I'm currently reading 'Said and Done', Roger McGough's autobiography, published in 2005. I was slightly shocked to realise that he is now 83! I've seen him live three times - once at a 'Scaffold' concert at the 'Everyman' Theatre in Liverpool in the early 70s, and once at the Old Town Hall in Hemel Hempstead, doing a poetry reading, in 1978. At the interval, I went to the bar and ordered a pint. Turning away, I saw the great man at the bar next to me. The third time was a chance encounter in Liverpool City Centre, probably in 1974, the one complete year I lived in Liverpool, when I saw him walking towards me, carrying a bag. He saw me gazing open-mouthed, and gave me a nod.
I have also discovered that I may have lived a few doors down from Adrian Henri in 1973, when I lived for a couple of months in a grotty bed-sit in Canning Street. He was living a few doors up in the late 60s, but I don't know if he was still there in 1973. I'd've thought I'd've seen him once or twice if so, and I'd certainly have recognised him, being a fan of him and the other two Mersey Sound poets. Being a fat slob with a big black beard, he'd've been hard to miss. I saw him live once, reading some of his poems with others in a field at the end of the Aldermaston March of 1972. I saw the third 'Mersey Sound' poet, Brian Patten, at Hemel Old Town Hall in 1979, a year after Roger. Adrian appeared there in 1980, but I missed him, unfortunately.
