Over the fields from Upton

That walk they had in the country, over the fields from Upton, "Public footpath to Thingwall". Some stupid boy (or was he, on the contrary, being profound) had turned the red signpost in the opposite direction, towards Wallasey, towards Leasowe, towards the sea. Warm fresh bread and butter with their tea. It was in Greasby they saw the horse in the stable - "dreaming and warm", she had read of someone calling a stable - and in Upton the slate-paved dairy, cold and clear: the primroses in Marples field under the yellow gorse. Ultramarine

The above walk is probably based on a real one undertaken in the Spring of 1927 by Malc and Tess Evans the model for Janet in Ultramarine.

The walk described by Lowry is closely related to the one already discussed in the post Day Out In Saughall Massie. The walk in that excerpt in the novel mentions Saughall Massie Road which runs from Upton to Saughall Massie.

Upton was the home of his brother Stuart and his wife Margot where Lowry felt more at home during the mid-20s than his parent's home in Caldy (see Bowker Pursued By Furies Pg 39). Therefore, we can assume that Malc was familiar with the area and that the walk possibly commenced from Stuart's Corvally - his home in Upton. Or Malc and Tess may have got the bus from West Kirby to Arrowe Park or got off on route as there are several footpaths to Thingwall off Arrowe Brook Lane and Arrowe Brooke Road, which was once used by the West Kirby to Birkenhead bus. The immediate fields around Upton have been consumed by housing and the old road to Saughall Massie ends at a dead end truncated by a new by-pass. Below you can see the the beginning of Saughall Massie Road in Upton and the fields beyond which Malc and Tess walked over:





If they started their walk in Upton - their route could have been down Ford Road - Greasby Road via a footpath which still exists from Greasby Road to Arrowe Brooke Road - Arrowe Brook Lane( where Lowry would have seen the signs to Thingwall)- by footpath near Irby Mill or Mill Lane to Greasby - where they could have returned by Greasby Road to Upton or continued over the fields to Saughall Massie. (See map below for possible route).



Malc and Tess may have got their "warm fresh bread and butter with their tea" at Lumsden's (seen below) at Irby Mill Hill which was popular in the 1920's.



Greasby was still a small village in the 1920's. Malc must have been familiar with Greasby as he mentions the village in a letter to Carol Brown in which he relates a dream about finding a dog on his way to Greasby; the Coach and Horses pub (seen below) is referred to in 'Enter One In Sumptuous Armour'.



The possible location for "the horse in the stable" could have been Greasby Hall Farm:



The dairy in Upton remains unidentified - here are photos of the village in the mid-1920s:




The only reference to a Marple's Field that I have discovered to date is one in Caldy. A farmer named Joseph Henry Marples ran the farm in the centre of the village not far from Inglewood. This may be a case of Malc altering the topography to suit his own creativity which does occur elsewhere in his work.

Lowry may have known that the name Primrose is associated with first love - from the Latin 'primus' - meaning first, due to their early Spring flowering. The primrose is the sacred flower of Freya, the Norse goddess of love and was used in rituals giving honor to her which again may have had significance for Lowry. Lowry was later to use the name Primrose in his novel Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid and the short story 'Gin and Goldenrod'. By one of those Lowryan coincidences, there is a pub in Liscard called 'The Primrose' not far from where Tess lived and very near the first Lowry family home.

Holt's Mutual Aid Society Booth Cathcart Street Birkenhead

After agreeing to meet Nikolai on the Oedipus Tyrannus, he had gone with some of the sailors to a "Mutual Aid Society Booth" in Cathcart Street, near the berth of the ship, a street dreary in the grainy rain, and loud with the clatter of shunting dockside engines and the shouts of floury stevedores... Ultramarine

We continue with my detailed look at Lowry's first novel Ultramarine based on his journey to the Far East aboard the Holt's Blue Funnel Line ship Pyrrhus in 1927. Lowry's hero Dana Hilliot goes to the "Mutual Aid Society Booth" to collect his uniform and equipment for his journey to the Far East as Lowry had done in 1927.

The Holt's wharf was based at the bottom of Cathcart Street in Birkenhead adjacent Vittoria Dock in the East Float section of Birkenhead Docks. In the 1930 photograph above, you can see the wharf in the centre of the photograph on the far left. The map below shows the position of the wharf with Cathcart Street running all the way down from Conway Street in the west to the Great Float in the east.



The Birkenhead Warehouses which were used by Holt's were demolished in the late 60's and replaced by the existing dockside buildings which run from Duke Street down to Tower Road. Below is a photograph of the wharf in the 1950's which shows Blue Funnel ships tied up a the wharf.



The gate which Lowry would have used to cross into the docks is now bricked up and the lower part of Cathcart Street has disappeared covered over by the later warehouse. The old LNWR goods station which was next to the Holt's wharf has also long gone. The only railway tracks that still exist are the ones which run alongside the later dock buildings and were last used in the early 90's and are now overgrown with weeds and plants.

Until recently, I was unsure of the precise location of Holt's "Mutual Aid Society Booth". I have now located a building which stood at the top end of Cathcart Street which was owned by Holt's Mutual Aid Society to manufacture maritime clothing. Unfortunately, the building no longer stands. It was located behind shops on Conway Street and could be accessed by a short entry running from Cathcart Street to the rear of houses in Edgar Street. You can see below the site of the building as it exists now:



The map below indicates the exact position of the building:



In 1927, Holt's Mutual Aid Society Limited was managed by Captain Alfred B. Pightling who was a Marine Superintendent. It is possible that Holt's had a "booth" nearer to the dock but I have not found one indicated on any map, in a trade journal or a history of the company. Certainly, the uniform Lowry obtained for the journey and proudly wore during his time at Cambridge University was manufactured in the above building.

In Ultramarine, Dana Hilliot buys the following from the "booth":

....a sea jersey, two singlets, a shanghai jacket, and dungaree trousers, and a pair of sea boots. Norman, who bought a pair of Blucher boots, had advised him to get all those, as it was his first voyage.Ultramarine

Another reference made in his later short story Enter One In Sumptuous Armour by Lowry of the Cathcart Street area is The Dolphin Pub. The pub was located on the corner of Cathcart Street and Corporation Road. The pub can been in the slide show above as it is today. The pub was re-named the Royal Hotel after Lowry's time and had this name before it was closed and converted to a private home.



According to an ex-Blue Funnel sailor who I know, the Dolphin Pub and the Mersey Arms on Neptune Street/Corporation Road (which can be seen in the slide show above) where regular stopping off points for the Blue Funnel Line crews to have a drink before setting sail. So it is entirely possible given Lowry's mention of the Dolphin that he drank there before sailing in 1927. He may have drank in any of the 40 odd pubs that I have identified in the area adjacent to the docks on the Birkenhead side of the Great Float which existed in 1927. I doubt whether the Dolphin pub landlord, a Mr William George Rogers, had any trouble with the young Malc as other landlords had in later life!



Drawing near the Birkenhead dockside the pubs came thick and fast, with sea sounding names here: the Dolphin, the Blue Peter, the Right Whale. Funnels appeared over the sheds; the crosstress of a windjammer. Smells of cordage wafted to our nostrils. Enter One In Sumptuous Armour

I have not been able to find the other 2 pubs in 1927 trade journals that Lowry mentions in Enter One In Sumptuous Armour. It is entirely possible that it suited Lowry to give the other ones sea-sounding names.

What is interesting is that Lowry must have been quite familiar with Birkenhead as it is mentioned more times than his birthplace New Brighton in Ultramarine. Birkenhead has a significant place in Lowry mythology as the starting point for his great adventure East. Windjammers still sailed into Birkenhead even in the 1920's giving the port a romantic air of years gone. Lowry may have been harking back to memories of his grandfather John Boden who had been first mate aboard the Vice Reine. Below is a photograph of the Cutty Sark in Birkenhead circa 1910 when she was called Ferreira.

Olympia Liverpool

The advertisments were now for the Liverpool theatres. At Olympia, Jack and The Beanstalk was still playing. Malcolm Lowry Enter One In Sumptuous Armour

Here's another post featuring an extract from Lowry's early story Enter One In Sumptuous Armour. Lowry again uses a reference to a poster he sees while on his way back to the Leys school. This reference comes before his mention of the poster for Fritz Langs' film Die Nibelungen which I have already posted on.

I am currently collating all references to posters and advertisments made by Lowry in his work for a bigger project.

The juxtaposition by Lowry between the popular Jack and The Beanstalk and Fritz Lang's avant garde film is an early demonstration of Lowry's love of both low and high brow art forms.

Recent Interior and exterior shots of Olympia

The Olympia Theatre in West Derby Road, Liverpool is still in use and you can read some of the history on Arthur Lloyd's site. Lowry's reference to Jack and The Beanstalk is probably to a performance of the popular winter time pantomine.

Futurist Cinema Liverpool

The advertisments were now for the Liverpool theatres.... A German film called the Nibelungs was at the Futurist. Malcolm Lowry Enter One In Sumptuous Armour

The film The Nibelungs which Lowry mentions is the Fritz Lang silent classic Die Nibelungen.



Enter One In Sumptuous Armour was published after Lowry's death in Psalms and Songs.In the short story, Lowry looks back at his school days at The Leys.

I will be returning to this story because it has many references to the Wirral and Liverpool. Lowry was a great admirer of German Expressionist film and must have seen the film The Nibelungs. What is intriguing is whether he went to see the film which was released in 1924 when he would have been 15. He certainly was a frequent visitor to cinemas during the is period. Lowry doesn't usually reference something in his work without it having meaning for him. The Futurist is still a Liverpool landmark.

The original cinema opened on 16th September 1912, the Lime Street Picture House was a very upmarket city centre cinema with a tiled Edwardian facade and 1,029 seats in the stalls and circle auditorium which was richly decorated with plasterwork in the French Renaissance style. Dummy boxes with a riotous pediment were either side of the screen opening and looked down into the orchestra pit. The lower walls were panelled in a dark oak wood. An unusual feature for such an early cinema was the provision of a lift for the circle patrons. There was a cafe-lounge located on the first floor. It was re-named City Picture House from 14th August 1916.

In 1920 the City Picture House was renamed the Futurist Cinema, a name the closed and derelict building still bears.

Read more here:

Chris Routledge on Futurist

Nerve Magazine article

Here is film director Alex Cox talking about the Futurist:



I was quite taken with the next video seeing that Lowry often used birds as symbols:

A bird nesting in the roof of the Futurist Cinema, Liverpool from Sean Hawkridge on Vimeo.

The cinema also featured in Terence Davies film's Distant Voices, Still Lives. Here's the trailer to the film:



It seemed fitting that while we are looking back at a Liverpool long gone that we should sample another Terence Davies movie Of Time And The City:

Of Time and the City is both a love song and a eulogy to Liverpool. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll.

Terence Davies returns to his native Liverpool and to his film making roots to capture a sense of the City today and its influences on him growing up in the late 40's and early 50's.

Liverpool’s phoenix-like rise is portrayed like it’s never been seen before; how a city can change itself and the people under its influence… Read more here


Also check out Yorkie's performance in Futurist in 2004:

YORKIE: DUST 'Live at THE FUTURIST' (2004)


Earlier this year, artist Paul Rooney also made a short film for the Tate Liverpool exhibition Ideas Taking Space. The film is shot in the Futurist cinema. The film features stand-up comedic efforts by scouse group MUCK (Merseyside Uncut Comedy Kollective). I have not been able to find any clips of the movie. Here is a still from the film courtesy of Paul Rooney:



Here is the cinema last year during the City Of Culture festival: