THE SECRET LIFE OF LIVERPOOL
By Leroy Cooper
A Photographic Anthology
The Introduction
For a long time now people have been saying to me…
“You should write a book Leroy Cooper, you’d make a lot of money out of it.” The gleam in their eyes always felt like what they really meant was “write a kiss and tell shocker” about your horrifying experiences in Liverpool and in the Toxteth ghetto. Exposing the filthy underbelly of the city is what they really meant.
(All I heard was “sell out and make money”)
With all the horror stories about unemployment, crime and poverty, violence and the mentally disturbed, about racism and the brutality of police, about heavy drug abuse and alcoholic destitution, just to titillate the mind of the reader in the leafy suburbs, (Give the public what they want. For a few dollars more, sell out.), telling the stories of broken hearts and of broken minds. How the system degradingly, breaks the human spirit, on its altars of corruption and exploitation. (For thirty pieces of blood stained silver, denounce your roots… Sell out!)
Lifting the carpet to reveal the painful depravity that occurs when people suffer institutional abuse and emotional neglect, with their hopes and dreams crushed. When people "feel" as though or worse realise, they are hated and despised and so in turn they learn to hate. How like a cancer, the negativity of this hate infects them and prevents them from developing into fully rounded, happy human beings. Reveal the “Under Classes” by being, a snooping fly on the wall photo-journalist, revealing the twisted and the grotesque, by revealing the morally and spiritually vacant. Write a book pointing the finger at the substandard human beings of a degenerate society. Revealing the ugly, retarded versions of who they could have been while being left on the benefit scrap heap of life, to rot and wither.
(The truth is you know all that kind of stuff already. Go to any city in Britain and you can find these sad stories replicated over and over.)
So while the middle classes, the fortunate and better off, show their “two faces” and turn a short sighted, puss bloated, blind eye, indifferent to the suffering of others, their “chav” sisters and brothers. (Is this some freakish Victorian fairground sideshow? I’ve asked myself)
There always seem to be the hidden suggestion that I knew all about the rough, the sleazy and the seedy sides of life and therefore I could authentically represent, life at the shitty end of the stick, so to speak. I’ve never wanted to do what people expected of me and I do not want to trot out some generic, stereo-typical clichéd tale, of living the hard knock urban life.
Still it is an interesting story of how (against all the odds) I became, the man with a passion for art, a passion for life and all its beauty despite coming from an ordinary background and suffering the injustices of political and social scapegoat-ism.
Despite the indifference of a racist society that fears the Black man because of its collective, not so secret, guilt. Despite wearing the scars of other peoples misunderstandings, misconceptions and misplaced ignorance on my sleeve. This might to the ignorant, just sound like, blah, blah, blah, a yawn!
It feels like I am stating the obvious but this is my life and it’s all the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, the good and bad, for better or for worse, that have sculpted me into the person that I am. Leroy Cooper : The Artist. A picture can say a thousand words so the saying goes so that’s why I have decided to let my photography and paintings do the bulk of my speaking for me. This book is a celebration of the power of perseverance in the face of adversity. A celebration of the dignity of working class people, who against all odds somehow retain their humanity and are not the lazy, workshy, criminally minded, benefits scrounging scum, as depicted by some sections of the media and that “they” would have you, believe.
This first collection of my work is about my Liverpool. It is not going to inform on or praise devilish gangsters, the real hard-core grafters and the cocky bad boy hustlers. It is not going to expose pimps and prostitutes, drug dealers and bag heads. This book will not grass up shoplifters and alcoholics or armed robbers and safe crackers in shady boozers in “two dogs fighting”. This book will not point the finger at burglars, car robbers or children abused in the care system. This anthology will not sweep under the carpet, the victims of crime, the battered wives and girlfriends, the rape victims, the homeless, the unemployed and the people politicians do not listen to or care enough about, to create a more equal, fair and just society, before it is too late.
This book will however make ignorant, racist bullies and bigots, hang their heads in shame and make you ask the question, “Are people forced into these criminal and deviant lifestyles by economic and social handicaps or could everyone be a productive member of society if given the chance or more importantly, a second chance ?” If hardship befell you, how would you cope? (Discuss)
This book gives credit to “single parents and to the families” that did not go down those paths but taught their children to have manners and respect, how to work hard to achieve something in life. Credit is given to those mothers, fathers and grandparents who put their children on the right path in life.
Families who can stand up with pride and say my son or daughter went to university and passed with flying honours or for example can say my son or daughter left school and has been in employment ever since. This book will give credit to those who came from all over the world to this cultural melting pot of a sea port and made it their home, adding to and creating the rich and diverse culture that is Liverpool and to those who never forgot to say a little prayer to the creator and gave thanks and praise, never losing their beliefs. You know who you are, whatever your faith.
This book acknowledges fathers who did not abandon their children and went to work to provide for their families. Mothers who made ends meet by doing cleaning jobs in the mornings after sending their children to school. This book represents teenagers who grew up in the street life culture but who had ambitions and dreams to be more than society said they should aspire to be.
Just because we are Black or Scousers does not mean we are thieves and scumbags.
This book is about the secret life of Liverpool as seen through, my camera lens and through my love of the people of this city.
My Liverpool, it may not be the place you thought you knew or recognised from TV news and documentaries, from sensational news headlines in the local and national press but if you are from here or have ever lived and spent time here or visited and experienced Liverpool without fear or prejudice, you might recognise the warmth, the vibrant down to earth real charm, that makes Liverpool a special and unique place.
All I can do is share with you my truth about my Liverpool.
My truth is that Art and Creativity saved me from the quicksand of negativity. I found Art was my way to transform negative energy into something positive and to express myself with confidence. Art is my therapy. Art has been “my” Saviour.
It gave me a vibrant, fresh and uniquely different perspective on the world around me. Through Art I developed as a person. Art built up my confidence in my own opinion. Art developed my political, moral, ethical and spiritual back bone.
Art became my lifebelt upon stormy seas of pain and confusion at a time in my life when I was unsure of who I really was and what I really wanted to do with my life.
Art taught me to read between the lines of life and to scratch beneath the surface of my own and other people’s attitudes. Art freed me from having a chip on my shoulder.
I will always be thankful to those people in my life who encouraged me, who inspired me, who supported me and most importantly who believed in me, in my talent, in my ability, in my decency and in my love. I feel I owe it, as much to them, as to myself, to publish my work. Not to let them or myself down. A lot of these people have died over the last thirty years and are not around to witness this accomplishment but I will never forget them.
Through Art I really began to connect with other people and connect with my community, in a positive way. Art also made me appreciate my own individuality and that of others. Art taught me to be tolerant. Art allowed me to dream of a better life for myself, a life I felt that I deserved and would work hard to create and maintain. Art taught me to believe in and rely on my own ability. Art taught me to believe in myself.
Art and Creativity were the ways through which I began to find my purpose and function in life. I realised that I was a naturally, gifted, communicator but also I was a “thinker who had an inner vision” that was different to the average persons. So now I have decided to publish my work. To define myself, on my terms, as is my right.
I intend to speak up after all these years. Not for financial gain but for my Truth.
Looking back I’d always had a way with words. I’d learnt to read quickly as a child and more importantly, had developed a natural love of reading. In my junior school years, I remember two occasions where being literate had gotten me attention from the teachers.
The two occasions were at Sefton Park Primary School for Boys on Smithdown Road in Liverpool 15. I attended from 1967 to 1972. Prior to that, I had attended Chatsworth Street Infants School. I was aged about 7 or 8 years old and had been to a family wedding one weekend. For some reason the word, “cherish”, had stuck in my mind from the wedding ceremony. I put the word cherish, (correctly spelt and in the proper context), into an essay that I had to do as class work.
When my work was graded I was called to speak to the teacher. The teacher was most impressed by my use of the word. Remember it was the 1960’s and educational expectations of Black children in the British school system were not high, I “suspect”. I remember getting a gold star stuck to the relevant page in my exercise book. I remember feeling pleased with myself; the teachers praise had a definite, feel good effect to it.
It was even brought to the attention of the Headmaster, a Mr Bancroft. I was no angel and often would find myself sitting on the P.E. bench outside his office (the naughty children would have to sit there awaiting punishment and reprimanding) to receive another taste of the cane, corporal punishment for some classroom comedy moment, of which there were many. So to receive some positive feedback and praise was a new experience for me.
They knew I was a bright, confident child but were somewhat bemused by my behaviour. I was no Craig Bentham. Craig was our star pupil, the clever kid, who seemed to be, the perfect pupil. Nowadays they would call him a nerd or a geek. To us lesser mortals at the time he was a swot.
The second occasion I recall was after a “field trip” to a local dairy, which was about 300 yards away from the school, right next to a pub called The Willow Bank on Smithdown Road. Now to me it seems odd to have cows in such an urban environment but that’s the way it was. We walked along the road, supervised by our female teacher Miss Banks, to the dairy.
Several things made an everlasting impression on my formative young mind. First thing was the smell of the cows and their “agricultural waste” material. It hit you straight between the eyes.
The second was the tomato red, ruddy complexion of the dairyman who gave us our tour around and his big green wellington boots. We were all excited, loud and noisy, chattering away as we were shown cows in small stalls.
The third thing that made an everlasting impression on my mind was the fact that in one of the stalls there was a mother cow and her calf. The calf was shivering in the hay, it was brown with a white patch on its face. It had big brown eyes with big eyelashes and I guess our loud, raucous, squawking presence frightened the calf. I remember staring at it intently.
All too quickly the tour was over and we were marched back to school, back to our classroom. On arrival we were told by our teacher, Miss Banks, to write an account of our field trip to the dairy. We settled down to write our stories. When the time for writing was up, we then had to stand in front of the class and to read what we had just written. My classmates stood up and read their accounts about the trip. They too like me had noted the overpowering smell and commented in a childlike way on “the smell of the moo moos” and mentioned the big dairyman with his floppy hat and wellington boots. They too commented on his big red nose and his red blotchy face.
Then it was my turn to read what I had written but “my account, my story” was completely different. I had used my imagination and created a different kind of account of my visit to the dairy. It started with me being asleep in the hay and being awoken by the sounds of the visiting human children. I had been frightened but one of the children, who had a brown face “like me”, looked at me and when he did, I felt my fear going away.
That was my account, my version, based on the trip to the dairy. I had projected myself into the mind of the frightened calf with “the brown face”. I had felt an empathy with the calf because I had experienced a similar experience when I had first arrived at the school, of staring, chattering children, them gawking and gathering around me. There were not many (if any} Black children in my new school. In my previous school there had been others but in the new school there were not. I don’t really understand to this day why I wrote what I wrote. This was one of the times I remember expressing something that made me realise even at that young age that I was somehow different from the other kids, in more ways than one.
It was at this stage of my life that I first “really became aware” of the word NIGGER ! It was used in the playgrounds in a taunting rhyme that went,
“Nigger ! Nigger ! Pull the trigger. Bang! Bang! Bang!”
But one thing about me is that I would always stand up for myself, so if comedy and jokes did not win people over, I was always capable of dishing out punches, kicks and head butts to those kids who persisted. (The name calling never lasted long.)
The result this time completely different to my use of the word cherish however. I remember being sent to be interviewed by a school psychologist and being shown the “ink blot picture test”, to which I answered, when asked what the pictures looked like or reminded me of, was that it looked like Billy Bobbins playing football and scoring goals. I realised I was in some sort of “danger” and was being “scrutinised” so kept my responses obtuse and nonsensically ambiguous. When in fact some of those images looked very “scary” but I never said that.
Even at this early age I had a natural mistrust and wariness about so called “authority figures”. That was the schools response, as I said it was the 1960’s but I have never forgotten writing that story when I was aged about 8 or 9 years old and the scrutiny that followed. I often wondered what had been written down about me. Stuff like that can follow you through your school days and beyond.
I recall another occasion at my previous school when due to rain we could not play out on the school yard one dinner time. We were herded into the assembly hall by the staff and I have this memory of standing up, performing some sort of comedy impressions routine of TV cartoon characters of the day while the rest of the kids sat around me in a big circle. I had a natural gift for performance, for communication and for influencing others around me. I stood out from the crowd, even then and it’s true to say if you’ve met me once, you’d never forget having met me.
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I went on to my senior school, Holt Comprehensive at Childwall, Five Ways. I enjoyed my school years. I was in the top band of students in my year and got O level / GCSE and CSE qualifications in nine subjects by the time I left School. Art was not one of those subjects. I was literate but had no interest in “ART” at this time. Art was the class where the tutor was laid back and easy going. If you were not particularly interested in taking the subject as a qualification he would allow you to sit at the back of the classroom and talk amongst other like-minded students, as long as you did not disturb those students who were taking the subject seriously.
My subjects at school were English Language, English Literature, Maths, History, Geography, Physics and Chemistry, French and German.
Art class was where me and my friends talked about girls and sex, music, cars, our parents, clothes, films, football, fighting, told each other jokes and discussed who and what we wanted to be when we left school. Being an artist was the last thing on my mind.
It was not till my later teenage years that my interest in art was sparked by my friend, Andrew John, an intelligent and talented individual who had a positive influence on my artistic development. I met Andrew, at a friend’s sister’s party, on Earle Road, Liverpool 7, she was my mate’s, Eddie Gownes’s older sister. Andrew and I were both 18 years old. We found ourselves in a room at the party where it seemed everyone was stoned or drunk and taking the piss out of each other. We both quickly realised we had met our, lyrical match in each other and after a few comedy exchanges; we instinctively joined forces to, pressure and give everyone else in the room stick. We made each other and the other people in the room, laugh and buzz. After this meeting we became life-long friends, both of us having a grudging respect for each other, from that moment on. This was about 1979 well before The Toxteth Riots of 1981.
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The party was also significant for another reason. I met a beautiful and intelligent, mix raced girl, called Maria. I walked her home, gave her a sexy goodnight kiss and she became my girlfriend from that night and officially she was the first, real love, of my young adult life.
I was living off Lark Lane, Aigburth, Liverpool 17 at the time, in my first flat, a bedsit in the basement of a big house in Livingstone Ave. It was my first taste of independence; it was my pride and joy. It was my own place with my own key to the front door and no one to tell me what to do. Andrew lived at home with his Mother on the corner of Catherine Street and Canning Street, To.xteth, Liverpool 8
We would hang out there and that was when I discovered Andrew was a talented artist as well as an accomplished exponent of Karate. We had all been inspired by Bruce Lee as teenagers but some people had taken karate up seriously and Andrew was one of those who had. He was tall, athletically built with quick reflexes and was mentally sharp. In later life he went on to represent Great Britain at Karate, internationally, at various levels of sporting competiveness and excellence.
Behind his obvious physical attributes, Andrew was a private, sensitive and deep person who had a talent for drawing. He could sit down with you and draw your portrait. He took up learning to play the saxophone. While spending time at his home he would try to encourage me to draw. He was so good I was intimidated by his skill and always swerved his attempts to get me to draw. He was working on a piece inspired by The Hobbit, it was a scene set in a dark forest full of red eyed, snarling wolves and grotesque Orcs. I would’ve only of been able to draw stick men but I was good with words so I would write short stories and poems while he drew Marvel, Super Hero comic characters.
He told me a very important thing and that was, that it was important to develop your own style of drawing and painting and not to be intimidated by other people’s style. He told me it was important to put your own feelings and individual expression into your work. Andrew definitely opened my eyes to Art and the idea that it was something I could do. I discovered a painter called Wassily Kandinsky and it was his work that truly inspired me to paint along with the works of Pablo Picasso, the Godfather of Modern Art, Vincent Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Henri Mattisse, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Pierre Renoir, Salvador Dali and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Andrew went to college to do Art at a college department based up by Greenbank Park, in Liverpool and one day he invited me to come to the college and gave me a tour of the different departments in the college. I remember the photography department especially and thinking, I could learn photography, I could do that. I eventually found a twelve week course in black and white photography run by an organisation called Open Eye, based in the city centre. It was here that my passion and of love photography was truly ignited and has burnt like an Olympic torch in me ever since.
This was in the days before digital photography; it was all about rolls of film and the magical process of darkrooms and chemicals. Once you had learnt about the basics of the camera, lens etc., about framing the subject, f stops, about exposures, the process for developing the film, techniques for printing pictures, only by taking photographs can you discover what your own style is, what your personal themes are and which subjects are of interest to you ?
I had seen the power of the media after 1981 and decided to use the power of photography to tell a different story about Toxteth and Liverpool. The camera became my weapon to uses to fight the Establishment’s view of us. I wanted to show the human face of Toxteth and Liverpool to challenge the Media’s character assassination jobs.
NEWSFLASH : I have just been told that Maggie Thatcher has died which only serves to convince me that now is the right time to publish this collection of work. The date is Monday the 8th of April, 2013. I will always remember where I was, seated at a computer, composing the introduction for this book.
I am not gloating but it does feel like the moment that the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz died. I am wondering who is grieving and who is celebrating in the country but especially in Liverpool. By the time her own party turned on her and ousted her from the Leadership of the Conservative Party, she had become such a hate figure in the country that she had been considered an electoral liability.
There is much debate in the media on what her legacy will be and how she will be remembered. She will always be a symbol of the greed and depravity of Capitalism, to me. Thatcher will always be the symbol of the rich getting richer while the poor grew poorer, to me. I will always remember her for, the assault on and breaking of, the Miners Union, her Monetarist Policies, the Poll Tax Riots, The Greenham Common Protests, the Falklands War and my imprisonment.
If you bought shares when her government sold off of the nation’s infrastructure and utilities or maybe you bought your council house or maybe you had a business and made lots of profit during her terms, you may remember her differently. She was not that War Time Leader Winston Churchill and we, the working class and poor people of the country were NOT the enemy, in our own land.
The Toxteth Riots : Chancellor Howe proposed 'managed decline' for city.
Spending more money on Liverpool’s regeneration was like trying to make "water flow uphill", the chancellor had said. It was revealed 30 years later that Margaret Thatcher was urged to abandon Liverpool to " a managed decline" by her chancellor, newly-released National Archives files have revealed. The confidential government documents, made available under the 30-year rule, reveal Cabinet discussions following the July 1981 Toxteth riots.
This to me reveals a lot about what Liverpool and Toxteth had to face in those dark days. The political climate in the UK at the moment with the coalition Government and their attempts to manage the country in the aftermath of the 2008 worldwide financial crash i.e. The Credit Crunch, is reminiscent of the 1980’sThatcher era. Now 10 years later with Brexit looming and the confusion as to what will the landscape of Britain look like, politically, economically and culturally, into this uncertain future.
BRITAIN IS NO LONGER GREAT
THE KINGDOM IS NO LONGER UNITED
THIS IS THE DAWN OF NEW DARK AGE ...
My photography records the way it was before the coming change ....
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The Government’s Austerity Policies of cutting the amount of money spent on the Welfare State, with attacks on Housing Benefit, (in the form of the Bedroom Tax), attacks on the Disability Living Allowance and the savage cuts in Public Spending are all combining to create an atmosphere of impending doom amongst the more vulnerable in our society.
The Conservatives seem to think attacking the public services, the poor and lowly paid, the unemployed and those on benefits will win votes in the next election. There are frightening similarities between the past and the present.
Youth unemployment is at a thirty year high and not surprisingly, there were riots in 2011 in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, thirty years on from the Toxteth and Brixton riots of 1981.
A lot of those rioting young people have artistic and creative potential that could offer them a career if only the government would invest in them. I think I am writing this and publishing my work at the right time. It’s time to reflect on the past as I look forward to a politically uncertain future. Once again our society is going through massive social change and upheaval. The country needs to reach out to the Youth and show them that being artistic and creative can be “one of the antidotes” to the negativity of gang culture, drug culture and the culture of unemployment. I still feel like a voice in the wilderness.
Anyway back to my journey of artistic and creative self-discovery.
I FELL IN LOVE WITH BLACK and WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY. Naturally I looked in books about photography for inspiration and found it. Below are some of the photographers I discovered and from whom I gained inspiration.
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James Vanderzee was a black photographer, who lived in Harlem, New York and ran a studio there from 1916 to 1968. He also worked as a photo-journalist, did portraits and society photographs. He photographed Harlem not as a ghetto but as part of the city of New York, with its own unique character. His work forms part of a historical record that is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Gordon Parks another famous black photographer who was hired as a free-lance fashion photographer by Vogue, to photograph a collection of gowns. He was hired by Life magazine as a photographer and writer as a result of his 1948 photo essay on a young Harlem gang leader.
He worked for Life for 20 years, producing photos on a wide variety of topics plus portraits of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Barbara Streisand amongst others.
His most famous photograph, made in 1942, entitled American Gothic. It shows a black cleaner with two mops, standing in front of the American Flag ����� ӗ!
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of the 35 mm format and the master of candid photography. His candid style of capturing the moment impressed me most of all.
Bert Hardy was a documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the Picture Post magazine between 1941 and 1957.
Robert Capa was a Jewish-Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War.
Elliott Erwitt was an advertising and documentary photographer known for his black and white candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings— a master of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment".
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Man Ray was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal.
Weegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig, a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography..
Helmut Newton photography influenced fashion itself although this was not the limit of his contribution to art. Newton was born in Berlin in 1920 to affluent Jewish parents and spent his formative years in a Germany which was a pressure cooker about to burst not only with political extremism but also experimentation in the arts.
Bill Brandt : In the 1930s, Bill Brandt put down roots in England. He had always wanted to be English, and perhaps this is what rendered him an ideal conduit for seeing British society in the era he was active in.
These are just a few of the photographers who I read about and whose work inspired me to pursue a career in photography. I also read about Magnum Photographic Collective and secretly dreamed one day to be part of it.
I realised that with my unique connection to Toxteth and Liverpool, in the post 1981 era, meant I was presented with a unique opportunity to document a community and city going through seismic changes in its culture. In some ways being from the Black community gave me access in a way that an outsider would never be privileged to. When I went into the city centre and other areas of the city I was viewed initially with suspicion, a black guy with a camera, what was I up to ?
More often than not however once I explained who I was and that my mission was to record the way things were, how things were changing and capturing for future generations my unique view and perspective of Liverpool, so that the people and places that had taken the brunt of Thatcher’s hammering during the 1980’s but had stood up to the establishment would not be forgotten.
I knew finding a job in Liverpool was going to be difficult so set about creating a “job / career” for myself. The photographs would be my legacy, an archive of historical importance one day. A treasure chest of culture and an alternative pension plan for me. I would like to set up some charitable foundations, use art to reach out to disadvantaged youth from around the world as well as from the UK and give them the opportunity to come to Liverpool and study Art, Music, Film Production and Multi-media Technology, Art management and business at an academy or with a charitable organisation, that is funded from some off the royalties from my work long after I am gone. That’s one of my ambitions anyway.
I set about recording everyday life on the streets of Liverpool and went everywhere with my camera and still do. Every time I received my unemployment cheque, my giro. I would go to the Jessops Photography Shop and buy film. I felt this was a good investment in my chosen career mission and my future.
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I would load up the film and begin my hunt for images. I was filled with excitement and loved meeting people through my photography. I quickly discovered that I had a knack for charming people and getting their portraits and would approach people I found interesting to me, photographically speaking. Once I had convinced the subject to let me take their picture, I would ask them to compose themselves and to think of something positive in their mind that they would like to say to people in a 100 years from that moment but not to tell me what that positive thought was then take their photograph.
This always intrigued me as to what they were thinking but it was a useful means of getting them to relax and consent.
On more than one occasion while taking candid photos I had been challenged aggressively by people. If it is 4 o’clock in the morning and you are trying to take candid, real life pictures, in a kebab shop, of drunken clubbers and party heads. Do not be surprised when not everyone wants to be involved in your project. I have been attacked by people demanding the film from my camera. On several occasions I have been so concerned not to get my camera damaged or stolen that I have taken physical blows or had to run away rather than give up the camera or film.
I rarely gave people my contact details as I was not trying to drum up the business of selling prints to the people in the photos. s funde���e �,
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While walking round taking pictures and meeting people I found I escaped from the worries of my everyday existence. This was an unexpected but a pleasurable therapeutic side effect of what I was doing. I felt I was doing something constructive with myself at the time and that in the future I would be able to reap the benefit of my foresight. I recognised how valuable photographs were as historical documents and recognised that no one in authority in the city seemed to value the diverse and multi-cultural community of Toxteth.
Well I did value and appreciated the community even when sometimes it felt like my friends and members of community did not quite get or appreciate the change in me. On occasions I was challenged about whether there was even film in my camera. I got lots of snide remarks and funny looks that suggested they thought I had gone off my head, that I had lost the plot and that I was not on the ball and that I was not keeping up with the times.
They were intent on making big money from “street grafting enterprises” and I did not want to get too involved in all that. I did not want to end up doing years in prison and end up wasting my life. I felt now I had something to offer and given a chance could be a truly positive and productive person. I was a photographer and a good one. I just wanted a better life and was determined to struggle on rather than fall prey to the lure of quick easy money.
If I had not found photography I probably would have fallen into the same trap, it was becoming obvious, that’s what Class A drugs were, a trap. Over the years, friends started becoming addicted, started looking rough, started to look like walking skeletons, started getting up to all sorts of naughtiness to get money, started to have dead empty eyes when you met them and eventually they started dying, of overdoses and other related effects. The buzz wears off and you always come crashing back down to earth, the reality being. your broke and your problems are still there to haunt you.
I also had begun writing and performing poetry.
I also had begun writing and performing poetry. I had been inspired by my cousin Levi Tafari, a highly respected writer and performance poet from the Toxteth community and Eugene Lange another powerful writer and powerful performer. I had done an early gig with them both and Benjamin Zephaniah and that paved the way for more gigs around the city and beyond. By being creative I was finding my time was being better spent. I would now spend time painting, playing my bass guitar (badly), reading and writing.
I had made a choice to step away from the petty crime of my former street life. Photography is very much an individual pursuit so I naturally swerved gang activity and more importantly gang mentality. I was actually maturing and growing up. Finding more out about, who I was, learning to appreciate myself.
In 1986 I had a very vivid dream that inspired me. I had always been into hip hop and graffiti and had started using the tool of the street artist, the spray can, I had been out on the street tagging using LIFE FORCE CULTURE and THE BRANCH but had never done a “burner”, a big piece on a wall. I had taken to spraying slogans on walls such as - “STAY COOL IN THE POOL”
However I had wanted to use spray cans in a more fine art technique which was not really the New York way of thinking but I was not in New York. One night I had a dream I was walking around the neighbourhood and the street signs were sprayed, red, yellow and green, the colours associated with Rastafarianism, a religious movement from Jamaica.
When I awoke I remembered the dream and realised I had those colour spray cans in my collection. Quickly I got dressed. I was living on Kingsley Road at the time and went out onto the street. It was about six o’clock in the morning and no one was about. I took my bag of spray cans and went to the Kingsley Road street sign, it was accessible and I began to spray, using a piece of cardboard to block the area I did not want to spray. The first colour was, the red, I then sprayed the yellow and lastly the green. I stood back to admire my handiwork and it looked beautiful. The street sign was beaming and so was I.
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It was a strangely satisfying experience because in a weird but very real way I had begun to make the dream, my dream come true. I wanted to hold onto the thought and the feeling that if I worked hard enough I could make my dreams come true.
I have held onto that feeling for all these years since that moment. The simple act of spraying the signs had a massive impact on the street. If you were from the area, seeing those signs meant you felt a little safer. If you were from outside you knew that this was where the Black Community lived. Depending on your feelings towards that concept would determine how you felt.
Remember before 1981, our area had always been known as L8 or the South End, no one called it Toxteth. That was the Media’s doing in re-branding us as the Terror of Toxteth. It makes a good, sensational, headline and rolls of the tongue in Daily Mail and Daily Express land.
(Eventually the street signs were commented on in the local paper, The Liverpool Echo, when some Oxford Dons visited the city and were asked what had been the most positive thing they had seen or experienced during their visit. The response was the Toxteth street signs, intellectual Oxbridge validation, no less.)
I now began nightly adventures to spray street signs and had help from some of the local youth who would keep watch while I did them. One memorable occasion we carried a ladder to the junction of Upper Parliament Street, Princes Avenue and Catherine Street and propped the ladder up against the lamp post on which was the Toxteth street sign you would see on your way out of the City centre on a bus coming along Catherine Street heading towards, the Avenue, the Berkley Street estate, Granby Street and Princes Park Gates etc.
I began to be contacted by documentary film makers. The first one I appeared in was done by Liverpool Black Media Group, called “They Have’nt Nothing”. A friend of mine, Manny Uchebu, was involved in the organisation and convinced me to get involved. Manny had also been a keen photographer and community activist. He had taken some brilliant photos during and in the aftermath of the riots. His work inspired me to take up photography and it was like a torch passed from him to me concerning documentary photography of the community.
I did documentaries with BBC Panorama, Granada ITV’s “World In Action”, Channel 4 and some independent film makers who had been commissioned to come to Toxteth and make documentaries.
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After a while I began to stop doing them. I would find that after the documentaries being shown on television, Police in vans would shout out to me sarcastically, “Seen you on the telly last night Leroy”.
It felt like intimidation, as though they were saying, “We know who you are and we can stop you and harass you anytime we want”. I had a distinctive look at the time, with dreadlocks on top of my head with my head shaved at the sides and at the back. There was no hiding with that image but looking so distinctive made the idea of getting up to anything unsavoury a non-starter.
I began to realise that there was more power being behind the camera than being in front of it. I wanted to make documentaries and to have the power over editing and how information was presented to an audience. I needed to know and understand more about Liverpool before I could represent it in and through my work.
I immersed myself in Liverpool’s culture because I wanted to learn what it was, that made Scousers tick and at the heart of the community is its Social Life. My social life has always been fertile ground for taking candid photographs of real people, being themselves. Social drinking is so much a part of Liverpool culture. We all have our regular “boozers” that we go to, just to get out and socialise, meet our mates and have a laugh. I have always been a “clubber more than a pubber” because I love music, I love DJ’s, rappers, partying and dancing MORE THAN DRINKING.
I love seeing “live music”, I love people, who can sing, play musical instruments; guitars, drums, keyboards, saxophones, accordions, violins, even the spoons, whatever, it’s all about creating a harmonious and tuneful sound. Music is one of those mediums for communication that crosses boundaries of race, colour or creed. Music brings people together. Music is one of the best things we humans do and Liverpool has so many talented musicians that just need promotion and they would open your eyes, your ears and your heart.
I began taking educational and training courses, Video production, Desk Top publishing, refresher photography courses, Art Foundation course, University Access course, Radio Production course, Arts Management course, NVQ level 4. I pursued education and training relentlessly. I am not a lazy person and if I am interested in something I will research and investigate it. I am a great believer in self-education.
I went to use the darkrooms at The Unemployed Trade Union Centre on Hardman Street, at the Old Police Station on Lark Lane, at some place in Bootle, in fact anywhere I could get access to facilities and resources, I went there. People I knew who were working would do photo-copying for me or let me work on their personal computers.
I got involved in lots of art and creative projects in the city. They always covered my expenses so even when I was not getting a wage I would be busy networking and letting people see my work. I had a deep sense of being a man on a mission. I had dreams and big ideas that would not let me slack off. I was always playing the long game and had the self-belief that as long as I stayed alive and out of trouble eventually my time would come and I would get the recognition and reward for all the leg work, for all the struggle and for not giving up.
People have asked me in the past, like I am some sort of Oracle, “What was the Toxteth Uprising of 1981” about? Well I’ve had time to think about my reply and here it is…
Liverpool and its pivotal role, in the Slave Trade, left the legacy of, a racist Institutional attitude in Liverpool, which led to an economic and social exclusion of the multi-cultural i.e. Black Community, as its legacy.
The Toxteth Uprising, were the “chickens of 500 years of British Imperialism, Colonialism and Racial Genocide coming home to roost”. This means Liverpool is a symbolic gateway of Great Britain‘s descent into, depravity, via Empire building and the economic exploitation and the political and cultural degradation of Africa and the Black Diaspora. This statement takes into consideration those people worldwide who also suffered the inhumanity and cruelty of the Great British Empire.
This includes China, the Indian Sub-Continent, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, North and South, The Caribbean, Australia and Ireland !
Shame and guiltiness rests upon those Institutions and business concerns that propagated and profited from this human misery and evilness.
If you know your history, you will know this is the real truth and the real definition of the Great British Empire. However the “Real Truth is not taught in British schools.”
The Toxteth Riots represented the struggle of the working classes, the poor and the voiceless under classes.
A multicultural and diverse community of peoples, of all colours and races, coming together in an “epiphany moment of clarity” to throw off the shackles of the political Beast that had murdered, conquered and enslaved, poor people, across five continents of our planet.
Young people who stood up, collectively, to the might of the System and Establishment and told them in no uncertain terms…
”NO WE WILL NOT BEATEN AND SUBDUED INTO SUBMISSION.
YOU TRIED TO DENY US OPPORTUNITIES TO ADVANCE IN LIFE BY TRAPPING US IN POVERTY AND IMPOVERISHED GHETTO CIRCUMSTANCES.
YOU TRIED TO CRUSH OUR SPIRIT BUT WE ARE THE ANTIDOTE TO YOUR SICK MENTALITY AND TIME WILL BE THE JUDGE OF OUR ACTIONS IN THE FIGHT FOR OUR FREEDOM AND OUR HUMAN RIGHTS.
THIS IS OUR TOXTETH TESTIMONY AND OUR BEACON OF LIGHT IN A DARK WORLD.
IT IS A TORCH FOR PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD TO TAKE COURAGE AND INSPIRATION IN THEIR STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND EQUALITY WHERE EVER THEY MAY BE…
ONCE PEOPLE UNITE THEY CAN OVERCOME WHAT APPEARS TO BE MASSIVE HURDLES AND INSURMOUNTABLE BARRIERS,TO CREATE, A BETTER FUTURE FOR THEIR CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDRENS, CHILDRENS, CHILDREN.
LOVE AND UNITY ARE THE ANSWERS…”
Liverpool and in particular Toxteth has numerous people of exceptional talents and abilities. When the powers that “think they control the city”… wake up to this reality and invest, promote, “believe in and trust” in its working class Black and White Diverse Communities, then a beautiful and truly, awe inspiring transformation, will take place in Liverpool.
The city that represented the enslavement and degradation of the peoples of the world will become a city of cultural freedom for all. A city of invention and a unique world embracing creativity.
An inclusive, multi-cultural “peoples powerhouse” of a city. A vibrant and potent symbol of what can be achieved when all people are valued, respected and encouraged in making a positive contribution their society…
“AND ARE NO LONGER, CONDEMED AND LOOKED DOWN UPON AS BEING INFERIOR OR WORTHLESS
This is my comment.... "30 something years on and my vision for Liverpool and its future"…
So these are some of the reasons and motivations behind my pursuit of a photo-journalistic career.
I hope you enjoy what you are about to see.
This collection of photography is ONLY (THE END OF) THE BEGINNING.
I REPRESENT
FOR A POOL OF TALENT
THAT WILL ASTOUND YOU
I REPRESENT
FOR THE VOICES OF
THE UNHEARD VICTIMS
I REPRESENT
FOR THE ART OF
THE CHOSEN CITY
I REPRESENT
FOR THE DAWNING
OF THE LIGHT
AS THE DARKNESS FADES
I REPRESENT
FOR THE SECRET
PHOTOGRAPHIC LIFE
I HAVE LIVED....
FOR THE PEOPLE
WHOSE NAMES
I HAVE NOT NAME DROPPED
THE PHOTOGRAPHY REPRESENTS... !
