In My Liverpool Home - Pete McGovern

 

Pete McGovern

Peter John McGovern was born in Liverpool on the 28th of October 1927 the youngest of 14 children to Irish parents. His father, Thomas McGovern, was from Collon, County Louth, Ireland and his mother, Annie Dillon, was from Galbally, County Limerick. Pete was born in Regent Street, off the dock road, north of the city centre. When the house was bombed in the 1941 Blitz, he went to live with his older sister in Hunts Cross. He passed his 11-plus to get into St Edward's College, West Derby, but had to leave for Queen Elizabeth's School, Anfield, after his family could not afford to buy him cricket whites. After leaving school, he took a series of jobs in Liverpool before following his future wife, Audrey McCann, to London where she had found a job in the National Union of Railwaymen. There, in 1950, he became a wheel-tapper, starting a career on the railways that would last 42 years. The couple soon returned to Liverpool to marry in 1950, ( Audrey was transposed into Bridget McGann in his song) and Pete found work as a labourer on the tracks, rising through the ranks to become a safety manager, and was an active trade unionist and campaigner. Returning to Liverpool, Pete and Audrey would attend the folk club run by 'The Spinners' at Sampson and Barlow's restaurant. They liked the club, but wanted one that would encourage floor singers, so with their friend, Bill Moore, they started the Wash House folk club in the same building, but on a different night. The restaurant was opposite the Odeon Cinema and when Bob Dylan appeared there with a rock band in 1966, dissatisfied customers marched out of the building and into the Wash House.

The Wash House folk club was in Samson and Barlow

 

His father had a fund of irish songs and he would have heard plenty more in the pubs and clubs as he grew up. He also obtained his love of story-telling and folk-singing from his father. He said, "My dad was the slowest singer I've ever heard. He used to sing very slowly to make sure that everyone got the message, especially with the rebel songs." However, Pete differed from his father in that he wanted to write his own material. From his teenage years, he became adept with words: "If I read that there was no rhyme for 'virgin', that was a challenge and I rhymed it with 'metallurging'. I loved writing songs and I realised that I wanted to write about Liverpool people and their attitudes. The lyrics about overcrowding, sectarian violence and stealing from lorries may not be the image that a Liverpool Council would want to promote, but the song is regarded as the city's anthem and it plays a significant part in its culture. Pete said, "I wrote it in 1961, but a lot of people have said to me, 'You didn't write that. It was written in 1848.' "

He wrote 'In My Liverpool Home' in two nights and since then, the original four verses have been embellished by an estimated 100 new ones, composed and sung to mark such occasions as the opening of the Garden Festival in 1984, and Sir Paul McCartney's knighthood.

In the early 1970s he ran his own folk club, The Wash-house in London Road in the centre of Liverpool with his wife Audrey and his friend Bill Moore. His main claim to fame is that he wrote "In My Liverpool Home", a song that has become an anthem or folk tune for the people of Liverpool. Pete had loved Marty Robbins's country record 'Strawberry Roan' and, in the best folk music tradition, he purloined the melody for' In My Liverpool Home', his semi-autobiographical song about his home city. To the chorus he added references to the Jacob Epstein 'Liverpool Resurgent' statue of a nude man outside Lewis's department store and the city's second cathedral that was still under construction at the time the song was written. Such was the song's popularity in local clubs during the 1960s folk revival that it has been mistaken as a traditional song. In fact, it has since become part of the oral folk tradition, with many anonymous additional or alternative verses in circulation. Indeed Pete McGovern too updated his verses. It was recorded by the folk group 'The Spinners'.

When Everton and Liverpool were playing in the Milk Cup at Wembley in 1984, Tony Davis of 'The Spinners recalls, "the Liverpool Echo sponsored a special marching band, the Red and the Blues, and asked them and us to play at half-time. We asked Pete to lead the community singing on "In My Liverpool Home" which he changed to "In My Merseyside Home". Pete put his arm round me at the end of the match and said, "Even though Everton won, this has been the best day of my life." In 1991 a host of Liverpool performers gathered on Spencer Leigh's BBC Radio Merseyside show to record 60 different verses of the song for a cassette release, with a host of celebrities including the late poet Adrian Henri and radio personality Wally Scott.. Every verse was witty, poignant and without malice. McGovern kept on writing and every local event would spark his creativity: he added verses on the Garden Festival, Paul McCartney's knighthood and the Superlambbanana sculpture. He wrote many other songs, notably "Rent Collecting in Speke" and "I'm Gettin' Brassed Off with Me Dad". A book of his poems/songs, 'In My Liverpool Head', was published in 1995 in which he acknowledged his good friend Bill Moore " whose enthusiasm kept a reluctant author going."

Pete being a keen union official, in retirement was the secretary of the Merseyside Pensioners Club, campaigning for pensions linked to the cost of living. He wrote a song for the group, "Dignity in Retirement".

On a Saturday, Pete McGovern had had a perfect day at his holiday home in North Wales. He had seen his beloved Liverpool's 2-0 triumph against West Bromwich Albion on the television and was delighted that Robbie Fowler had scored, as he had written a song for Fowler's wedding. He drank a couple of glasses of Guinness, completed the crossword and went to bed. He died in his sleep at home in Trawsfynydd, North Wales, on the 1st of April 2006 aged 78.

IN MY LIVERPOOL HOME - by Pete McGovern

Chorus: In my Liverpool Home, In my Liverpool Home, We speak with an accent exceedingly rare, Meet under a statue exceedingly bare, And if you want a Cathedral, we've got one to spare, In my Liverpool Home.

I was born in Liverpool, down by the docks. Me Religion was catholic, occupation Hard-Knocks. At stealing from lorries I was adept, And under old overcoats each night I slept. ( Chorus )

Way back in the forties the world it went mad. Mister Hitler threw at us everything that he had. When the smoke and dust had all cleared from the air, "Thank God" said the ald fella, "The Pier Head's still there." (Chorus)

When I grew up I met Bridget McGann, she said "Your not much, but I'm needin a man." "Well I want sixteen kids and an 'ouse out in Speke," Well the spirit was willing but the flesh it was weak. (Chorus)

There's a place in this city were the nits de wear clogs. They've six million kids and ten million dogs. De play tick with hatchets and I'll tell you no lie, a man's a coward if he has more than one eye. (Chorus)

The Green and the Orange have battled for years. They've given us some laughs and they've given us some tears. But Scousers don't want a heavenly reward, They just want the Green Card to get into Fords. (Chorus)

The Dockers' Umbrella has bitten the dust. You might buy a Meccano, no charge for the rust. Scottie Road is a legend now past away, But you can go down to Yateses and drink all the day. (Chorus)