The Mersey Sound: Restored 50th Anniversary Edition

..........on the back of my open backed bus I found it hard to read a book.....those old buses did bounce a lot and then there was the passengers, nagging, demanding tickets, information and other silly stuff. So I tried short stories, but that was almost the same. 'Poetry' I thought, 'that's the answer' and yes it was easier to concentrate on, given it's short snappy lines with a complete story or message on a page or even in a verse or two. Of course reading standing up on the tail end of a bus in the cold of a Cardiff winter eventually takes it's toll. I did end up just looking at picture books and graduated from The Art of the Renaissance through most schools to finally find the easiest to handle physically and I admit, intellectually, was kids comics. BUT those months with verse never left me. I've never forgotten Betjeman or Wilde. Whitman and Eliot, Ginsberg and Dylan, both Thomas and Zimmerman etc. And so, I am at a loss why it took me 43 years to buy this book again.....do it now !.....buy it !......don't worry if you weren't there (the 60's that is) just buy it.........it's simply great......

On the one hand I do have a soft spot for Roger McGough. In his good moments, at least.On the other hand, it's all so complacent and parochial and petty and silly and privileged.So, three stars on average.

A wry, whimsical, sensitive, challenging, timeless and ultimately thought-provoking collection of poetry from three excellent poets who having caught the Liverpool zeitgeist in the 1960s continued to channel it along the years.

A cornucopia of verse from three iconic English poets. I love the wryness and wit found within their verse.

Very much enjoyed reading these poems - insightful, thought-provoking, entertaining, funny, sad - a mixture of all these elements. Felt quite a bit of nostalgia for the 1960s (part of my youth)