Accession Number

B94

Series Title

CHANGES

Programme Title

CHANGES BY THE MILE

Producer

[Unknown]

Other Credits

Editor: Ken Langston Jones

Transmission Date

24/06/83

b/w & colour, sound (sep), 30 mins 12 secs

Synopsis

Programme on the decline and recent rejuvenation of the Port of Liverpool. Opens with a brief title sequence for the series 'Changes'. Includes various shots of containers and ships at the docks, the Mersey Ferry and the Pierhead. A number of people are interviewed about the Port's heyday in the 1950s and its swift decline since. A £200 million investment in Seaforth and the reduction in numbers of dockers from 14,000 to 3,000 are mentioned. A man who used to work as a Cunard waiter in the 1950s and who now paints pictures of the Port, is interviewed. There are two extracts of archive footage: of passengers dancing to live music onboard a boat on the Mersey (07m40 to 08m30) and of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, which ran from Dingle to Seaforth (10m10s to 10m45s), showing the docks, platforms and dockers queuing for trains. The interior of "Ryans Bistro" is shown, which an ex-docker bought when he left the Port. A man is interviewed who was an apprentice fitter in 1942 and we see a roomful of dockers watching a television news item on staff severance at the Port. The programme then moves onto describe the rejuvenation of the Port: there are shots of the Merseyside Maritime Museum and Albert Dock, where harbourmaster houses are being renovated into a living museum; the quayside is shown where offices and apartments are being created; there are shots of Brunswick Dock where warehouses have been converted into business units; the derelict Herculaneum Dock is highlighted as prime land for development; and the derelict area south of the docks is shown being transformed into the International Garden Festival site, to be held in Liverpool in May 1984. Programme ends with aerial shots of the Port of Liverpool and River Mersey.