Just every now and then a book comes along and once you have started reading it you fall completely under it's spell, the last time this happened was when I read Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart... until now. Gerry Potter, performance poet, author, actor, artist all round polymath really has just published his new book, 6A Blackstock Gardens an account of his formative years growing up in a tenement block in Liverpool....I hate that word tenement to me it conjures up squalor, misery and hardship. The book tells of young "Gerrid" Butler his amazing scouse Mother, May who deals with life's brickbats in her own inimitable way and one piece of advice she gave Gerrid is worth quoting... "Always be kind to tramps, Gerrid because you never know lad, they might be God in disguise.." Gerrid is the seventh son of a seventh son bestowed with magical powers? a boy more at ease playing two ball with the girls in the playground than football and loving, almost hero worshipping his six elder brothers. The imagery conjured up and the word play is amazing, they come jumping, fizzing, sparking, leaping off the pages. I was laughing out loud at his memories of "Bommy Night" and the hellish delight in burning any scrap of wood, furniture wardrobes, even.."piss stained mattresses" as he so accurately describes them..bliss to be young. Hand on heart being a good Catholic boy I can honestly say that the book a whirlwind memoir of a Liverpudlian childhood, with a cast of real people all dealing with both joy and tragedy in equal measures, left me breathless and exhilarated with it's pure love and lust for life.. I scribbled down last night that the book is, beautifully written a love letter to Liverpool and a Hymn to childhood innocence and family life remembered. a tad cliched but... The book is a classic and I would urge you to read it, a roller coaster of a ride as the cliché goes but do yourself a favour and buy it, satisfaction guaranteed. Available from https://flapjackpress.co.uk and most good book sellers.
