Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- Introduction CAUSE FOR CONCERN
- Part One THE CREED AND THE CRAFT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 1 THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH
- Chapter 2 THE CREED OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 3 THE CRAFT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 4 BIRTH OF THE SOCIAL WORKER
- Chapter 5 THE STUDY OF SOCIETY
- Chapter 6 THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT
- Chapter 7 A VOLUNTARY WORKER IN THE WELFARE STATE
- Chapter 8 THE GLORY THAT WAS GRANBY
- Chapter 9 THE DISINHERITED SOCIETY
- Chapter 10 DEMOCRACY REDISCOVERED
- Part Two TRACT FOR THE TIMES
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 1 - THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH
from Part One - THE CREED AND THE CRAFT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- Introduction CAUSE FOR CONCERN
- Part One THE CREED AND THE CRAFT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 1 THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH
- Chapter 2 THE CREED OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 3 THE CRAFT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Chapter 4 BIRTH OF THE SOCIAL WORKER
- Chapter 5 THE STUDY OF SOCIETY
- Chapter 6 THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT
- Chapter 7 A VOLUNTARY WORKER IN THE WELFARE STATE
- Chapter 8 THE GLORY THAT WAS GRANBY
- Chapter 9 THE DISINHERITED SOCIETY
- Chapter 10 DEMOCRACY REDISCOVERED
- Part Two TRACT FOR THE TIMES
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In which I discover for myself that Liverpool's proud claim to be the Athens of the North was countered by the existence of chronic poverty in the midst of exceptional wealth. This was exacerbated by its dependence on the River; hence what Eleanor Rathbone described as ‘the extremely peculiar constitution’ of its population and the consequent intensity of its social problems.
I start with myself at the age of seventeen, trundling over the Runcorn railway bridge towards Liverpool through the rain of a dirty winter's night in the early nineteen twenties. Street lamps shone in the deserted little township below the viaduct. There was a gleam of reflected light on the sweep of the sand flats, left bare by the receding tide. Suddenly, the gates of Hell opened. Furnaces, pinpoints of fierce flame, chimneys belching visible fumes, the fearful smell of rotten eggs. All my London veneer, my public school culture, the sophistication of my childhood in Cairo, all of it vanished, and I found myself gulping with excitement. ‘This is real … this is real’.
Where on earth that excitement had its origins, goodness only knows. I had dabbled in girls' club work (a romantic Minnehaha sort of organisation called the Camp Fire Girls, imported from America), but only in Ealing where poverty and injustice—‘reality’—were hard to come by. So why this sudden upsurge of passion about Liverpool being ‘real’?
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Disinherited SocietyA Personal View of Social Responsibility in Liverpool During the Twentieth Century, pp. 15 - 24Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1996