In this report from Liverpool from 1963, John Morgan found himself bewildered by the city. He found a mixture of poverty, violence, sectarianism and occasionally nihilism that was unlike anywhere else in the country. The new “Mersey sound” seemed an expression of this mindset and in the Cavern Club violence was found “in the stunning volume of sound, in the incoherence of the dance, and in the wilfully created vacuity of facial and verbal expression”. Meanwhile the streets were the place for the real rough stuff, “scenes of rare ferocity or at best, comic criminality”. Nevertheless, change was happening, and for all of the negative aspects that he encountered, Morgan could not help asking: “why should this rough city be the one English town outside London it’s a pleasure to spend time in?”