As the music from the Hope Street basement sparks a radical new idea for an underground pirate radio station, Tommy Higgins brings a battered Kev back to the ruins of Dockside for protection. Meanwhile, a newly unemployed Sue refuses to back down, planning an alternative community school inside Mike the milkman’s yard.
Dockside – Chapter 35 – Airwaves and Alternative Schools
The heavy, mechanical thud of the Chicago house import record continued to vibrate through the stone floorboards of the Hope Street basement. Danny McCarthy’s fingers rode the pitch slider with a practiced, hypnotic touch, his eyes locked on the spinning vinyl as the track seamlessly blended through the static.
Billy Harrison leaned his shoulder against the damp stone wall, his hands buried deep in his pockets. The rhythm was infectious, but his mind was moving faster than the beat. "It’s too quiet, Danny," Billy said suddenly, his Scouse accent cutting through the bassline. "We play it down here, and only the theatre directors upstairs can hear it. The whole city needs this music right now. All the lads who’ve been kicked off the sites and suspended from the depots—they’re sitting in their kitchens skint and angry."
Danny stopped the record with a sharp zip of his thumb against the vinyl. "What are you getting at, Billy?"
"A pirate radio station," Billy said, stepping out of the shadows, a spark of his old manic energy finally returning to his face. "Ste knows a lad up at the university electronics department who’s got a spare VHF transmitter. We set up an aerial on the roof of the Anglican Cathedral or the university tower. We broadcast straight from this basement, Danny. We call it Radio Dockside. They can flatten the crescent, but they can't stop us taking over the airwaves."
Chrissie and Sandra looked at each other from the kitchen doorway, a slow, defiant smile spreading across Chrissie’s face. "The bobbies will be down on this basement within a week if the signal's too strong, Billy," Chrissie warned, though her voice carried that unbreakable steel.
"Then we move the transmitter every Sunday," Sandra said, her eyes flashing. "We’ve got the van. We’ve got the decks. Let's give the city something to listen to while the developers are busy counting their money."
While the music was framing a new rebellion on Hope Street, the atmosphere back at the carcass of Dockside crescent was altogether grimmer.
The yellow excavator had gone, leaving behind a jagged mountain of pulverized red bricks and splintered timber where number four used to stand. Tommy Higgins’s blue Transit van rumbled onto the ruined tarmac, its front bumper heavily dented from its collision with Kevin's Capri down on the Dock Road.
Tommy climbed down from the cab, his massive frame caked in grey mortar dust. He walked around to the passenger side, gently helping Kev down onto the pavement. The nineteen-year-old car-wash lad was shivering, his face a map of purple bruises, his knuckles swollen from the enforcers' boots.
Jim Harrison stepped out of the front door of number six, his tartan scarf tied tight against the freezing Mersey fog, his face etched with the exhaustion of his sudden union resignation. He looked at Kev, then at Tommy’s angry eyes.
"Kevin’s crew caught him at the yard, Jim," Tommy said, his booming voice dropping to a low, protective growl. "He held the line. He didn't give up Billy's name, even when the tyre irons came out. He's got nowhere to go, Jim. The gaffer’s sacked him from the wash, and his landlord's already cleared his room."
Jim didn't say a word. He walked forward, his large, calloused hand resting gently on Kev’s trembling shoulder. He looked past them at the rubble of the crescent, realizing that the community he had built wasn't defined by the walls the developers had knocked down—it was defined by the lads who refused to crack under the iron. "Come inside, lad," Jim said, his resonant voice finding a new, quiet strength. "Eileen’s got the kettle on. You're staying with us at number six until the Friday deadline is cleared."
A few hundred yards away, the pale evening light was hitting the rows of empty plastic crates inside Mike the milkman’s distribution yard.
Sue stood by the rusted iron gates, her leather briefcase slung heavily over her shoulder, her history notebook open as she watched Mikey Gallagher leaning against a stack of gold-top bottles. She had been fired from the Wavertree Academy by Headmaster Davies only three hours ago, but the red pen in her pocket was already moving.
"We aren't letting Davies define where the history gets taught, Mikey," Sue said, her voice fiercely steady as Mike the milkman walked out of the depot office, holding a thermos of hot tea.
"The academy's got the central heating, Miss," Mikey muttered, tracing a crack in the concrete with the toe of his trainer. "What are we going to do down here? Sit on milk crates in the frost?"
"We're going to build an alternative community school right here in the yard, Mikey," Sue said, her jaw tightening as she pointed her pen toward the empty, timber-framed storage sheds at the back. "Mike’s given us the space. The joiners from the Duke Street site are bringing the surplus timber and gas heaters tomorrow morning. We’ll teach the housing laws, the local history, and the functional trades without any headmasters or boards telling us what we can write on the blackboard."
Mike the milkman smiled, slamming an empty crate onto his float with a satisfying, loud clink that echoed off the brickwork. "The morning delivery starts at five, Sue love. But by noon, this yard belongs to the project. If London thinks they can starve the brains out of this estate, they're about to find out how many pints of defiance we've got left in the crates."
The old borders of Liverpool were fracturing, but from the basement airwaves of Hope Street to the frozen asphalt of the milk yard, the new lines of resistance were already hardening in the frost.
Dockside has been developed using AI.
