“Now THIS was a rare vintage. The first Toxteth Day of the Dead proper was something truly special. The day I led ‘the 399’ on an historic Beating of the Bounds will live long in the memory (even if there weren’t exactly 399 of us – or maybe there were, if you count the ghosts…). The whole day was filled with wonder and highlights, and each person there will have their own. For me, the run-up to the event was just so exciting and impressive, seeing fellow Arts Labbers swing into action and pull together to create a truly collaborative and momentous event in just 10 days. 

On the day, I most loved forging brand new traditions, honouring our Great Spirits of L8 (especially me Mam), and highlighting the outstanding work done by local organisations. Singing The Power of Love as we left The Florrie, and walking in silence with everyone as we approached the laying of the first brick were moments to be treasured. Finally, I was most impressed with the attendees. Creativity and open-heartedness are the hallmarks of this merry band of fellow travellers, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. The whole thing felt mythic, and I was honoured to play a part. The building of The People’s Pyramid has begun!”
~ Tommy Calderbank

How do you go about picking a highlight from the first Toxteth Day of the Dead?  There were so many wondrous moments to choose from.

For me the most uplifting and inspiring part has to be the parade from The Florrie up to Park Road. Absolutely everybody singing Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love as one. It was a huge outpouring of emotion that I will never forget.

It’s interesting that there is a chance of that tune being Christmas Number One (sadly not sang by Holly Johnson). Our ideas are floating off into the Universe and bearing fruit.

There are so many words I could use to describe the day. Unity, remembrance, love, fun, excitement, ritual, epic. What a beautiful reminder of some of the great and good of Toxteth, sadly no longer with us.

The new rituals are forming. See you on 23 November 2019.
~ Mandie Buchanan

“The purpose of a ceremony is to integrate: to fuse the individual with his or her fellows, the community of people with that of the other kingdoms, and this larger communal group with the worlds beyond this one. A raising or expansion of individual consciousness naturally accompanies this process. The person sheds the isolated, individual personality and is restored to conscious harmony with the universe.” 
~ Paula Gunn Allen, ‘The Sacred Hoop, Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions’

Toxteth is a palimpsest. 
Liverpool Arts Lab is an ancient tribe. 
When we make art, we’re most alive. 

Toxteth goes way back and spreads further than many realise. 
To attune to the appropriate frequency for Beating the Bounds, I walked to The Florrie from my Wavertree home. I followed the limits of historic Toxteth Park, glancing past The Asda on Smithdown Road, on the site of Sefton General Hospital, before that Toxteth Park Workhouse, before that Smeedon, before that Esmedune. Toxteth is a palimpsest.

I was dressed and accessorised for the occasion, wearing orange hi-vis vest over green camouflage jacket. Items with me included: 
*my father’s bugle (with which to greet the people from the grounds of the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth);
*a trophy of both twisted and eager tree branches, washed up on a riverbank in Wales many moons ago, varnished, and gifted to me by Hugh Vincent Doherty – founder of Rapid DIY – some months previously in the entrance of the old George Henry Lee building (to represent the forest, deer, and because I said I’d do something arty with them to Hugh);

*‘Baby. Alien. Blue.’ – a sculpture made in 1999 for Tracey about Liverpool’s African links (to acknowledge our shared human heritage);

*The Ladybird book of Special Days and Customs – into which was placed a poem linked to Toxteth Day of the Dead (to release into the ether later); and
*a brown plague doctor’s mask attached to my belt (to ensure Larry was present and well… just in case). Liverpool Arts Lab is an ancient tribe. 

Each of these items, and more, were necessary for our proceedings. I wore four watches, each one representing one hundred. Making my way past Toxteth Cemetery, inside the old forest, I felt in evertime. I would continue to feel this way for some considerable time. When we make art, we’re most alive.

There are many memorable moments that are now carved on my heart from when we Beat the Bounds on November 23^rd. One is this:

From the back of the stream, it was as a wonderful dream come alive. We flowed from Ullet Road into Princes Park in the gloaming, the human river of reveries made real rolling within and without, dancing and drumming and humming with humanity, undulating towards Woodhenge, where we’d pay our respects to the dead and become vital once again. 

The process continued. The process continues. 

Toxteth is a palimpsest. 
Liverpool Arts Lab is an ancient tribe. 
When we make art, we’re most alive.
~ Ali Harwood

Ancient and Alive, Ali Harwood 23.11.18

you legendary forest with your brooks and pools and streams
you kiss the Mersey for three miles and open up our dreams 
from river shore and on inland your bounds breathe in and out 
in time and space inhabitants explore your hereabouts

Toxteth you protect us as your feats accrete and how
through Viking times to Hundred of West Derby on to now
disparking led to common ground and sparked this house to rise
all for one you’re raised for those dissenters here to thrive
November 1618 Richard Mather gathered folk
first addressed his concourse from these acorns will rise oaks 

like Jeremiah Horrocks now a baby born nearby
within the Lower Lodge and by Otterspool you cry
your mother Mary Aspinwall has makers in her blood
their time machines will feed your seams and lead your seed to bud 
your father James or William a farmer some suggest
perhaps the land on which you stand digests as you ingest
the ideas from your uncle Edward on your mother’s side
England’s prime watchmaker with his eggs of oval eyed
by your essential questioning of how things move and why
by your teens you’re moved to move away from Toxteth skies 

and so beyond this place you’re bound for Cambridge sure enough
ad astra per aspera yes to the stars it’s rough
Latin serves you well but you serve too to pay your bills
survey and read for thrills alone yes study on your bill 
return to Merseyside degreeless but awake and clear
with telescope elope each night alike a wide-eyed deer 

you have to make some pennies and so in Much Hoole you tutor
you hold a curacy as well but see the night acuter
you predict that Venus will advance across the sun
November twenty-third and now your looking has begun 
November twenty-third and now your looking has begun 
afternoon the next day with your darkened room the stage
peepers fixed on paper on which sun’s rays light the page
inside your makeshift lab a six-inch circle solar light
in camera obscura your predictions into sight
yes! spot on! the silhouette of Venus is immersed
within sun’s brilliant disc your incandescence clouds disperse 

then you were but twenty-one no twenty-three at all
hinc illae lachrimae thus the tears they fall
Toxteth boy man polymath you read the moon and tides
you fed and feed the hero in our deep and dark insides
posterity shall witness thy return close by
the splendid sight of you now greets our distant children’s eyes.

and what of us? what lies beneath? it’s Toxteth to the core
and beyond that? the beating heart of always evermore
in each brick is ash and in the ashes sparks are found
and with this end begin again. it’s time to Beat The Bounds!

My experience was one that felt like a wonderful fellowship of some if the people I’ve been privileged to meet along this journey. I don’t often feel like “part” of something and that was what summed the whole experience up for me. All getting stuck in, whatever one brought to the table, to create something that will stand the test of time. With the joy of finding out more about each other along the way and honouring each others dead. Toxteth Day of the Dead is going to be the highlight of my year from now on as a time to reflect and be thankful.
~ Lou Whalley

The Beating the Bounds event was filled with so many little pieces of inspiration that it’s hard to put my finger on any one of them as a stand out.  Because they were all together something more than genius.  Something magical was happening and it was a complete immersive joy to be involvedThere’s a point during a caper where everything that you think that you know about how it’s going to go down is surpassed by a new reality.  Because somehow, all of the ideas and energy that you’ve helped to put into place take a life of their own.  And Beating the Bounds did this on so many levels, that it became an energy in and of itself.  I’m still buzzing on it! 
~ Jah Jussa

The day begins before its starts, and already my mind is blank, it has to be really, because anything can happen. So far, it’s running reasonably smooth, until the news that my ticket is not substantial enough To ‘take tea and pie’ with the JAMMS. So I have to boost off to trollieland. Doing so, I bump into badgers along the way, so we decide we have to liberate a cart, in fact two chained together…just as well, as my LAL bud, Lou Lou’ was after one too, All for one, an tha. I didn’t take any pie or tea…as Gimpo said “Eatin is cheaten” That means, the only thing getting eat today is Denbighshire’s finest mushies. The weather is spot on for a gentle meander around the fringes of the Toxteth L8. There is a purr of something special in the air, but what is it, what am I doing… Oh yeah! Taking the ghost of my Dad for a final walk around to his new resting place, (he had lived there at some point) that’s what it is, I have the wristband to prove it. Dad you are in the stone’ R.I.P. The chapel, and it’s Ali, poring out the words with true passion. The Henge, and the Brodie ball gets a kicking. From then on in I’m totes tripping, take a deep breath collect myself, and realise, I’m witnessing the first dusk’ of the day of the dead’ and knowing it’s a fleeting moment that will never happen again…obv’s…Getting dark, but its all OK because I’m surrounded by my fun MuMu clan. Kind of fitting for a fun-eral. So pin the tail on the donkey, time at the donkeys grave stone… R.I.P. Judy too. Marching dead people around a field, like real ghosts, on the cusp of the underworld. Persephone is a no show. Let’s go and watch the footie then, that’s when the arl chuckle muscles start twitching, and its not long till ’full on belly laughing. Got rid of some dark matter there that must have been lodged. Next stop Ringo’s house, wanted to ask him if I could use the toilet. Everyone fell silent, Why, because it is a fun-eral after all. Overall I was really glad that I didn’t manage to piss me kecs, so getting back to The Florrie with a sense of accomplishment was bliss. How I generally felt, overall? could be summed up by Tommy’s body language…said it all to me. Thank you You’ve been wonderful….Going up-stream now…see yah !
~ Denis Berry

I find myself at New Brighton beach at 10.23 in the morning. It was chilly, but I was on a mission, shoes off, jeans rolled up and bottle in hand I waded into the estuary to fulfil the task of sourcing mystical Mersey water from the mouth of the magic river. A bracing start to what would transpire into a truly monumental day, full of emotion and wonderment.

For me to transcribe all of my experiences that day would take up a whole essay, or even a book! So here are a few of my highlights, starting with meeting Gimpo and imbibing him with the local mycelium, dancing around the roundabout, glittery shits, the woodhenge, golden footballs, pilgrim herding in Friday night rush hour, and a multitude of other mythical meetings. All spectacular!!

In conclusion I suppose the greatest thing I gained from Beating the Bounds was the engagement with all of the people, marchers and locals. I only felt the LOVE….

I’m going to have to go, I’ve left the pan on!!!
~ Peter Hughes

“The most powerful moment of the whole thing for me, was Jimmy handing over the  brick with Simon’s ashes in it, to Daisy and then watching her lay it. It pissed on everything else we had spent months in planning.
~ Bill Drummond

Its November 27th. I’m on a train somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh in floods of tears. Its the first chance I’ve had to reflect on the events of the first Toxteth Day of the Dead. I’m overwhelmed by a sudden rush of emotion. 

in my mind is a kaleidoscope of images of Arts Lab friends. They’re making milk ghost lanterns in the Hobo Pub. They’re telling stories and baking cakes.  They’re printing tee-shirts and making maps. They’re cutting withies and making job cards. They’re navigating impossibly long emails packed with ideas. They’re making commitments. They’re taking responsibilities. They’re writing poetry and creating props. They’re taking photographs and making films. They’re stopping traffic and speaking with love. They’re weaving their hearts together to create something magical. Something beautiful. Something appropriate. They’re setting a tone. Creating a foundation ceremony in honour of a foundation ceremony.  

 And I’m remembering The Others. Our fellow travellers and pyramid-mates who courageously commit to the unknown. I feel such deep gratitude for their trust and their laughter. For singing and spinning around. For playing footy in the dark and eating sausage rolls. For embodying Yozzer and polishing turds. For collecting tears and scattering seeds. For picking up litter and beating the bounds. For creating the best comb-and-paper orchestra Princes Park has ever seen! For pushing a stone and walking in silence. For coming together to reverently witness. 

The first act of a remarkable undertaking. 
~ Jen Allanson