Elswick Street, Home of 'Bread'

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Along with tracksuits, scousers and ferries across the Mersey, TV sitcom 'Bread' is a Liverpudlian institution. The show, written by Liverpool darling Carla Lane, was screened by the BBC in British homes from May 1986 to November 1991.

The storyline focused on the trails and tribulations of the Boswell family, headed up by matriarch Nellie (played by Jean Boht), who, in the absence of her philandering husband Freddie (Ronald Forfar), led her family through the ups and downs of Thatcher's Britain.


After Freddie left Nellie for local scarlet woman 'Lilo Lill', Nellie's five children Adrian, Jack, Joey, Aveline and Billy continued to live in her house and support her. The family's chief source of funding appeared to be from stolen goods and benefit fraud and was collected by Nellie at the end of the week under a chicken-shaped pot that was kept in the centre of the dining table.

The TV series was filmed in Liverpool's inner city district of Dingle in what was fictionally known as Kelsall Street in the programme. In actual fact, the street shown at the beginning of every programme during the infamous theme tune "buy it, sell it - the game's getting hard..." is Elswick Street, a real street in Dingle.

Nestled amongst other similar roads made up of traditional 'two up, two down' Victorian red brick houses in the area bordered by Toxteth and Aigbuth, Elswick Street and its surrounding roads hang on in the face of progress. New council flat developments and Barrett-style housing threatens to dwarf these neat streets, a little piece of Liverpudlian history.

Whilst not quite up there with Beatles Tours and Anfield Football ground, Elswick Street should definitely be on any tourist 'alternative tour of Liverpool' list as a remnant of a bygone time where communities dwelled together and survived through some of the country's toughest financial times.

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