Canning Dock had been scheduled for re-development.
It was an ultimatum - we had to get out!
They offered us an alternative berth in the
adjacent Salthouse Dock. The evacuation took
place, because the dock authorities had decided
to permanently close the dock. If we had
elected to stay, we would have been blocked
in forever.
The consensus was: that as the dock would
in all probability be filled in and used
for construction purposes - the risk was
that the Landfall might have to be broken
up to make way for new buildings. In retrospect,
it was the wrong decision, for the development
never took place, and had we elected to take
a chance and stay put, we would have been
slap-bang in the middle of Liverpool's main
tourist attraction - The Albert Dock complex.
Unfortunately, we did not have a crystal
ball. On Friday April 16 1971, the Landfall
had to evacuate Canning dock where she'd
lain for more than 23 years, to move a hundred
yards into the adjacent Salthouse Dock.
On a bright, windy, sunny morning, we disconnected
the shore electricity supply and other services,
and hauled up the gangplank. Complete with
an assorted crew of barmen, kitchen staff,
hostesses, their families and one large dog
that had somehow sneaked aboard, the Landfall
slid slowly out of the Canning Dock. Under
tow from two motor-powered gigs, we were
eased out of our position and across the
windswept water into our new berth. At one
point, the fresh wind caught the Landing
Craft amidships, and threatened to blow her
up against the dock wall, but the small gigs
managed to put her back on course. In 30
minutes, the job was done: a job that was
expected to have taken two hours. The club
was open for lunch as if nothing had happened.
Eric Carr the well known Liverpool sculptor
lived aboard Landfall both as a friend of
the owners and also as an unpaid shipkeeper.
To Eric, a bachelor, the Landfall with the
master mariner membership, and river folk
clientele, is a home from home. At most nights
round 11 p. m. you ~ hear the staccato roar
of an outboard motor, as Eric makes his way
back to his studio by boat, with the lights
of the city glittering and popping round
the water as the swell from his boat flutes
the lagoon-like surface of the dock. Part
of his studio forms a self-contained flat,
with small bedroom, At simply by calor gas.
"People always ask me if I am afraid
at nights, being by myself on unused dock
quays and with empty 18th century warehouses
around me. The answer is a definite no,"
says Eric. And the reason he gives is the
beauty of the surroundings. 'When I look
through my window at night it is more beautiful
than Venice, with the reflections on the
water, and the side views of the Pier Head buildings mirrored in the dock," he
told me.
Nevertheless, the average mortal shudders
slightly at the thought, particularly when
the wind howls through the Albert Dock warehouses
and the Mersey lashes the dock wall. How
anyone could live alone there, with the occasional
scurry of a rat seeking a more sheltered
spot, and the fantastic cacophony of sounds
big and small when the wind whistles in,
is a worry that simply does not disturb Eric
Carr. How did Eric become a sculptor? "It's a long and varied story," he smiled. Born in Everton, he went to Heyworth
Street School as a boy. "As a kid I used to get chalk from the school,
and make shapes with it. Just before the
war, I got a job with a Liverpool sign-makers
doing painting and embossing," he narrated. In fact Eric was to develop
into an artist with paints and still does
important commercial work-half the pub signs
of Liverpool and district, including
The George, depicting George III in Crosby, The Punchbowl at Sefton, The Twenty Row in Wallasey, The Morris Dancers in Scarisbrick and The Jutland, showing a battleship, in Stanley Road,
were done by Eric. Because of his first love
for sculpture however, he decided to try
to get a job in the potteries when he left
school, and was hired for artwork at Etruria.
The war broke out two days later, and I was
called up," said Eric.
For the next six years, Eric was to spend
quite long spells afloat. He served on aircraft
carrier Ark Royal, and did a stint with Air Sea Rescue, being
based at Anglesey. It was this experience,
plus messing about with boats, that gave
him this permanent itch he has to be near
to water. Came the peace, and Eric got a
job as a carpenter with Bertram Mills's Circus. There he had to paint scenery and do the
bewildering variety of shapes and colours
and cut-outs in wood that go with the big
top.
"It was a great experience, one that made
me fully realise the possibilities of wood-carving," he says. As a sideline there was designing
cages for animals. It seems an unusual step
from the pomp and brass and ballyhoo of the
circus life to the whisper world of church
furnishings. However, Eric tried the crossing
across the chasm. to a firm in Liverpool.
He found it, surprisingly. just as exciting
as the circus, more so, because the art involved
was muck more creative," he admits.
There were angels, saints, figurines for
ornamental furniture, figures for cribs,
symbolic designs to be done, and somehow
or other, when he branched out on his own
in the sixties, he had to mix in pub signs,
and occasionally elegant carvings of stylish
models for the ordinary art world. He somehow
managed to fit into this diversity of tasks,
commissions to do murals, sometimes in shops
or supermarkets, as one superb south sea
island scene in a stylish fruit mart in Waterloo,
and more recently a superb set of murals
in the Cabaret Club's new Country and Western lounge in Duke Street,
depicting Indians, and sunsets across the
West, wagon trains and cowboys.
But his main work is in the field of religious
carvings, and he intends it to stay that
way. Here in the past few years his reputation
has grown rapidly. "Most of my work
in this sphere is with the Catholic church;
although I am not a Catholic obviously know
a lot about it, because the theology can
matter very much in executing a commission
for a church." What sets Eric apart
in his belonging to the world of the artisan
rather than the arty set? Possibly, the background
knowledge of tools and wood, and his own
personal experience may account for this.
He certainly seems most at home with his
waterfront crowd, with the occasional docker
or the policeman who calls in for a chat-and
maybe a cup of tea. With a woodbine cigarette
in his mouth, a curved axe in his hand, and
emitting a modest and friendly scouse voice,
he is hardly classifiable as "arty".
Only when one studies him closely-the enormous
life sized drawings from which he prepares
his carvings, and the delicacy of sizing
and balancing, one realises he is truly an
artist.
He seldom philosophises about art, but when
he does, he is worth listening to. Some strains
in modern art he sees as good, buoo much
of it is a smokescreen for mediocrity, in
his opinion. He is alarmed, too, at the environmental
take-over of art by industrial design, and
the pressures of the 20th century "economic
rat race". "Art is too big for
simple definitions. But by and large I think
it should communicate with humanity at large,
or it becomes a form of intellectual incest,"
he says. Having done commissions in Scotland,
London, the Midlands, and North East, as
well as in his hometown, he is entitled to
speak. Recently I heard someone say of Eric,
"He's Liverpool's Michelangelo in wood." That's quite a tribute to an artist
whose best work may yet come in the future;
but who provides the City's waterfront with
an extra glint of greatness to a great skyline.
NEXT - FALCO BLANCO |