No balloons
It is pleasing to imagine the sequence of events that led to the erection, of Liverpool Lime Street station, of the following sign:
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NO BALLOONS.
Balloons are not permitted on these station premises.
Please speak to a member of station staff for further information.
- Network Rail: Working for you.
Now there are many things you can imagine that the proprietor of a rail terminus might not like brought onto its premises.
Some its Health & Safety Executive might feel strongly about: Snakes. Crocodiles. Explosives. Undomesticated grazing livestock.
Some might upset tenants and concession-holders: a mobile coffee vendor who cycles his rickshaw in and sets up on the platform concourse: that kind of thing.
Some, while posing no immediate danger to life, limb or the profitability of stall-holders, could be disruptive to the orderly functioning of the station: megaphones. The playing of cricket. Madrigal groups. Boomerangs. Stink-bombs.
Yet nowhere in the grounds of Liverpool Lime Street will you be cautioned to so much as restrain your alligator. Guerrilla coffee vendors, have, as far as station signage goes, free run of the place. Choral societies, cricketers and those with loud-hailers may carry on as they please — at least, we suppose, until asked to stop.
But should a young nipper skip across the platform with a freshly-fashioned balloon-dog, he risks censure. True: the sign does not go on to say how. Would he be arrested? Marched to a cashpoint and ordered to pay an on-the-spot fine?
The JC did not wait around long enough to find out.
But the local urchins milling around the station, clutching their R&B 45s, earned from rough trade with itinerant American seamen,[1] seemed uneasy. They did not seem minded to run the gamut of this balloon diktat. Anyone familiar with Liverpudlian street urchins will know this to be out of character.
Somehow, in Liverpool, the humble balloon has earned its own special category of turpitude. What can have happened? Was the fat controller one day plagued by balloons, flipped out and decided to get his own back? Has it helped?
If anyone knows, do write in and let us know.
See also
- ↑ This is the foundation myth of the British Invasion.