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8 - Finding a Rhyme for Alphabet Soup: An Interview with Roger McGough,

Deryn Rees-Jones
Affiliation:
English at the University of Liverpool
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Summary

Roger McGough was born in Litherland in 1937. Educated at St Mary's College, Crosby, he graduated from the University of Hull in 1957and then returned to Liverpool to teach. With Mike McCartney (later McGear), John Gorman, and Adrian Henri he performed as The Liverpool One Fat Lady, All Electric Show, before forming, with McCartney and Gorman, The Scaffold. ‘Lily the Pink’ was a number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968 for five weeks. McGough published his first volume of poetry, Summer with Monika, in 1967 and two collections with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, The Liverpool Scene and The Mersey Sound. Peter Forbes has described McGough as having ‘articulated a Liverpudlian Beat ethos as confidently as the Beatles recreated American R&B in their own image’ suggesting that ‘his defining trait is skepticism … Clichés are regularly invoked, mocked and treated to sardonic modulations … and although the comic effects give the impression of light verse there is a philosophical angst in his work.’ McGough has continued to write poems for adults and children, while also developing a successful career in TV and radio. He has received two BAFTA awards, for his films Kurt, Mungo, BP and Me (1984) and The Elements (1993), two Signal Poetry Awards (1984 and 1998) and a Cholmondley Award (1999). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His Collected Poems was published in 2003 (London: Viking). Said and Done: The Autobiography was published in 2005.

DR-J: Can you start by talking about what being a writer who comes from Liverpool means to you?

RM: I suppose in a sense I feel Liverpudlian very strongly, almost as if it's easier to be Liverpudlian than to be English. That was enforced by coming from an Irish immigrant family and going to a Catholic school in Liverpool – a very tight community in Liverpool, very close knit. Close knit can be good but there is also a sense of people watching each other. And of course you come over to England and you lie low, you don't call attention to yourself. In school I was taught by the Irish Christian Brothers. We were taught Gaelic, we were taught to write our names and spellings in Gaelic, and a couple of boys I was in school with joined the IRA.

Type
Chapter
Information
Writing Liverpool
Essays and Interviews
, pp. 138 - 144
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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