28 April 1958: Dancers on board a ship on the Mersey compete to be crowned Jive King Liverpool,Saturday
Beyond the gangway was a private world, where the adult stranger was likely to suffer the fate of the middle-aged chauffeur from Doncaster who sat gloomily at a porthole as if yearning for domestic and more familiar surroundings. When a teddyboy peered through the porthole at the darkness and asked, and “Where are we,mister?” he stared at the couples jiving near him and said with ironic laughter, “Tha’ guess is as proper as mine.”On guard over this private world was a tall, or lean man in the black shirt and suit of a Mississippi gambler,who carefully examined you before allowing you aboard. Next to him was a trumpeter, red-faced already from his exertions, or who played a welcome in choice jazz that must have been audible on the opposite bank of the river Mersey. You were a guest at the coronation of the “King of Jive” and as close to the “beat generation” as you might derive.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com