I don’t think you’re allowed to say Homebaked is tucked away in the heart of Anfield anymore. It’s part of the city now, and part of the story of Anfield Road; just around the corner where Walton Breck Road meets Oakfield; the corner of The Kop and the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand.
Fuelled by residents and supported by Liverpool Biennial in 2012, it reopened as a bakery after closing as Mitchell’s in 2010. This followed Housing Market Renewal’s decimation of the housing (and the community) behind the building, and now, thirteen years later, it uses its space to tell stories of Anfield and Everton, driven by fans, residents and, occasionally, a handful of brilliant artists.
But that’s just part of the Anfield Road story. The exhibition that opened last month, supported by Ange McKay, Tom Doubtfire, and Scouse Flowerhouse’s Polly Moseley & Richard Scott, is a sharing of artwork from the new graphic novel, Anfield Road Story, by filmmaker Chris Shephard.
Hung throughout the bakery, available to view with a pie and a coffee, are some of the funniest, realest, and most poignant illustrations from the novel, telling a story of Anfield Road in the 1980’s. It’s fiction inspired by life around the stadium; match days; sick days; leaving home; returning.
The exhibition opened with a walking tour, which you can sort of re-trace on anfieldroadstory.com in a blog post about the exhibition. That, like the exhibition and the novel, was grounded in affection for home and that strange weight of familiarity that comes with being back. Everything that hasn’t changed, and everything that has.
What the exhibition does so perfectly is summarise that familiarity. Anyone walking in will recognise timeless traits of match days, and find a sense of themselves in the original artworks from the book.
The exhibition is in support of reopening Everton Library, which closed in 1999. That, as much as the rest of the exhibition, speaks to how important retelling and retaining stories is. The library, now with a tender from the council for vital works, is in a better place than it has been for many years, but still needs significant support to return it to the useful centre of knowledge that it once was.
You can learn more about that in the exhibition, or by visiting @evertonlibrarytrustltd on instagram.
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Back to Our Roots is open at Homebaked Bakery, L4 0UF, until June (end date TBC). Anfield Road by Chris Chepherd is available to buy from the bakery, as well as prints from the exhibition.
Words, Kathryn Wainwright
