Sunday Express Poet: Young Cilla
CILLA Black died of a stroke on Saturday last week.
Cilla Black in 1963
In among the black-arch bombsites Wasteland willowherb which sprang
Up behind those backstreet boozers
Where the dockers’ judies sang,
Nightingales in shiny cages Friday night and no concerns,
With the war all dished and diddled Softly now, the Mersey turns.
On the Scotland Road the children do the things that children
do Hopscotch, jacks and big ships sailing, Sailing on the alley-oh.
Liverpool and work aplenty Chippies, dancehalls, Teds and traddies.
Kids a few years short of twenty
Yet to meet their GI daddies.
This is where docker’s daughter
Office girl she was back then
Worked the cloakroom at the Cavern Lunchtime shift and back again
To the filing cabinet, dreaming Ears still singing with guitars: Hofners, Watkins, Burns and Hagstroms,
Strummed by nearly not-quite-stars.
Class divisions rent asunder Northern kids born in the Blitz Come to plunder London’s thunder
With a hoard of homely hits, Built in Britain, honed in Hamburg Rory, Ringo, John and Gerry.
Softly, softly turns the Mersey With Priscilla on the ferry
Up from sticky clubs and stairwells Churchill’s children’s hymnal comes
Sparkling with Rickenbackers And a cannonade of drums
Purchased on the never-never Gamely guaranteed by Dad Everybody gone electric Sick of skiffle, tired of trad.
Half-past Elvis,
ten to Beatles While the distant Shadows chime,
Now the stars are in alignment
This then, roughly, is our time.
As the girl who would be Cilla Stumbles into circumstance
Is she dancing?
Were they asking?
They were asking – now’s her chance.
Dark the claggy Cavern cellar Dank the arches and the bricks
Where the post-war party started Broken strings and splintered sticks.
Liverbird, her long black leather coat and boots the bangs, the bob.
She was never destined long for any kind of daytime job.
Down the steps goes Mr Epstein
To the treasure in the cellar,
Barely registering the presence Of our stage-struck Cinderella, Grinning in the cloakroom doorway.
Woolies redhead, à-la-mode
Soon to be a pop chart sweetheart Siren of the Scotland Road.
After coaxing and cajoling
Up she goes to take the stage
Belting out a beat-boom ballad
All of nineteen years of age
Sifting through her younger pictures
Sharp she seems, in black and white
With the Mersey softly turning
In the starless northern night.
Later in the great Palladium
Having made it rather big
She’ll be snapped backstage with feet up: Northern bird and crafty cig
In the wake of Beatlemania With the ’Pool suffused in pride Ferry her across the Mersey
On the misty morning tide.
Where the lads in skinny jackets
And the girls in go-go boots
Bet their weekly wages packets
On a band in shiny suits.
Queueing up one autumn evening
Everything in monochrome Softly, softly, turn the Mersey,
Take your golden girl back home.