In my Liverpool home Model-maker uses lockdown to create diorama of city as it was in the 1970s

AMODEL maker has put lockdown to good use with his incredible recreation of 1970s Liverpool.

Gerard Fagan, who grew up in the city and now lives in Ormskirk, made a stunning scale model of his childhood stomping ground.

The 58-year-old grew up in his namesake, Gerard Gardens, which was a tenement development situated just behind the Walker Art Gallery and World Museum.

Gerard said: “They were built in the Art Deco style of the 30s but obviously I wasn’t there then. I lived there in the 70s.

“But they were freezing in the winter, they had no central heating!”

Gerard made a smaller version of his new model in 2003 which was just the tenement he grew up in.

A film-maker friend asked him if he could put the model on display for audiences after the showing of his own film Gardens of Stone - a documentary about Liverpool city centre living in the 20th Century.

The original model proved such a success it is now on display at the Museum of Liverpool.

Gerard’s new model encompasses more tenements and streets from the L3 ‘Scotty Road’ area.

The four classic streetscapes it recreates as they looked in the 70s are Hunter Street, Christian Street, Byrom Street and Scotland Road.

Gerard said he was able to recreate the look of the streets from memory and using photographic references from the records office.

Asked why he decided to recreate this part of Liverpool from that era, Gerard said: “I lived there in the 70s, and they stuck with me that much, growing up as a kid.

“In 1976 they had that massively hot summer. You’re 14 and the world’s your oyster.

“And people still think fondly about those communities and wish they would have been kept in the same way the Bullring has been kept.”

He added: “I’m not sure why they were called gardens because there wasn’t a blade of grass, it was just all concrete in the middle of the square! But it did give kids a place to play.”

The incredibly detailed buildings are made out of balsa wood and cardboard, and the whole model measures 6ft by 4ft, made up of four separate boards.

Throughout the lockdown, Gerard spent several hours of an evening and his weekends working on his project which is now complete. Explaining his love of model making, he said: “I always had Lego as a kid and Matchbox cars.

“My older brother had a model railway and stuff, and he tended to be into the trains and the track and I would do the scenery. I’ve always had an interest in it.”

After posting the finished photographs on the Liverpool Inacityliving Facebook group, the response, he said, has been “fantastic”.

Gerard added: “People who have seen it have said things like ‘I’m nearly crying here’ and ‘it takes me right back’. That’s the reaction I wanted.

“I’m glad to have done it but I’m also glad to have finished it.”

Gerard hopes to display the model after future screening of his friend’s film when it’s possible to do so again.