I WAS invited (by accident, really) to a meeting in New Brighton of posh people.
I know! I didn’t think New Brighton had any poshies either, although the existence of grand old merchants’ houses (still in single family occupancy) in Wellington Road is a powerful hint to the contrary.
It was to a palazzo on that very thoroughfare that I found myself invited, by a neighbour in my scruffy block of flats, the other night...
And it turns out that a part of New Brighton society is decidedly posh.
Posher than a Thornton Hough dinner soiree.
Posher than the private art collections adorning the fancy villas of Caldy.
Posher than anything that lives, moves or exists anywhere in Liverpool.
So there’s me doing posh for a change, in New Brighton, in the basement of a very grand house overlooking Liverpool Bay.
Posh? Certainly. Interesting? Erm …no.
Dull, in fact. Duller than Mr Dull’s Dullest collection of Dullness … in his Dull Cupboard.
What I had unwittingly gone along to was a fund-raiser for the Wellington Road Conservation Area (WRCA) – a collection of provincial bourgeois bigwigs from Central Casting if ever there was one.
WRCA is one of three organisations that are determined to stop the brilliant £80 million Neptune redevelopment scheme, which would boost greatly New Brighton’s prospects for revival.
And the age of these people! The youngest was 70. Some Miss Haversham types sat in their cobwebbed finery at tables, nibbling on cheese and sipping at port.
Also in the room, a middle aged woman who was a dead ringer for Petula Clark, and another old gal who looked like a cross between Dot Cotton and Sheila Hancock.
There was a collective effort at forced good cheer at work in the room. I’ve no problem with that – it’s better than being miserable.
All the same, it felt like being in the middle of a Conservative Association Christmas Party in 1951.
Full of faces cracking smiles that never quite reached the eyes. Rocking, it wasn’t.
There was music of a sort and an ancient mechanical horse race contraption which was used to raise funds for WRCA. Excitement? I thought it would never start.
To be fair, none of the old fogeys I spoke to at this grand house was unpleasant. In fact, they all had impeccable manners. It’s like I say … Dull with a capital D.
I have no problem with them wanting to preserve the architectural splendour of their homes.
But I haven’t noticed these people schlepping along Victoria Road, the once mighty shops and restaurant main street of New Brighton, spending their money in the Kwik-Save and local pubs.
And the trouble is that by opposing the Neptune scheme for the regeneration of New Brighton the posh people are putting at risk the best chance of revival and hope that this charming and lovable old resort has had for years.
If, as a result of the campaigning by the Wellington Road people, the Fort Perch Rock people and the biege cardigan brigade of the New Brighton Heritage Action Group, and their barristers, the whole Neptune plan is lost, it will be hard to forgive those rich, posh people who made that happen.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »
"Sir" Johnny Vino wrote...
You really should get out more, mate.
REGAN replies: I know, I'm planning to ...
Posted by: "Sir" Johnny Vino | April 19, 2006 5:57 PM