The Scuffers Are Out

On Thursday, 31 July 1919, nearly one half of the Liverpool Police Force - the Merseyside 'Scuffers' - went on strike. For two nights over the August Bank Holiday, Liverpool City Centre was virtually without a police force. The mob left the slums and set out on a looting spree. The Riot Act was read, the army sent for and a battleship and two destroyers despatched to the Mersey. Liverpool men and women, who were children in 1919, still remember that weekend, and some of the police strikers recall the strike - and after.