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English Audio Request

Sweetpeppermint
279 Words / 1 Recordings / 0 Comments
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Natural speed please

I am an exiled Liverpudlian. I left the city in 1986, aged eighteen, and have returned only infrequently ever since. The Liverpool I grew up in was harsh, with limited opportunities and unemployment was very high. The place was untidy and litter was commonplace.
I was fortunate enough to gain a place at university, and this proved to be my escape route. If I hadn’t escaped, I would probably have been trapped there for life – as indeed has happened to my own parents and I am sure to many of my peers.
In the early days after leaving, I remember my visits were particularly depressing, the inbound train passing through suburbs containing row upon row of identical, two-up, two-down terraced houses. My own grandparents lived in such a house, and I remember the toilet was outside until the house was modernised in 1982. Their situation was by no means unique.
I made the same train journey up there in mid-2008, and saw the same streets and the same houses, and the same litter. By all appearances, time had stood still.
But time hasn’t stood still. Liverpool has long been notorious for its violence. On my last visit I picked up the local paper and read of four fatal shooting incidents on the first three pages! Even at this time, there is an ongoing court case of an eighteen-year-old accused
of shooting dead an eleven-year-old boy. These events contribute significantly to how many people perceive Liverpool, and certainly I would be very unlikely to volunteer my place of birth in a conversation. I am also relieved that my accent has become much reduced in the years since I left.

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