

And the atmosphere, what was that like?

Cathy

Our hair used to be dripping wet and...

Thelma

Mine used to go frizzy with the heat.

Alex

Was it really noisy?

Cathy

You couldn’t hear yourself.

Thelma

It was booming, the noise. Because of the low ceiling anyway. It’s a wonder we’re not all deaf, really.

All here Alex, we used to sit. It was a seating area all around here.

Alex

Where you’d watch the bands?

Cathy

Where you’d watch the bands. If you could get a seat.

Thelma

Sometimes you couldn’t get a seat.

Cathy

And in these arches here, there was nothing there. It was quite dark and that’s where we used to dance.

Thelma

We used to do The Cavern Stomp in here.

Alex

The Cavern Stomp?

Thelma

You hold your arms up in the air.

Alex

Go on, teach me how to do it.

Thelma

You have to do it like me. You move your feet dead quick like that.

Cathy

This is the original stage.

Alex

It’s so small. So what sort of bands did you see on this stage then?

Cathy

The Escorts.

Thelma

You saw them Cath, the Escorts?

Cathy

Yes I did. I saw The Fix. I used to have a crush on the saxophone player in The Fix. His name was Albie, I found out. I never saw what his face was like because he wore great big dark glasses.

Thelma

And you’d get about 6 or 7 bands a night. It was an exciting time, Alex. I enjoyed it, did you, Cath?

Cathy

It was fabulous.

Alex

How many people got in The Cavern?

Cathy

As many as they could fit in, I don’t think there was Health and Safety then.

Thelma

You couldn’t move sometimes. You couldn’t move, it was just jam packed. There was a group I used to follow around called The Cubas and they used to wear flowered pants. That was their gimmick, they had flowered pants. And they played on The Empire — they were supporting band on The Empire when The Beatles were on. And when The Cubas came on and we jumped up and we were screaming that loud, we nearly got thrown out. Because they thought, ‘If these are bad for The Cubas, what are they going to be like when The Beatles come on?’ So we nearly got thrown out of The Empire.

Alex

How much did it cost to go and see bands, was it expensive?

Thelma

Well it was in old money then, it wasn’t decimalised.

Cathy

It was still expensive a bit to us. You might have to save up a little bit.

Thelma

You’d pay anything from about seven and six, that was dear, a dear night. Half a crown, the equivalent to twelve and a half pence these days.

Alex

So how do you think clubs have changed now from the 60s to the 90s now?

Thelma

We don’t go to clubs now. Bingo.

Alex

So what kind of clothes did you used to wear in the 60s?

Thelma

Mini skirts.

Alex

Mini skirts?

Cathy

Mini skirts.

Alex

Show off your legs?

Thelma

We had boots up to our knees as well.

Alex

So were they the really trendy things to wear?

Cathy

Yes. It was either mini or maxi, which were right down to your ankles.

Alex

So what were the lads wearing?

Thelma

The lads would wear... they’d dress like The Beatles, with The Beatles suits on if they wanted to be posh.

Cathy

There were no designer labels.

Alex

So what you were wearing, if it looked nice it was nice, it wasn’t whether it had a name on it or anything.

Cathy

No.

Alex

What type of lads did you prefer?

Thelma

I liked long hair. Long hair.

Alex

And flares.

Thelma

Flares.

Alex

Orange ones?

Thelma

Not orange flares, no. We wouldn’t go out with anyone with orange flares, no.

Alex

Did you every wear any of those really mad wigs you see on the telly, no?

Thelma

Yes, sometimes. When we were dressed up.

Cathy

It was just loads of fun. I used to wear these wide sleeves.

Alex

That’s excellent.

Cathy

I know it looks funny now, but we did.

Alex

I don’t think I’d try anything on here really, not my style.

Thelma

You’re in the girls’ side, that’s why.

Alex

Sorry. There’s loads of mad hats aren’t they? Everything is totally different and unique in its own way.

Thelma

That’s what it was like in the 60s. You were unique.

Alex

So you never saw two people dressed alike, no?

Cathy

No.

Thelma

I can’t believe how short that is. We used to wear them that short?

Cathy

We did. And shorter.

Alex

And no one would say anything because everyone was wearing them like that?

Thelma

Yes. You wouldn’t go up the bus though, with them on.

Alex

This is so short.

Thelma

Do you like that?

Alex

That is so excellent.

Thelma

I might try this on for you.

Alex

Thanks.

Cathy

So would you fall for a couple of girls like us?

Alex

Absolutely, definitely.

Thelma

And the minis are short. We said they were short.

Alex

They’re excellent. I love the white boots as well.

Thelma

The white boots. I used to be able to dance in these. I don’t think I could now.

Alex

What do you think your children would say about this?

Thelma

They’d be, ‘Oh Mother’.

Cathy

They’d be mortified.