24 HOURS IN SOUTHPORT

By Joseph Rynhart

‘Right now, Southport doesn’t belong to anyone — not you, not me. In the blank space between night and dawn, it belongs to the sea. To the birds. To the sky.’

A cab is like a confessional: passengers tell drivers things they wouldn’t tell a priest. And now you can join a ride through Southport, from one dawn to the next, hearing what the cabbie hears, seeing what the cabbie sees.

From candyfloss to clubbers, and businesswomen to bartenders, Southport is a place of contrasts. Its culture and character shifts with the sun. We hear from night-shift nurses and go behind the scenes at Beales. We discover how a fast food restaurant feeds a hungry town. We hear from tourists who return year by year. And then, when the sun sets and the shutters go down, we hear from clubbers and bartenders while the music throbs.

Joseph also looks into the history of Southport, from its Victorian pomp to its contemporary renewal. He talks to Jane Little-Smith, Community Development Officer at King’s Gardens, about their re-development and symbiotic relationship with the town. And then meets Mark Catherall, dubbed Sefton Council’s ‘tourism boss’ by the Southport Visiter, to hear about the tourist economy and efforts towards retail renaissance.

Forget Delta, forget Uber: this is 24 Hours in Southport.

Jane Little-Smith
Alex Prior
Michael Scott-Abbott
Daniel St-John-Clare