Of Time and the City (2008) - full transcript

(# Liszt:
Consolation No. 3 in D Flat Major )

(# U naccompanied piano plays
a gently flowing melody)

(T erence Davies narrates...)

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows

What are those blue remembered hills

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content

I see it shining plain

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again



(# Piano continues to murmur...)

I met a traveller from an antique land
who said:

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
stand in the desert

And on the pedestal
these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias,
King of Kings:

"Look on my works, ye mighty,
and despair!."

Nothing beside remains

Round the decay of
that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands
stretch far away

"lf Liverpool did not exist, it would
have to be invented." [Myrbach]

(# Handel:
Music for the Royal Fireworks )

(# Trumpet voluntary
accompanied by brisk drumming)

(# Trumpet ornamentation continues...)

(# Trumpet music concludes
with a flourish)



We love the place we hate,
then hate the place we love

We leave the place we love,

then spend a lifetime trying to regain it.

Come closer now...

...and see your dreams.

Come closer now...and see mine.

No meat on Friday.
Confession on Saturday,

emerging cleansed
and pleasing to God.

Mass on Sundays,
and Holy days of obligation.

Despite my dogged piety,
no great revelation came.

No divine balm
to ease my soul.

Just years wasted in useless prayer.

If I pray long enough,
I would be forgiven.

If I am forgiven,
I would be made whole.

All I'll need then is the girl.

Suddenly, I knew, suddenly, I thought...

...it's all a lie.

Paradise betrayed.

There was no God, only Satan,

sauntering behind me with a smirk,
saying, "I'll get you in the end".

Tu es Petrus.
You're a brick, Pete.

Here, people married.

Here, people died and were buried.

In deconsecrated Catholic Churches,

now made into restaurants
as chic as anything abroad.

Now the congregation can eat
and drink in the sight of God,

who will, no doubt,
disapprove of cocktails in Babylon.

Is this happiness?

Is this perfection?

As you are now, we once were.
[James Joyce]

(# Tavener: The Protecting Veil)

(# Violin sustains long, lingering notes)

They that go down to the sea
in ships

and that do business in great waters,

these see the works of the Lord,
and his wonders in the deep.

[Anno Domini]

(# Tavener: The Protecting Veil)

(# Violin sustains long, lingering notes)

"Removed from the sight
of happier classes

"poverty may struggle along as it can."
[Friedrich Engels]

(Archive radio report)

'Preston North End 2
- Blackpool 3

'Everton 2 - West Ham United 0

(Radio report fades)

On slow Saturdays,

when football, like life,
was still played in black and white,

and in shorts as long as underwear.

When it was still not venal.

When sportsmen and women
knew how to win and lose with grace

and never to punch the air in victory.

Match over, pea soup made,
my mother calling from the kitchen;

my eldest brother listening to
the football results

in front of the Bakelite radio,

marking his coupon,
hoping to win millions.

Accrington Stanley,
Sheffield Wednesday,

Hamilton Academicals,
Queen of the South.

And on ever slower Sundays,

when it felt as if the whole world was
listening to the "Light Programme",

Kenneth Horne, promptly at 2 o'clock

and long before the repeal
of the Sexual Offences Act,

would visit two of
his very special friends.

(Radio) '... I was recommended
to a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's lnn.

'The brass plate on
the door read: Bona Law.'

(Laughter)

'Hello!. Anybody there?'

'Oh, 'ello, I'm Julian
and this is my friend, Sandy.

'I've got me articles
and he's taken silk...frequently.

'Well, Mr Horne, how nice to
varder your dolly old eek again.

'Oh, what brings you trolling in here?'

'Can you help me? I've erred.'

'Yeah, we've all 'eard, ducky.
It's common knowledge, innit, Jules!.'

- 'Will you take my case?'
- 'Depends on what it is.

'We've got a criminal practice
that takes up most of our time.'

- 'Yes, but apart from that.'
- 'Oooh! Ain't he bold!'

(Davies) But the law proscribed
and was anything but tolerant.

As when, contemporaneously,

two gay men were arrested
and convicted

and were to be made an example of.

And the judge said to them
before he was passing sentence,

"Not only have you committed
an act of gross indecency,

"but you did it under
one of London's most beautiful bridges."

(Archive report) 'Show place of the
North, The Ritz Theatre, Birkenhead,

'again presents
a replica Royal Film performance

(# Johnnie "Scat" Davis:
Hooray For Hollywood)

At seven, I saw Gene Kelly
and Singin'in the Rain

and discovered the movies, loved them
and swallowed them whole.

And my love was as muscular
as my Catholicism,

but without any of the drawbacks.
Musicals, Melodramas, Westerns,

nothing was too rich or too poor
for my rapacious appetite

and I gorged myself with a frequency
that would shame a sinner.

But soon, darker pleasures.

At 1 5, I saw Dirk Bogarde
in Victim

and discovered something
entirely different.

And when I was not at the movies,
on Friday nights,

I was at the Liverpool Stadium
watching the wrestling.

Not for its pantomimic villainy
but for something more illicit.

And in short, I was afraid.

As I struggled with
my adolescent desires,

as I waited at the top of the aisle,

as the wrestlers swaggered up
from the ring,

their trunks tight across the buttocks,

I could feel their body heat
as I furtively touched a back or a thigh,

choking with schoolboy guilt

and trembling with the fear
of the wrath of God.

Oh, save me from those dark desires
which thrill and compel.

The world. The flesh.
And the Devil.

(Bell rings)

(# Male voice sings Perotin's
Beata Viscera )

Caught between Canon
and the criminal law,

I said goodbye to my girlhood.

Here, I wept...

...wept and prayed until my knees bled,
but no succour came -

no peace granted.

Here was my whole world.

Home. School. The Movies.

And God.

You, who damn but give no comfort.

Why do I plead?

Why do you not respond, angel eyes?

Jesus, mercy. Mary, help.

Lull me to safety.

(# Plainsong continues...)

Between sleeping and waking,
Earth does not revolve.

And slow turns the life
of meagre timbre,

of dullest breath.

Between birth and dying,
some lovely moments grow.

And sorrows not known until tomorrow,

cloud the happy hours
spent dreaming in the sun.

Between joy and consolation,
no easy path.

Some flights of fancy,
some colour.

Glorious old Hollywood;
small, comic England.

Black and white.

Between loving and hating,
the real journey starts.

Let go the latter, embrace the former,

then fall to heaven on a gentle smile.

Between waking and sleeping,
the earth resumes its turn.

The soft light fills the room,

the nightly demons perish from the bed,

and all humanity braves another day.

(Archive recording of woman)

'We used to help one another out.

'Go to wash house.

'Do washing for anyone if they couldn't,

'or nurse them if they were sick.'

Those are all right,
but yours still smell of smoke!

'And then, of course,
my mother died on Christmas Eve.

'And she left me at fourteen

'with a little baby, twelve months old,

'and another one, er, four.

'Me dad stayed with us
eight weeks.

'And then he got a ship,
and went away and left us.

'Course, he died after, you know.

'Then I had more trouble
on me plate, like.

'Me husband never ever
got much work.

'l had to work all me life.

'But thank God! God's been very good
to me. And his Holy Mother.

(Bell chimes)

(# The Spinners: Dirty Old Town )

# I found my love

# By the gas works croft

# Dreamed a dream

# By the old canal

# Kissed my girl

# By the factory wall

# Dirty old town

# Dirty old town

# I heard a siren

# From the dock

# Saw a train

# Set the night on fire

# Smelled the spring

# On the sulphured wind

# Dirty old town

# Dirty old town #

The year moves towards November.

Bonfire night, a penny for the guy,

someone singing
Keep the Heaven Fires Burning...

(Fire crackles)

...as Jimmy Preston and me, the only
ones left now, roast potatoes on sticks.

We sit, quiet at the last.

Jimmy Preston who was a real boy,
and whom I envied.

Jimmy Preston who once put
his hand on my shoulder,

and I didn't want him to remove it.

"Don't go in just yet.
Please, not just yet...'

But he does.

Twilight and evening bell.

And after that...

...the dark.

(# Branesti: Priveghiati si va Rugat)

(# Orchestra repeats and develops
a simple, wistful theme)

(# Chorus of voices collectively restates
the orchestra's theme)

(# Children sing playground rhymes
over the orchestral music)

(Child) # You bought me a shawl
Of red, white and blue

# And when we got married
you tore it in two

# Oh, gee, I love him, I can't deny it

# I'll be with him wherever he goes #

(Bells chime)

(Woman)
'l would have liked to have worked on,

'but they threw me out
because I was old.

'It's a sin to grow old, you know.

'We had an old lady here, and, erm...

'Everybody would run and get her
a cup of tea and they'd wait on her,

'and do all those little things, but
she'd always say, "Nobody wants me.'

'Well, I mean if you take that attitude,

'you can't expect anyone
to want you, can you?'

(Terence Davies) Oh, watch and pray.
Watch and pray.

Do you remember, you who are
no longer young, and you who still are?

Do you remember the months of
November and December?

Wet shoes and leaking galoshes,
and for the first time...chilblains,

with Christmas in the air.

God was in his heaven,
and oh, how I believed!

Oh, how fervent I was!

And on Christmas Eve,
pork roasting in the oven,

the parlour cleaned,
with fruit along the sideboard.

A pound of apples, tangerines
in tissue paper,

a bowl of nuts
and our annual exotic pomegranate.

Do you remember?

Do you?

Will you ever forget?

(Woman laughs) 'Happy days!'

My mother,

generous with the small nest egg
of twenty five pounds she'd borrowed.

Love and cellophane.

My brothers, with their made
to measure suits, bought on H P.

My sisters and a dab of scent,
maybe only Evening in Paris,

but making it seem as if the whole world
was drenched in Chanel.

Being taken to the Pictures, and in all
those movies, it was always Christmas

and it was always perfect.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,
Young at Heart,

All That Heaven Allows.

But all...
all are gone - the old familiar faces.

And yet, time renders -

deceives the eye; deceives the heart,

a valediction and an epitaph.

Now voyager, go forth, to seek and find.

But my eldest brother, lying in
an army hospital in Leamington Spa.

He will not go to war.
He will be safe.

Cometh the hour. Cometh the man.

Cometh the Korean War.

(Explosions and gun fire)

(# The Hollies:
He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother)

# The road is long

# With many a winding turn

# That leads us to who knows where

# Who knows where?

# But I'm strong

# Strong enough to carry him

# He ain't heavy

# He's my brother

# So on we go

# His welfare is my concern

# No burden is he to bear

# We'll get there

# For I know

# He would not encumber me.

# He ain't heavy

# He's my brother

# If I'm laden at all

# I'm laden, with sadness

# That everyone's heart

# lsn't filled with the gladness

# Of love

# For one another #

For Queen, country and the Civil List.

(Applause)

And yet all over the country,
street parties were held

to celebrate the start of
the Betty Windsor show.

When the golden couple married,
in 1 947,

the following was lavished
on the ceremony:

jewellery from other royals,
a washing machine,

a fridge, 76 handkerchiefs,
1 48 pairs of stockings,

38 handbags, 1 6 night gowns,

500 cases of tinned pineapple,
1 0,000 telegrams,

2000 guests, 5 Kings, 7 Queens,

8 Princes and 1 0 Princesses,

and for the 1 0,000 pearls
sewn onto her wedding dress,

Her Majesty allegedly saved
all her clothing coupons.

Even more money was wasted
on her Coronation,

as yet another fossil monarchy justified
its existence by tradition

and deluded itself
with the notion of 'duty'.

Privileged to the last, whilst in
England's green and pleasant land,

the rest of the nation survived
on rationing

in some of the worst slums in Europe

And in 'Bonny Scotland', they gave
Her Majesty a 21 hose salute.

Or maybe they were just taking the piss.

(Singing)

After Korea, EOKA and Mau-Mau,

India had gone, soon Africa would go.

Then Suez as a last hurrah,

Ieaving only a fading memory
of when most of the globe was red

and Victoria was the first and only
diminutive bourgeois imperatrix.

Betty and Phil
with a thousand flunkies.

"The trouble with being poor
is that it takes up all you time.'

[Willem de Kooning]

The trouble with being rich, is that it
takes up everybody else's.

After farce. Realism.

The heart that beats beneath the heart
is tender, is not savage

It beats in time, though years apart,
from struggles silent marriage

Of storm and stress,
of quiet love

As when the lights begin to fall,
and he just smiles as she just hums

A tune that fitted like a glove

But tapped its rhyme,
still and small, into their room

When nightfall thrums,
a kind of peace that soothes the heart

And lets the years fall
from nought and down

As they shuffle off to bed, apart

Then meet again
beneath the eiderdown

(# Peggy Lee:
The Folks Who Live on the Hill)

# Someday

# We'll build a home

# On a hilltop high

# You and l

# Shiny and new

# A cottage that two can fill

# And we'll be pleased to be called

# The folks who live on the hill

# Someday

# We may be adding

# A wing or two

# A thing or two

# We will make changes

# As any family will

# But we will always be called

# The folks who live on the hill

# Our veranda will command

# A view of meadows green

# The sort of view that seems
to want to be seen

# And when the kids grow up

# And leave us

# We'll sit and look
at that same old view

# Just we two

# Baby and Joe

# Who used to be
Jack and Jill

# The folks who liked to be called

# What they have always been called

# The folks who live

# On the hill #

By the waters of Babylon,
where we sat down,

Yea we wept,
when we remembered Zion.

And they that carried us away captive

Required of us a song, saying
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'

But how shall we sing
in a strange land?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

# For goodness sake

# I got the hippy hippy shakes

# Yeah, I got the shakes

# I got the hippy hippy shakes

# Oh, I can't sit still... #

And in an era when pop music
was still demure,

before Presley, before The Beatles.

John, Paul, George and Ringo -
not so much a musical phenomenon,

more like a firm of provincial solicitors.

(Fans scream)

When they are given
the freedom of the city,

Teddy Johnson and Pearl Carr,
Dicky Valentine, Lita Rosa,

Alma Cogan, sedate British Pop
was screamed away

on a tide of Mersey beat.

And the witty lyric
and the well crafted love song

seeming as antiquated
as antimacassars or curling tongs.

(# Binge: Elizabethan Serenade )

After the rise of Rock and Roll,
my interest in popular music waned,

and as it declined,
my love of classical music increased.

Sibelius, Shostakovich,
and my beloved Bruckner.

Then, in my overwrought
adolescent state of mind,

I discovered Mahler

and responded completely
to his every overwrought note.

And in Classical Music, they have
such wonderful foreign names.

Amy Shuard, Otto Klemperer,
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf,

Anneliese Rothenberger,
Furtwangler and Munch,

Knappertsbusch and Gauk,

Robert Merrill and Jussi Bjorling -
The Pearl Fishers.

(# Elizabethan Serenade continues...)

But there was still ballroom dancing.

As staid as a funeral parlour,

hectares of tulle, Brylcreem
and the fishtail,

accompanied by Victor Silvester
and his famous orchestral whine,

as thin as a two-step,
as quick as a foxtrot.

(Chanting in unison) Liverpool!

Liverpool! Liverpool!

(Radio) 'A thousand throng Aintree
Racecourse for The Grand National.

'Even umbrella weather won't stop the
crowds coming to this racing classic.

All of Britain listened to
the Grand National,

on radios as small
and brown as Hovis.

Made bets, off-course
and absolutely illegal,

but it was only once a year
and a shilling win.

So where was the harm?

Sundew, E.S. B, Early Mist.

Even Mum opened her purse
for her annual little flutter and said,

"l really fancy
Quare Times...each way.'

(Archive radio commentary)

'...as they turn back towards
the fourteen jumps again...

Bob Danvers-Walker,
the voice of British Pathe,

Michael O'Hare, Peter O'Sullivan -
the voices of racing.

Listening to their controlled excitement
pouring through the wireless.

'And Quare Times, who cost his owner
only 300 guineas,

'has won the National...

Mum smiling at her small win,
and those who've lost think,

"Well, there's always next year...

"...God willing.'

The 1 2th of July and the Orange Day
Parade through the city.

Winding their way towards
Exchange Station in Southport

to toast King Billy in a perruque
and say,

"Fuck the Pope
and all those Fenian bastards.'

Whatever, whoever they were.

And on the train coming home,
slightly the worse for wear,

howling at the papist moon.

But no religious divide in my street,

just quiet acceptance that Catholics
did everything in mysterious Latin,

while Protestants sang,
Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam,

in plain, no nonsense English.

Although sometimes,

it felt as if one's entire world
was one, long Sunday afternoon.

Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

Then Mum or one of my sisters
would say,

"Let's have a day out next week.'

And the ensuing seven days
were streaked and gilded.

But you still had to wait.

Those days, queuing was de rigueur.

Queuing modestly for modest
entertainment at the local fete.

In posh parts of the city,
like Stoneycroft,

where they sounded their 'H's
and knew what sculleries were.

A jumble sale, a fancy dress parade,

a foot race, with someone collapsing
with heat stroke

because the temperature rose
a couple of degrees above freezing.

The Scouts, darts
and a May Queen crowned.

A Nation deprived of luxury,
relishing these small delights.

Decorated prams and bicycles,
a smattering of applause.

All the fun of the fair.

So, to New Brighton.
Only a ferry ride away,

but happiness on a budget.

They board in black and white
then disembark in colour.

For things were changing.

World War ll was over,
peace time and hardship eased.

And all day on the beach,
completely unsupervised

with no factor 200 sun block
and safe as houses...

...Iittle baby Joyce.

Tarquin and Gemma,
being as yet, unknown.

Stiff at "Joy Time" with Aunty Lil.

Bathing Beauty Competitions,
in their day, harmless.

Now, as quaint as the bustle,

now, as unacceptable
as Chinese foot binding.

Pretty young women being kissed
by the Lord Mayor,

given a sash, a trophy
and some small, modest fame.

And oh...how we laughed!

A stroll along the Prom,
deckchairs and the floral clock.

Sand in the egg sandwiches.

Tea at three, then a snooze.

New Brighton rock as sweet as sick

and gobstoppers that would last
until your middle age.

A ride or two, then the miniature railway.

Then maybe to the dance,
maybe a jive,

maybe a gin and orange,
and maybe...Iove.

Kiss me quick and roll me over,
announce an engagement,

plan a wedding.

Taffeta skirts and blue serge,
youth that cannot end,

hopes as high as Blackpool Tower,

when all the world was young
and knew no bounds.

(# Baile and Degraine:
The House Band)

(# Swingtime dance music blares,
then fades...)

Then the journey home. Tired.

Cocoa and toast
and happiness unlimited.

(Waves loll gently)

"The golden moments pass
and leave no trace.' [Chekhov]

(# Bacarisse: Concertino for Guitar
and Orchestra in A Minor)

(# Softly played classical guitar)

(# String accompaniment effortlessly
rises and melts away with the melody)

We had hoped for paradise.

We got the 'Anus Mundi'!

(# Orchestra dramatically restates
the guitar theme)

Rise, oh, rise.
Oh, surely thou shalt rise.

But not before the opening

of the Metropolitan Cathedral
of Christ the King,

inaugurated by Cardinal Heenan
in his brand new frock -

the Vatican's response to Schiaparelli.

I had lived my spiritual and religious life
under popes Pius Xll,

John XXlll
and Clitoris the umpteenth,

which is enough to turn anyone pagan.

As far as I knew, Holy Mother Church
still wanted me.

But I no longer wanted her.

For I was now a very happy,
very contented, born again atheist.

Thank God!

O come, all ye faithful.
Have another plateful.

(# Mahler: Symphony No. 2
The Resurrection )

(# Subdued, unaccompanied
voices reverberate deeply)

(# Slowly rising brass chorale builds
to exhilarating climax)

(# Chorus sings with hushed voices)

(# Voices rise, defiant and resilient)

Municipal architecture.
Dispiriting at the best of times,

but when combined with
the British genius for creating the dismal,

makes for a cityscape
which is anything but Elysian.

(# Brahms: Lullaby,
sung by Jennifer John)

Out to sea, the dawn wind
wrinkles and slides.

I am here, or elsewhere.

In my end is my beginning.

"We meet our destiny on the road
we take to avoid it.' [Carl Jung]

I said to my soul, be still
and let the dark come upon you

which shall be the darkness of God.

I said to my soul, be still
and wait without hope,

for hope would be hope
for the wrong thing.

Wait without love, for love
would be love of the wrong thing.

There is yet faith.

But the faith, the love and the hope
are all in the waiting -

the rest is not our business -

at the still point of the turning world,

suspended in time
between pole and tropic.

And all is always now.

Home is where one starts from.

As we grow older,
the world becomes stranger,

the pattern more complicated
of dead and living.

There is a time for the evening
under starlight;

a time for the evening under lamplight;
the evening with the photograph album.

Love is most nearly itself
when here and now cease to matter.

I said to my soul, be still

and accept this, my chanson d'amour
for all that has passed.

But where, oh, where are you
the Liverpool I knew and loved?

Where have you gone without me?

And now I'm an alien in my own land.

"O Tempora o mores.'

Oh, the times, oh, the fashions.

Tread gently, stranger
as you softly turn the key

To unlock time and cause the years
to fall towards their end

Speak low, Love, but speak wisely

For frail time hangs by a thread
above the world

With only hope to keep us safe

Tap lightly at the door,
then close it with a silent shock

But never, ever yield to the night

(# Faure: Dolly Suite )

(# Piano plays nursery song)

We shall return with hope
to the good earth.

And you, my dear children,
you are the earth.

But, I reason earth is short

And anguish absolute

And many hurt

But what of that?

I reason, we could die:

The best vitality cannot excel decay

But what of that?

I reason that in heaven,
somehow it will be even

Some new equation given

But what of that?

(# Horn note sings out)

(Bells chime)

We shall not cease from exploration.

And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started

and to know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown remembered gate,

when the last of earth left to discover
is that which was the beginning.

A condition of complete simplicity
costing not less than everything.

And all shall be well

And all manner of thing
shall be well.

If all the world and Love were young

And truth in every shepherd's tongue

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee, and be thy love

But time drives flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold

And Philomel becometh dumb

The rest complains of cares to come

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
to wayward winter reckoning yields

A honey tongue, a heart of gall

Is Fancy's spring but Sorrow's fall

Thy gowns, thy shoes,
thy beds of roses

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

Soon break, soon wither,
soon forgotten

In folly ripe, in reason rotten

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds

Thy coral clasps and amber studs

All those in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love

But could youth last and love still breed

Had joys no date nor age no need

Then those delights
my mind might move

To live with thee and be thy love

We are being gathered in...

...at gloaming.

Is it sleep?

Or is it death?

(Mahler: Resurrection,
triumphant chorus sings)

Goodnight, ladies.

Goodnight, sweet ladies.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

(# Liszt:
Consolation No.3 In D Flat Major)