Mary Rizza

FIFTY YEARS AGO, MASSIVE CUTS TO BRITAIN’S RAILWAY NETWORK saw the disappearance of stations, branch lines and 9,000 miles of right of way as cars and motorways were declared to be the way to travel in the future. Goodbye dirty, smoky trains, hello brave new world of shiny motor cars and miles of tarmac.

Trains and railways have a romantic pulse which perhaps beats with a more feeble rhythm today in the light of the realities of travelling by rail. But the emotional resonance of train travel lingers, its impact still exerting a powerful tug on our sensibilities and imagination.
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IT IS A CENTURY AND A HALF SINCE THE FIRST London underground journey took place, and a time to reflect on the impact of this historic transport system. The tube is part of our consciousness and it is impossible to imagine (or imagine navigating) the huge sprawl of the city without tracing our journey along the lines set out in Harry Beck’s iconic map. The anniversary has prompted us to reflect on how tube stations have been immortalised (actually, often just mentioned in passing) in songs and films and books. It is an opportunity to assess or reassess the place of these particular works in our collective and personal histories.
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Ossie Clark (1945-1996), the legendary designer, never went away but suddenly appeared in bursts, just like buses and Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize awards.

The exhibition Glam! At Tate Liverpool features David Hockney’s painting of Ossie, Celia Birtwell and Percy the cat; an exhibition at Proud Chelsea is showcasing the life and work of the iconic designer; Debenhams department store has opened an Ossie Clark concession with his designs revived for modern day customers ‘with a Bohemian bent’.

NOT JUST FOR HER OSCAR-NOMINATED ROLE IN LINCOLN BUT also for her cracking portrayal of Nora Walker in Brothers and Sisters, the sadly defunct series about a multi-generational family in an affluent area of Southern California. If Nora Walker were to wear a hat, it would be vintage like her, stylish but comfortable, a little worn and battered but with an unmistakeable jaunty tilt which tells the world that she will survive.
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FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO IN THE INDUSTRIAL TOWN OF LOWELL in Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac published On The Road, a mesmerising account of the eventful journeys and road trips he and his friends took in the search for  kicks, freedom and spiritual purpose and direction. This book and its writer became the touchstone for beat sensibility – not that we had actually read it, of course, but we regarded with awe and interest those who had, or who carried a copy in their jacket pocket. By a kind of osmosis, the spirit of the American road trip entered the psyche of our tribe, and with a bit of trepidation and more excitement, we entered the world of hitchhiking. 
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WHAT WAS A BEAT GIRL? NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BEATLES but she exerted a powerful infuence on those of us whose teenage selves were formed by the legacy of the 1950s and the coming of the decade that swung. Those of us, that is, who wanted more than bubblegum pop music and the bland interactions of our peers who had bought into the stereotypes of mainstream culture.
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YES, IT’S 50 YEARS (OUCH!) SINCE THE CHALLENGE “JOHN OR PAUL?” started a million gymslip fights and feuds. From the beginning The Beatles belonged to everyone, unlike the rock’n’rollers and balladeers and popsters of previous eras. We all learnt to twist and shout, we all longed to be just 17, you know what I mean, and to say that we all had a favourite would be to diminish the intensity of the allegiances to individual Beatles which were as compulsory as long hair and mini-skirts.

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