Don’t talk to him about Elizabeth II, even dead and about to be buried. Alan McFeely raises a bushy eyebrow. ” The Queen ? A parasite. » The 59-year-old volunteer stirs the crate of onions waiting for customers of the food bank posted along Lodge Lane, the main artery of Toxteth, this neighborhood whose name is no longer pronounced. Everyone says “Liverpool 8”Where “L8”, the postal code, as if to erase from memory the violent riots of 1981, triggered by the arrest of a young black man, Leroy Cooper. Mc Feely, social worker in housing, insists: “The Queen has lived her whole life in luxury and does not know what poverty is. »
Those queuing on Lodge Lane are acutely aware of this. This Thursday, September 15, they are not waiting to see a royal coffin, but to glean a packet of flour, coffee, preserves, fruit or vegetables, a little meat – today chicken. They are entitled to ten items for the modest sum of 3.50 pounds (4 euros) and as many unsold items as there are available. Merchandise is displayed on stalls, like in a real market. “It’s not at all the same when you pay a little something”, slips Robby Daniels, one of the seventeen volunteers of the mobile food bank, dressed in a purple t-shirt.
Behind the refrigerated truck, also purple, it shows the logos painted on the rear doors. A red hand, that of the Reds of the Liverpool Football Club (LFC), shakes a blue hand, that of his eternal rivals Everton. Hence the purple color painted everywhere. The enemy brothers, 130 and 144 respectively, joined the “Greenhouse Project”, who oversees this operation to help the inhabitants of the city hit hard by the soaring prices. Should the situation be serious… But how can you let your compatriots down when you represent two mythical clubs, whose names resonate as strongly as that of the Beatles, children of the city?
“Not My King”
Purple, the color of half-mourning, suits Liverpool well. After London, its floral madness, its unprecedented queues, its bobbies helpful, the great port in the North West of England presents the face of a return to reality. The “Royals” indifferent the rebel city. Steve, another 44-year-old volunteer, wears a blue T-shirt with the logo on his tattoos “Fuck the Tories” (“Fuck the Conservatives”), a song taken on stage at the time of the fall of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. They ask him for his last name. “Middleton”, Steve replies innocently. Like Kate, Prince William’s wife? His friends are laughing as the thing seems incongruous to them.
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