Hull and Humber - In the Media

[livin' hull]

excellent video - now if only they could arrange for it to be shown every 1/2 hour on TV, it might actually change a few peoples opinions...

on an interesting sideline, a Polish friend was telling me how 'obviously' before she came here she'd never heard of Hull, only London BUT now she's here she loves it! and loves the fact that everything (coast, countryside and city) are all so close - espec. as it was 4hrs from her home to the coast in Poland! she's even picking up a Hull accent!!

[Dazzar86]

Rosyth to Hull was repeated on BBC 1 the other day.

Also featured on 'The Big Fat Quiz of the Year' on channel 4 as a question;

Mr.X (can't remember his name) complained about Hull City Council after receiving a letter from them just after being registered legally as blind. Why did he complain about Hull City council?


Answer: the council sent him a letter addressed to; Dear Mr. blindman!


Also on Emmerdale, when an actor was talking to his missus (I think - I don't watch shit, it was just on in the background) talking about a rough year saying "Yeah, we've certainly been to Hull and back!"

tossers!

[albionfagan]

The mass media are ignorant, but it's their influence over people that concerns me most. I frequently here people dismissing Hull, and saying it's a horrible place and I question them and they can't tell me what's so bad about it, I doubt they've even been. The city centre of Hull may be small but it has some genuinely beautiful architecture, and is miles above somewhere like Sunderland or Preston, without meaning to belittle them.

[Kingston Upon Hull]

Originally Posted by albionfagan

The mass media are ignorant, but it's their influence over people that concerns me most. I frequently here people dismissing Hull, and saying it's a horrible place and I question them and they can't tell me what's so bad about it, I doubt they've even been. The city centre of Hull may be small but it has some genuinely beautiful architecture, and is miles above somewhere like Sunderland or Preston, without meaning to belittle them.

As you just have compared Hull to Preston and Sunderland maybe those living in Cities like London, Manchester, Leeds and for me York are comparing Hull to those places and Hull doesn't compare

Hull is definately not the least attractive City centre i've seen not by a long shot infact in parts it's stunning but unfortunately it is like a morgue most nights of the week with all of Hull's modern bars on Princess Avenue/ Newland Avenue which unfortunately has turned the City Centre into a ghost town most nights of the week.

Dock street for me is an area which should have bars and restaurants all the way down it a missed opportunity lots of space for seating and next to Princess Quay with it's water and the same with the marina where are the top restaurants and good quality not cheap bars in this area?

[ChrisG (Hull)]

Originally Posted by Kingston Upon Hull

As you just have compared Hull to Preston and Sunderland maybe those living in Cities like London, Manchester, Leeds and for me York are comparing Hull to those places and Hull doesn't compare

Hull is definately not the least attractive City centre i've seen not by a long shot infact in parts it's stunning but unfortunately it is like a morgue most nights of the week with all of Hull's modern bars on Princess Avenue/ Newland Avenue which unfortunately has turned the City Centre into a ghost town most nights of the week.

Dock street for me is an area which should have bars and restaurants all the way down it a missed opportunity lots of space for seating and next to Princess Quay with it's water and the same with the marina where are the top restaurants and good quality not cheap bars in this area?

Err have you ever been to Princes Dock street on a summer afternoon?
There is McCoys, Cuckoos, Leonardo's, and at least two others along there with outside seating. Yes perhaps room for more but the opportunity is being utilised.

[livin' hull]

interesting piece in the Times on Saturday..

Robert Crampton

When I was still living at my mum’s house, around 1984, aged 20, Princes Avenue wasn’t much to get excited about. There was Pier Luigi’s, an Italian with an open kitchen where it was still a thrill to see the chefs making pizzas. There was an Indian and there were a couple of pubs. We used to go to one of them, the Old Zoological, after fundraisers for the striking miners. Last Friday night I went out on Princes Avenue to see what had changed. The answer: a great deal. But Broken Britain? I don’t think so.

My mum and dad still live near by, so it was a short walk to Dukes, more a bar than a pub or restaurant. That was the first change. Bars, as opposed to pubs (a lot) or restaurants (not many), barely existed in Hull 25 years ago. Now there must be eight bars on Princes Avenue.

The evolution of the bar, driven by increasing affluence, and by a breakdown in gender and age segregation, is interesting. It used to be that you went out as a couple or you went out with the lads or with the girls. And you stuck to your own age group. After about 25 your glory days on the town were over. Not any more. Mixed groups of disparate ages proliferate.

The first person I spoke to, however, was on his own. Scott Sullivan, 36, a former panel maker, working nights for Hewetson Floors, is now jobless and homeless. His parents divorced when he was 10. “Me and me mam’s new husband didn’t get on.” Scott tried Ecstasy, graduated to heroin by the time he was 19 and has served a couple of stretches in HMP Hull.

Scott has two sons, Lewis and Liam, by two women, but doesn’t see much of either. He has a council flat but can’t stay there because he fell out with lads on the estate. “We’d fight as kids all the time, toe-to-toe. Now, you don’t know if he’s got a gun or a knife.”

Scott’s story encapsulates many of the social changes of the past 25 years. There’s divorce. When I was at school, there was still a stigma attached to divorce. Some say that was a good thing. I’m not so sure. We all knew kids whose parents didn’t get on, whose dads were drunks, or philanderers, or just plain nasty, but whose mothers felt trapped.

There’s drugs. Drugs were around in the early Eighties, of course, but were nothing like as available as they are now. There’s violence, with weapons more commonplace. My guess is that the quantity, as opposed to the intensity, of violence has dropped off. Even in the affluent suburb where I grew up, violence among young males was rife. In the year I turned 18 I was in four fights. My nephews, now that age, don’t get into fights.

There’s something else in Scott’s tale: emotional awareness. “I’ve got depression,” he said. “I hear voices.” No way in my day would you hear a Hull man saying he had depression. It would have been like admitting to a predilection for women’s clothes. Some would see Scott’s acknowledgement of his mental fragility as a bad development, an excuse, a refusal to take responsibility. But he didn’t say it like that. He said it as though it were a simple fact. I think it’s better that he can say it than keep it a secret.

Scott and I sit outside so we can smoke. That’s another change. Back in the day, Dukes, had it existed, would have been half-choked in tobacco smoke. A pain for a minority, a boon to the majority. Having said that, by 9pm half the bar is outside.

In general, though, better pay equals better diet equals better health. Younger people look fitter, happier, infinitely better turned out than 25 years ago. At 5ft 10in, I used to be tall in Hull. I’m not any more. The scrawny, pale, woefully underdressed youths I remember are still around, but there are fewer of them. Youngsters are often still underdressed, but from choice, to show off their biceps or their boobs.

Scott quizzes me about my mobile. Another change. Everyone has one. Scott has never been to London, but has been abroad once. Would he ever leave Hull? “I’d love to, but I wouldn’t have the bottle.” I left Hull, but it was easier for me, not just because my family were middle class and educated, but because, if I’m honest, I wasn’t that wedded to the city in the first place. Although my parents live near the middle of town now, they used to live in the suburbs, where the better schools were. I went to school with a lot of boys and girls who were first-generation middle class and only too glad to have left the city boundary.

We had two trawler skippers’ kids in our class, Chris and Sharon. The fishing has gone now. You can romanticise it but, like the coalmines, not many dads wanted their sons to follow them on to the boats. Between 1830 and 1980, a Hull trawler went down on average every two months. The biggest employers now are the council, the NHS and the various educational institutions. All public sector, they’ll be vulnerable when the cuts come. Still, better an office than a heaving deck in the White Sea.

The flight to the suburbs has accelerated. The population of the city now is about 245,000, down from about 285,000 when my family moved to the area in 1970. You can bemoan this, but when people get the choice, most go for greenery and space. Nowadays more people have the choice.

As a teenager, I went into town on the bus on Saturdays, to buy records, and later to see bands and films. We didn’t much mix with kids like Scott, apart from standing next to them at the football. There’s more mixing of classes now, if only because Hull City attracted 5,000 fans then and 25,000 now. And because more leisure options — skating, bowling, multiplexes — have dissolved boundaries.

My main contact with the working-class life of the city came through my parents’ political activism. In those days, the Labour Party ran Hull, once holding 59 out of 60 seats on the council, and the Transport and General Workers Union ran the Labour Party. It wasn’t an especially democratic arrangement. Now, Hull has a Liberal-controlled council, a degree of political competition and the T&G no longer exists. Its former headquarters, Bevin House, has become a casino, Napoleons.

Radical politics lives on only in the names of the bars: Revolution; Propaganda. Mind you, old habits die hard. I asked one drinker what he thought of the bankers and their bonuses. “F***ing thieves,” he replied.

If there is a dominant ideology now, it’s have a good time, don’t judge, chill out. The way Hull has coped with immigration is a good example. As recently as 2001, more than 97 per cent of Hull’s population was white. Nine years on there is a significant minority of immigrants — Kosovans, Iraqi Kurds, Poles — and by and large there hasn’t been too much trouble.

In the Old Zoological, I asked Michael Donner, 26, a painter and decorator, what he thought of this. Michael has a shaved head, a scar running across his scalp and a lot of tattoos. “I like it,” he said. “The city’s a lot more multicultural now. The Poles are often better tradesmen than the English.” On balance, he thought the country was getting better. The DJ was inviting anyone “celebrating something, a birthday, a divorce, a wedding, a boob job” to get on the dancefloor.

Outside the Old Zoological I meet Louise Chadwick, 34. She’s out for the night with ten friends, none of whom is wearing much. Isn’t she cold? “I’ve gorra lot behind me,” she said, slapping her bum. Louise is a shop supervisor with three children, aged 13, 10 and 9. “I’m a good mum. Friday night I go out, let me hair down.” Is she married? “Hell no, they’re more trouble than they’re bloody worth.” Louise has been drinking sambuca for two hours and she intends to drink a lot more (a round of 11 shots costs £22), probably end up in the Sugar Mill. And how will she feel tomorrow? “On top of the world.” Fair play to her.

--------------------

the comments from readers however showed typical prejuidices about Hull... but the article painted a pretty accurate view in my opinion

[legolamb]

The city's population has increased in the last ten years.

I found the article below elsewhere in Crampton's highfalutin', hypocritical canon

Which leaves me with a question - why didn't he find a smackhead in the east end to patronise?

It’s a crime how they insult my city

Why does no one ever seem to have a nice word to say about London?
Robert Crampton

My brother-in-law, down for the weekend from Yorkshire, said something nice about London. This is worth commenting on, because usually people who don’t live in London grant themselves carte blanche to be rude about the city to those of us who do.

It really is peculiar, this phenomenon. Peculiar how otherwise polite people feel that they can routinely slag off where you choose to live; even more peculiar how the unwritten rules of the exchange dictate that you’re not allowed to say anything back. All potential ripostes involving the words boring, old, slow or conservative are off limits because ... well, because it would be rude.

Instead, you have soak up the punishment, smiling tightly, nodding ruefully, as if to say: “Why, yes, I’d never thought of that, you might have a point, I shall sell up tomorrow, come to live next door to you and spend the rest of my life watching soaps all night with the lights blazing and the curtains open.”

The abuse divides, I find, into two types. The first relates to crime. Specialising in this are people who have lived in London themselves, moved, and now delight in telling you about their improved quality of life while your children are going to get stabbed/polluted/addicted and won’t be able to tell the difference between a sheep and a barn door.

The second relates to money. “You paid how much? I could have got it for a fiver/off a mate/out of a skip.” That tends to segue into “put the bankers against a wall/bulldoze the City/move Parliament to Sheffield”.

With most of my family and in-laws in Yorkshire, I hear this sort of thing a lot. So, well done, Colin, for bucking the trend. For the record, he liked the way small specialist shops and street markets still thrive in the capital. “Where we are,” he said, “they build a massive Tesco and everybody else goes bust.”

[legolamb]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...l#post49666053

not really the media but I've got a lot more respect for the ssc Italian guess the city hull love in thread. Them cats know all about style and that. I'm still not gonna wear shades on my head but fair play.

[Dazzar86]

Hardly a Hull love in. I translated it on Google - From what I can make out, one of them was asking about places from Scotland and Sunderland downwards or something and someone said Hull. Then someone said "Ah, Queen Victoria Sq, Hull!" then the original poster said something about how he thought he'd seen "the famous Kingston Upon Hull on a map" but he thought "no, it cannot be!" and something about the city having 260,000 inhabitants.

Then someone said "the famous Kingston Upon Hull isn't even on Google maps" lol

then someone put a pic of Queen Vic Sq saying, "another pic of the square - all the people in it are angry because nobody knows of Hull"

then someone said it's a nice square, but is mainly 1890s semi-detacheds away from it.

[legolamb]

lol

1890's semi-detacheds?

This characterful Edwardian period building is detached, and benefits from a central location.



At least they got this bit right though:

"another pic of the square - all the people in it are angry because nobody knows of Hull"

[Dazzar86]

I thought you said in another thread that the Guildhall was built in the 1890s, replacing Broderick's town hall?

[legolamb]

No mate. I quoted this from wiki on the old photos thread:

The site of The Guildhall has experienced considerable change since 1333, when an early building hosted Corporation business between the Mayor and Alderman. The building was described as a moot hall, common hall and guildhall and was located at the southern end of Market Place. This building survived until the early 19th century.

A second guildhall, at a height of two-storeys was built to the north of the first building during the 1630s. Shortly after 1800, this guildhall was demolished to make way for Queen Street.

In 1822, the house of Alderman Jarratt situated on Lowgate, where the east end of todays Guildhall stands, was bought. It was known as the Mansion House and was used to carry out judicial and administrative business in the City. However, the site and its surroundings were cleaned in 1862, to make way for a new Town Hall.

The new Town Hall was designed by Cuthbert Brodrick (the designed of Leeds Town Hall) and was opened in 1866. Shortly after, Kingston upon Hull was granted city status in 1897 and a larger building was sought. Land to the west of the Town Hall was bought as foundations for the present Guildhall which began with law courts, a council camber and offices and was completed in 1907.

The Town Hall was demolished and the east end of the building, front Lowgate, was built during 1913-1916. The name Guildhall was restored. The Guildhall was designed by Sir Edwin Cooper.

In 1973 the Guildhall was given Grade II* listed building status

[livin' hull]

not sure if anyone saw this (posted a message on Wednesday day) but did anyone see Great British Rail Journeys - Liverpool to Scarboroigh pt. 3 York-Bridlington wiht Michael Portillo ?

excellent film and views of Hull, Portillo seemed to actually like the place and fascinating old film of trawlers and fish docks - also good snippet about daytrips to Hull being organised by Victorians - would attract several thousand per day!! He also declared Hulls station as exellent a wonderful example of victorian architecture and modern refurbishment.

Should be on BBC iPlayer if anyones interested

[Pippin0490]

Very enjoyable watch, thankyou for bringing it to my attention.

[Chris (Newcastle)]

Originally Posted by livin' hull

not sure if anyone saw this (posted a message on Wednesday day) but did anyone see Great British Rail Journeys - Liverpool to Scarboroigh pt. 3 York-Bridlington wiht Michael Portillo ?

excellent film and views of Hull, Portillo seemed to actually like the place and fascinating old film of trawlers and fish docks - also good snippet about daytrips to Hull being organised by Victorians - would attract several thousand per day!! He also declared Hulls station as exellent a wonderful example of victorian architecture and modern refurbishment.

Should be on BBC iPlayer if anyones interested

"HULL RISING FROM THE WATER LIKE VENICE..."

If anyone wants to hear why Hull compares to Venice and why people in Leeds came Kingston upon Hull in their thousands. Portillo is creaming himself over the "magnificent" Paragon Station. Royal Hotel looks great! Very good history of the whaling and trawling industry with ancient film footage and skipper interviewed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...o_Bridlington/

[ChrisG (Hull)]

Originally Posted by Chris (Newcastle)

"HULL RISING FROM THE WATER LIKE VENICE..."

If anyone wants to hear why Hull compares to Venice and why people in Leeds came Kingston upon Hull in their thousands. Portillo is creaming himself over the "magnificent" Paragon Station. Royal Hotel looks great! Very good history of the whaling and trawling industry with ancient film footage and skipper interviewed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...o_Bridlington/

Watched this on the bus this morning - it was excellent!

[ChrisG (Hull)]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...l-1864708.html

25 years on, Hull honours Larkin with tourist trail

By Jonathan Brown

Monday, 11 January 2010


Philip Larkin: his popularity remains undimmed

Few poets shunned the limelight quite like Philip Larkin, who rejected the Laureateship and refused to appear on television. Yet despite – or perhaps because of – his gloomy and reclusive public persona, his obsession with mortality and the meticulous chronicling of life’s dark corners of quiet despair, his popularity remains undimmed.


The city of Hull, where he spent more than three decades in splendid isolation as university librarian, will later this year honour its most celebrated modern literary son with a five-month festival marking the 25th anniversary of his death.

Among the main attractions for the event, Larkin25, will be an interactive tourist trail to give lovers of his poetry a greater insight into the everyday places which inspired his work and fuelled his inimitable scathing wit.

Key upon the route will be Paragon Railway Station, where the poet starts his southward journey one “sunlit Saturday” for “The Whitsun Weddings”, recently voted Britain’s most popular poem. In December the celebrations will culminate with the unveiling of a statue of Larkin, mirroring that of his friend Sir John Betjeman, at the opposing terminus at London’s Kings Cross.

Fans will be encouraged to visit the Brynmor Jones Library where he worked and which inspired his meditation on paid employment in “Toads”. Another stopping-off point will be the university lodgings in the top floor of the house in Pearson Park where Larkin resided for 17 years, and which gave him the “High Windows” for the title of his last major collection.

Also included will be the modern home in Newland Park where he lived from the mid-70s and which he famously hated, and also the home of his former lover Maeve Brennan. Those seeking a more prosaic insight can visit the pubs where he drank and listened to jazz, the shops where he bought his weekly groceries and even the site of his favourite Chinese restaurant.

The trail will take fans out to the surrounding countryside of the East Riding and ancient churches of outlying villages which he visited on his bicycle.

Graham Chesters, a retired professor of French at Hull University who chairs the Philip Larkin Society, said there would be no attempt to hide from the controversy that tainted the poet following his death. Accusations of misanthropy, racism and misogyny greeted the publications of Larkin’s personal letters and the official biography by future poet laureate Andrew Motion. The poet and academic Tom Paulin described the letters as “a distressing and in many ways revolting compilation which imperfectly reveals and conceals the sewer under the national monument Larkin became”.

Professor Chesters said he hoped the event would invite new readers to look afresh at the poet and be inspired. “The idea behind Larkin25 is to engage as many people as possible of all ages and all ethnic groups in creativity. We are not just saying look at Larkin the poet. He wrote novels, he was a great jazz lover and reviewer, he was a photographer and a great doodler.”

In addition to the trail, which will feature MP3 recordings of poetry readings and letters read by the author, there will be exhibitions of Larkin’s landscape photographs and his sketches, a major new play based on his life and work to be performed at the Hull Truck Theatre.

Prof Chesters concedes that Larkin, whose complex personality and deep shyness was obscured behind an outward display of bluffness, might have been nonplussed at the attention. “I suspect he would be relatively unimpressed by the idea and that is a question we have been asking ourselves,” he said. “He didn’t have much time for anywhere and in his correspondence he does wonder why he is in Hull. But in many ways it was ideal for a poet.”

Yet for all his diffidence Larkin wrote evocatively about the city describing the “end of the line sense of freedom” he enjoyed and the port’s “sudden elegancies”. In the poem “Here” he describes the “filthy-smelling pastoral of ships up streets, the slave museum, tattoo-shops, consulates, the grim head-scarfed wives”.

Larkin died from oesophagus cancer in 1985, aged 63, and is buried in the municipal cemetery. Jean Hartley, his former publisher at The Marvell Press and whose book Philip Larkin’s Hull and East Yorkshire provided the template for the trail, recalls him fondly.

“He was the funniest man that I have ever known. He was hugely entertaining. He used to cycle up to our house most Saturday afternoons having done a great big shop with this great haversack on his back and we would spend the afternoon in uproarious laughter before he would cycle home,” she said.

“He liked the place because it was a bustling town but also very remote with all this lovely countryside around. He had some very meaningful relationships and a very big circle of friends.

“Anyone who takes the trail will see a lot of Hull that they would not normally see and hopefully bring them much closer in touch with Philip and the places that he visited and loved.”

[Dazzar86]

For a bit of a laugh, I decided to respond to Robert Crampton's article and Emailed it to him...

To stereotype and back: changing times? Not if you're talking about Southern-based journalism.


I recently read Robert Crompton's article titled; 'To Hull and back' (published 2/1/2010) and it puzzled me how, despite originally being from Kingston-Upon-Hull, even he continues to use the same old stereotypes of the city, to play into his Southern audiences ideas and visions of how Kingston-Upon-Hull is. Every London-based journalist I've ever read a word from, when talking about Hull, has always opted for the easy route and decided to continue in sheep-like form with stereotypes of a 'it's grim oop North' nature. I know Londoners who have never left their M25 bubble love to lap these ideas and visions up, but who knows why? perhaps the notion of belief that it is a better life in London? A moment on John Prescott's BBC2 programme on the class system springs to mind, when he visits a girl in South-East London who, to everyone else watching is blatantly what we call a 'chav' yet she claims "I'm not a chav, you only get chavs up North!".

Never have I seen a true vision of Hull transcribed to words, despite a near-attempt by Robert Crompton. I can see from what he has wrote he was bordering on being positive about the city, but then probably remembered what Londoners like to hear about 'grim Northern cities'. Now, being born in 1986, I cannot remember what Princes Avenue was like in 1984 to compare it to the Princes Avenue of today, but having seen it transform in more recent years into what is now a hub for the 'modern man', the 'young professional' and the 'cosmo-culturite', I'm pretty well placed to comment.

Anyone ever visiting Hull at night would wonder when looking at the city centre, why is it such a ghost town? Well, I'll tell you. Everyone is in one of three places; Kingston-Upon-Hull's fabulous old town area, where there are a few restaurants and a thriving bar culture, often in historic buildings of splendid architecture, mixed in with Ye olde ale houses dating back to the 1500's such as the Ye Olde White Harte.
Another place people are at, is Hull's famed Hull Truck Theatre and the Georgian; Hull New Theatre taking in a theatrical performance, laughing their rears off at a stand up comic or taking in some other form of staged entertainment.

The third place is Princes Avenue, known locally as 'Prinny Ave'. Princes Avenue takes the essence of the other two areas and mixes them together, as well as extending it's reach out to nearby street; Newland Avenue. My dad was born in my Great Gran's back bedroom just off Newland Avenue and hadn't been down the street for years until recently and he could not believe it was the same street.
As you walk from the top of Newland Avenue towards Princes Avenue, you can feel the affluence streaming from the street, bit by bit. Alternatively, walking in the opposite direction from Princes Avenue to Newland Avenue you can feel the warmth of the outstretched arms of Princes Avenue influencing Newland Ave into it's current direction. Newland Avenue sees Hull University situated at the top end of the street, which has resulted in the students shopping locally at the ever independently run shops, which sees businesses such as vintage clothing boutiques, dressmakers, salons, fashion boutiques and delicatessen's all making viable incomes. Perhaps the biggest success story of Princes Avenue isn't even down Princes Avenue. The coming together of the affulence of Princes Avenue at one end and the students at the other has seen Newland Avenue gaining many new bars and mass amounts of cafe-bars and lounges, such as; Lattitude, Planet Coffee, Ruby Lounge, Relax Coffee, Dazal and Zest, transforming it from what was an everyday day-to-day tat-shop/convenience street in my dad's day, to now be a street with ever-growing pedigree.

Princes Avenue is simply more of a cosmopolitan bar and restaurant filled area, with Hull City Centre approximately a mile away from the bottom end of the street. I often see the suited businessmen and women types throughout the day and the smart-shirt/smart jeans and nice dress types by night. It's not quite the drug-addled picture Mr.Crompton paints for the reader. It is a thriving area and everyone I see is often smiling and enjoying their time in one of the many bars or restaurants. Although a thriving area, it is a nice place to find a bar to sit back and enjoy your drink, a place to remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of the world. These bars are nicely kept and rival any other modern bars in any other city, but my experience of these types of bars in a city like, for example Leeds, would have me joining what can only be described as resembling a rugby scrum, simply to get an over-priced drink, which is over-priced simply because of it's modern, contempory surroundings, leaving you to sit and drink in comfort and warmth. When every Tom, Dick and Harry is in and out the door every 5 seconds letting the cold air waft in and my head is in a completely different area to my feet whilst trying to get a drink, what is the point? As Toots and the Maytals sing about Funky Kingston and West Jamaica, I'd rather let the country roads take me home to funky Kingston-Upon-Hull and enjoy a drink in Princes Avenue, West Hull, before going on to enjoy those tunes at a reggae night down the street.

I know full well that companies see Princes Avenue as it's destination of choice for team-bonding, company meetings e.t.c. My recent stint at a design company in the city saw me invited to a company get-together at the cafe-bar 'Pave' (Princes AVE, see what they've done there? that would never have happened in '84, or so my elders tell me). Comparing Robert Crompton's description of attire with what I see around me, other than the odd few who're obviously from a manual trade background, out for a few drinks before hitting a club and those who are blatantly students, fashionistas and indie kids of the city, the majority of males are in smart jeans and a smart shirt and the females have their 'posh frocks' on and although they're showing a respectful amount of cleavage, I'd hardly call it trying to "show off their boobs" as Mr.Crompton describes it. Perhaps the levels of acceptable boobage is something that has also changed since 1984? back then, didn't women try to entice men with erections on their shoulders? dear me.


Quite a lot of people around me probably do live in the suburbs, in the 'space' and the 'greenery' as Mr.Crompton would suggest. I myself live outside the city boundary, but would however prefer to live in the city. The majority of those who have left Hull over the years haven't gone far, they're in the villages which, if not for a poorly drawn council boundary, would be a part of Kingston-Upon-Hull. These people still work and party in Hull, they have not moved mainly for the space and the greenery, they have moved because of the lack of affordable, quality living space in the city. The success of Victoria Dock Village proves this is the case. Victoria Dock Village was built in the 1980s when Victoria Dock was filled in and houses and apartments were built beside the Humber creating what is essentially an actual village in Hull city centre. There are also plenty of very nice apartments in Hull city centre, but the majority, once built, are bought up by London-based property developers who do not know the local area and offer extremely expensive rental costs, not forgetting people would prefer to buy homes these days. So, Londoners creating some of the problems the London-based readers like to laugh at. ironic?

Another insight into Princes Avenue comes from 'The Boar's Nest', an Edwardian restaurant from which I went in to buy my parents a meal voucher as a gift for Christmas. As I walk up to the door, placed on it's window I see the masses of round stickers showcasing The Boar's Nest's featuring in the Michelin Red, Good Food Guide & AA Rosette on many occassions. I open the door to be greeted by a man in what is obviously an Edwardian tailored suit with it's long-ish coat tails flowing down from the back of the suit jacket. I look around into the dining areas and, although I'm only standing in the hallway, feel completely underdressed despite being in smart-fashionable clothing. Whilst waiting for my voucher to be wrote out and registered, I spot a menu and decide to have a sneak peek; 'crispy lamb breast, living salad & 'caesar' salad with quail egg garnish', 'pan roast venison fillet, roast hand dived scallop, butter braised potato & girolles, meat juice hollandaise' and 'Montgomery' & 'English' mustard glased whole native lobster with new potatoes' are a few of the ones which I notice. Now these certainly wouldn't have been on many menu's in Hull back in 1984, or at least in this context. They also certainly give off a completely different image of Hull in comparison to Robert Crompton's and certainly different to that of the image a Londoner has of Hull in their head. They probably thought Crompton was being kind?


As for 'broken Britain'? if you're looking for that, you won't find much of it down Princes Avenue, a thriving area continuely on the up. I don't know how long it took Robert Crompton to find 'Scott', but I'm more than 100% certain he wasn't the first person he met. Guns and knives? all the more common in Crompton's now native London. The full list reads as; bums, boobs, shaved heads, scars, tattoos, drugs, knives and guns. How did he come across these topics down Princes Avenue all in one night, as if to all fit perfectly into place to replicate a perception outsiders already have of the city.

Was Robert really coming straight outta Hull, or was he coming straight outta Crompton?


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...and yes, after Emailing it to him, I did notice one rather big mistake in there. But, I can pass it off as irony. I changed it to suit my readers

[Pippin0490]

Brilliant. You should get that published. TO THE HDM!

[Kingston Upon Hull]

Very rose tinted but in the same way the journalists comments were very one sided and not particularly accurate but fair play to you man.

It’s a shame the majority of people in Hull don't feel the same