Title: Nine Lives of a Scouser
Author: David C. Pickard
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 978-1-6655-8185-1
Pages: 132
Genre: Memoir
Review By: Susan Brown
Pacific Book Review
I’ve always been intrigued by words that I’ve never heard before. The title of this book drew me in. Scouser? What is that? Come to find out it’s slang for someone from Liverpool, England who speaks with a distinctive dialect. Although this isn’t a story about Liverpool, it is a chronicle by the author of his life which began in that city.
Born on the eve of World War II, Mr. Pickard, as a young child, lived through German bombings and air raids. Many nights he mustered with family and friends in bomb shelters, but daytime was all about adventure for him and his pals as they explored the war-torn city. As the war years faded, the author finished school and launched what was to be a long and varied career, beginning as an apprentice engineer for a shipbuilder.
The majority of this book is an account of Pickard’s professional career. He excelled at solving mechanical problems and moved through the ranks of the companies he worked for from apprentice to supervisor quickly. His managerial perspective instilled loyalty from his crews. He says, “I always told employees new to the assembly shop to work with me, not for me, and always to tell the truth, no matter how big the mistake, because if they did not and I spent many hours trying to find the cause, only to discover that they had lied, there would be no mercy; they would be out of the door straightaway.”
That same loyalty, however, did not manifest in many of his employers. He changed jobs often, in large part due to what he describes as mismanagement by company leaders. As someone with hands on knowledge of how equipment functioned, he was often stymied from doing a job, in his estimation, the way it should be done because of decisions made by those above him. He always landed on his feet in a new position.
In the midst of one of his job changes, he suffered a terrible loss when his wife died from a head trauma at 42. Out of that tragedy, though, came some good fortune. The author met and married a lovely woman and, with her help, they started their own successful business.
This memoir is such a detailed and comprehensive reflection by the author it sweeps the reader through the 80 plus years of his life — and what a full nine lives it’s been that have yet to run out for this scouser from Liverpool.
