Sign up to FREE email alerts from Liverpool Echo - Weekly Politics Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A new study has taken a detailed look at poverty in Liverpool today compared with the 1930s.

In 1937 George Orwell's iconic book, The Road To Wigan Pier, highlighted poverty in the north of England and at the time it's safe to say it shocked the whole country.

For the book the writer visited major northern cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield before ending up in Wigan to get an account of the bleak living conditions working class people were facing.

Now, 80 years on, we have taken a look into austerity in Britain to compare just how much things have changed and these are just some of the shocking findings from our city.

When Orwell reached Liverpool, his guide was George Garrett, an almost unknown working-class writer

(Image: Daily Mirror)

He may not be as famous as Orwell, but the other George changed the world with his words and social action.

The Road to Wigan Pier, which we have been retracing for the past 15 months, turned out to be a tale of two Georges – George Orwell, the writer in whose steps we are following, and George Garrett, the almost unknown working-class writer, activist and merchant seaman.

“I was very greatly impressed by Garrett,” Orwell writes in his 1936 diary. “He went to sea as a lad and was at sea about 10 years, then worked as a docker. During the war he was torpedoed on a ship that sank in seven minutes. He also worked in an illicit brewery in Chicago during Prohibition, saw various hold-ups and saw Battling Siki [briefly world light heavyweight boxing champion] immediately after he had been shot...”

(Image: Getty Images)

When Orwell reached Liverpool on his journey to Wigan Pier, Garrett, a stoker from Sailortown, Belfast, was his guide. Eight decades on, we are greeted by Sean Garrett, his grandson. Sean smiles when we talk about Orwell, who his grandad accused of writing “one long sneer” against the working classes. “I find myself defending Road to Wigan Pier,” he says. “I can see Orwell had the right intentions.”

Sean, 58, works in a homeless shelter, so sees modern-day poverty in Liverpool close up. “After the poverty he lived in, men like my grandad helped build the welfare state,” he says. “Seeing all that thrown away now by Tory austerity, he’d be heartbroken.”

(Image: Daily Mirror)

While Eton-educated Orwell could escape any time from his hard road, for Garrett writing was a luxury he had to fight for against the demands of work at sea or on the docks and the needs of his wife and seven children.

When they met, Garrett was unemployed or ‘on the parish’. They were physical opposites: Orwell long and thin with a smoker’s cough, Garrett with a stoker’s strength. “I remember him as Popeye the sailor-man,” his grandson says. “Huge biceps. A big strapping fella, very physical in a lovely way.”

He was unusually progressive for an 1896-born stoker, a feminist and an anti-racist

The Georges did share other things – writing talent, stubborn honesty and a thirst for travel, outdoor life and experience. They both wrote under pseudonyms – Orwell’s real name was Eric Arthur Blair and Garrett often wrote as Matt Low. Both wrote books documenting the struggle of the working classes in the 1930s.

But Orwell’s, a middle-class writer’s tour of poverty in the industrial North, became a literary classic. Garrett’s book, Ten Years on the Parish, which described his own experiences, went unfinished and languished in near obscurity until now.

Four years ago, Sean’s brother Michael turned over a suitcase of Garrett’s merchant navy papers and unpublished writing to the Writing on the Wall project, based in Toxteth Library.

Through the George Garrett Archive project, a group of volunteers have rebuilt a man and reputation from scraps of paper. Now published for the first time, Ten Years on the Parish is so extraordinary it reads like a novel – starting from the moment Garrett stows away aged 17 on a tramp steamer bound for Argentina.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

“That’s his log book from the merchant navy,” Sean says, pulling out a booklet from the archive now housed by Liverpool Central Library. Seaman 805334’s adventures from saloon boy to stoker are recorded in neat fountain pen. “Captured 17th March 1916”. “Torpedoed by the enemy”.

Garrett was sunk twice during the war and once interned but escaped. He later lived in New York as an illegal immigrant, sending home far higher wages than he would have earned in Liverpool and joining the Industrial Workers of the World labour union, known as the Wobblies.

When Garrett wasn’t at sea he was leading the fight for workers’ rights in Liverpool and helped found the Unity Theatre. He was unusually progressive for an 1896-born stoker, a feminist and anti-racist who, as the son of a staunch Catholic and a Belfast Orangeman, had no time for sectarianism.

“He took part in the Walker Art Gallery Riot and was battered by the police,” Sean says, showing us the £50 fine from the city of Liverpool. “He led the National Hunger March on London as part of the Liverpool contingent in 1922.”

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Garrett’s most famous speech at the docks, recorded for posterity by an undercover policeman after race riots in 1919, could have come straight from today. “Fellow workers, it is all very well criticising the alien… and telling you he is the cause of your unemployment. It is not so. The present rotten system is the cause…”

Garrett was desperately disappointed when he read Orwell’s book. “A book like that can do a lot of damage,” he wrote to his publisher John Lehman.

Ten Years on the Parish lacks Wigan Pier’s forensic detail but is vividly readable. It tells of stowing away on the voyage to Buenos Aires, Liverpool children running from the “night man” who checked whether families were “‘improperly” sharing beds, and the busybody parish officials lifting pan lids to see whether mothers were squandering money. The misery of food vouchers, poor relief and unemployed men being forced to break stones contrasts dramatically with the camaraderie of the Hunger March on London.

Orwell’s diary entry on meeting George Garrett in Liverpool, The Road to Wigan Pier I was very greatly impressed by Garrett. Had I known before it is he who writes under the pseudonym of Matt Lowe, I would have taken steps to meet him earlier. He is a biggish, hefty chap of about 36, Liverpool-Irish, brought up a Catholic but now a Communist. He says he has had about 9 months’ work in (I think) about the last 6 years. He went to sea as a lad and was at sea about 10 years, then worked as a docker. During the war he was torpedoed on a ship that sank in seven minutes but they had expected to be torpedoed and had got their boats ready and were all saved except the wireless operator, who refused to leave his post until he had got an answer. He also worked in an illicit brewery in Chicago during Prohibition, saw various hold-ups, saw Battling Siki immediately after he had been shot in a street brawl, etc, etc

As the Liverpool writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce says: “We read the Road to Wigan Pier to see how poverty looked to a sympathetic, intelligent, compassionate outsider. We read Garrett to find out how poverty felt. From the inside... Garrett’s desperation for money – and time – quivers through every sentence”.

Mike Morris, co-director of Writing On The Wall, says: “His tenement was desperately overcrowded. But when Garrett went to the library people would collar him for help with writing and advocacy. He was like a one-man Citizens’ Advice Bureau. He always had that struggle – his principles and loyalty to his class versus his creativity.”

Historian Alan O’Toole says it is remarkable “not that George wrote so little” but “that he wrote so much”.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Garrett had a breakdown just as publishers came knocking for a sea novel. “He couldn’t have afforded to go to London to meet those publishers anyway,” Sean says. Instead, he left a legacy of short stories, plays and the more socially secure world built by his generation.

Sean’s glad his grandad can’t see the country 80 years on.

“He’d be appalled and angry at the erosion of workers’ rights, racism in the wake of the Brexit vote, foodbanks, the depiction of the working class and the relentless pushing back of the welfare state,” he says. “After everything his generation achieved, the upper classes pushed right back. Now people are back on the street, back in new slums.”

Orwell on Liverpool, The Road to Wigan Pier Nevertheless, in spite of the frightful extent of unemployment, it is a fact that poverty – extreme poverty – is less in evidence in the industrial North than it is in London. Everything is poorer and shabbier, there are fewer motor cars and fewer well-dressed people; but also there are fewer people who are obviously destitute. Even in a town the size of Liverpool or Manchester you are struck by the fewness of the beggars… in the industrial towns the old communal way of life has not yet broken up, tradition is still strong and almost everyone has a family – potentially, therefore, a home. In a town of 50,000 or 100,000 inhabitants there is no unaccounted-for population; nobody sleeping in the streets, for instance.

Sean says the people at the homeless shelter where he works are there “just because the rent has gone up or because of welfare changes”.

He has no doubt what George would be doing about it. “He wouldn’t be taking it standing still,” he says. “He would be using his skills as a writer, organiser, advocate and activist to push aggressively back. And I feel sure he would have rejoiced in the new-found engagement and enthusiasm of young people with progressive ideas and politics.”

Orwell died in 1950 of tuberculosis after finishing his masterpiece 1984 and fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Garrett was last seen in public giving a speech during the 1966 seamen’s strike, despite having throat cancer. Then he gave his bus fare to the collection for the striking men, walked home and died.

What the numbers say

Case studies from the city

Kathleen Quayle, 64, foodbank volunteer, said people have to choose between eating and heating - it's a travesty

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"The foodbank gets busier as the weather changes. From about October, when it gets colder, people are having to choose between heating and food.

"A lot of the people who come are ill and hungry. They're exhausted, You can see it in their faces and that's a travesty in a society like ours.

"If people don't have enough to eat that's all our responsibility."

Eileen Halligan, credit union founder, explains how benefit cuts and poverty are affecting families in Liverpool

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"The way the benefits system has changed has made things very, very hard for people.

"Even if you could budget before, you'll struggle now.

"At the same time, job centres are being closed across the city. If you don't get to a new one, or you're there late, you'll be sanctioned.

"Sanctions are causing misery here - for whole families, children.

"People's benefits are being cut and services in Liverpool are being cut to the bone.

"Things like the bedroom tax have made things worse. The welfare state is being demolished so who's going to help?

"Why are people letting this happen? I know I'd happily pay more taxes to support vulnerable people."

Darren Stockton, 46, from Everton, support worker and dad-of-three is a former rough sleeper who fears cuts are putting lives at risk

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"There are more people struggling in this city than ever before but the money to help them isn't there.

"We don't have anywhere to send people to.

"I grew up in care, went back to my family, got chucked out and ended up with nowhere to go.

"As a teenager I was living in hostels and all sorts.

"The statistics are there: if you've been in care there's a good chance you'll struggle as an adult. It happens all the time.

"When you've been abused and traumatised what do you do? You look for ways to cope and that might be drink or drugs."

Anne Anirah, 47, from Bootle, lives with her four children and spoke of the devastating effect debt had on her family

"When you don't have enough money, when you're in debt, it makes you feel so completely worthless.

"Poverty can be a very lonely place. I'd get home from work on a Friday and wouldn't go back out until Monday. My house was like a prison.

"You look at your kids and think, 'What can I contribute?' It all seems so hopeless.

"I was struggling to pay the bills and keep on top of everything. They swallowed up everything and whatever was left we'd use for food, £20 or £30 a week. It wasn't right but I was just doing my best."

Lynda Cooper, from Sefton, is a debt-counsellor warning Universal Credit will cripple families who are already struggling

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"People are turning to credit to pay their next bill and that's very sad.

"Living with debt has a massive impact on mental and physical health.

"We met one elderly couple who had made a joint suicide pact because of their debts.

"People tell us they're down to the bare bones, there is no wiggle room, nothing more they can cut and those in work are finding things just as tough.

"People are terrified but feel they have nowhere else to go other than to loan sharks or likewise when they have no money."

Diane Porter, a former dinner lady from Litherland, was plunged into debt when her marriage ended and left suicidal

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"When my husband left me after 38 years he left me in debt. He'd made me sign for a debt payment plan for £38,000 and I had to go to court to get him to pay.

"I became really ill with stress and tried to take my life three times.

"I'd been working as a dinner lady for 20 years but was too ill to carry on. I was off for 18 months and had a sick note but when I felt ready to go back I was told, 'We're a business not a sick bay.'

"I was devastated and ended up living on Weetabix and not much else until a local charity put me in touch with Christians Against Poverty and they helped me with everything.

"If it wasn't for the support I received I would have been in the cemetery."

Brenda Jones, 84, lives in Anfield with her husband Alun, 90, and is urging people to value the NHS

"So much has changed here since Orwell's time, in my lifetime.

"If people didn't have the money when I was young they went without but the NHS changed things.

"People don't realise how valuable it is."

Simon Groves, 48, is a former builder and the dad spoke about his battle to survive on the streets of Wavertree

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"I worked in the building trade for 30 years. I've always had a job.

"Then I went to Spain with my missus and we had some problems so I had to come back here.

"I haven't got anywhere to live and I'm staying with a mate at the minute just on a sofa when I can or I'll go round to get a wash.

"His landlord wouldn't be happy if he knew I was staying so when he pops in and I can't sleep there I'll sleep outside or wander around all night .

"I'm trying to sort out benefit but I've been waiting four weeks with no money - I phoned to find out what was going on and the told me I'd signed with the wrong office and needed to redo the forms.

"The dole seems to try and put everything the can in your way to stop you getting anything. I literally haven't got a penny to my name."

Iman Al Mohammad, 26, and Okla Alshebli, 27, moved to Liverpool in January 2017 after being forced to leave their home in Aleppo, Syria

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"One evening in 2012, I was with my friends, bathing our babies, when an air strike hit a school right beside us.

"We didn't even have time to grab our things. We just took our babies and ran out of the area to a safer village.

"We made it to Lebanon and then came to Britain because we heard it had good values and we would be free to live.

"We'd never heard anything about Liverpool before but we are so, so happy to be here. We're very lucky and have a nice home and nice neighbours."

Dave Flack, 49, homeless project manager who explained how cuts are hitting Liverpool's poorest communities

(Image: Daily Mirror)

"Over the last few years we've seen more and more people needing help.

"No on can deny the cuts are hitting the most vulnerable.

"We used to work with 10 people a month. Now there are 28 sleeping rough in the city that we know of and we can have 50 or 60 people a week visiting our centre but our budget had been cut from half a million to £200,000 and we've gone from 20 staff to seven."

If you want to find out more about the Road to Wigan Pier project, where you can read more stories and further details about the people above, then visit www.wiganpierproject.com