OUR LIVERPOOL is an oral history about the real Liverpool - about the city before its slick transformation to European City of Culture and about the spirit that remains at its heart. Here, at last, is Liverpool's grievous and glorious past. And here, through the people's voices, we find old Liverpool, without the gift-wrap. Its stories pulsate with the rhythms of an alternately funny, flippant, belligerent, stubborn and warm heart, and they broadcast the values of a community, which are the city's true legacy to the modern world. Piers Dudgeon has listened to dozens of people who remember the city as it was, and who have lived through its many changes. They talk of childhood and education, of work and entertainment, of family, community values, health, politics, religion and music. Their stories will make you laugh and cry. It is people's own memories that make history real and this engrossing book captures them vividly.

A compelling oral history of life in Liverpool and the third title in our Disappearing Britain series

About the Author
Piers Dudgeon is the author of more than thirty works of non-fiction. He worked for ten years as an editor in London before starting his own company, Pilot Productions, publishing books with authors as diverse as John Fowles, Catherine Cookson, Peter Ackroyd, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Conran and Ted Hughes. At the same time he wrote a number of books evocative of the spirit of place, including Dickens' London, Catherine Cookson Country, The English Vicarage Garden, The Spirit of Britain: A Guide to Literary Britain, along with Village Voices and The Country Child. Subsequently he left London for Yorkshire, where he wrote a series of oral industrial histories of Glasgow, Liverpool and London's East End, the annual Virgin Alternative Guide to British Universities, which still involves him in speaking to sixth forms across the country, and biographies of Catherine Cookson, the du Maurier family, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Maeve Binchy, the composer Sir John Tavener, the thinker Edward de Bono, and the novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. Today he is publishing a growing list of novelists, including Angus Stewart, Giovanni Guareschi, and shortly Alessandra Lavagnino. In 2015 his biography, The Real Peter Pan: The Tragic Life of Michael Llewelyn Davies was published in the UK by The Robson Press; in 2016 in America by Thomas Dunne Books/St Martin's Press.

Reviews
'These are stories told by those who remember life in Liverpool long before its transformation and vividly reveal its heart, humour, enduring strength and spirit' * Choice Magazine *
'An enchanting book. A glorious triumph! I took it to bed the night I received it and wallowed for hours. A must for the book shelf' * Anne Robinson *
It brings back clear memories of the Liverpool that was still there in my childhood but which has now disappeared' * Cherie Blair *
'This is warts and all Liverpool... the heart of Liverpool, becasue the people's voice is at the centre of it' * Roger Phillips, BBC Radio Merseyside *



Book Information
ISBN 9780755317165
Author Piers Dudgeon
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Headline Review
Publisher Headline Publishing Group
Weight(grams) 301g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 27mm

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