Firstly, THE OLD SCHOOL and the MUSEUM - the first 17 years:
and then further down;
the story of how the video and website came about.

It is now over 10 years since Merrill edited the first edition of her book, making many amendments to correct previous oversights as well as including extra information that had come to light since its first publication. I thought it appropriate to add some words here explaining to readers, new and old, some of the events in the life of 'The Old School' since this second edition was published.

When Merrill edited her second edition, what we now call the museum was referred to by all of us as 'The Sutton Resources and Education Centre'. Indeed, that title could still be seen until very recently on our old fading and peeling old signboard by the school gate. Technically, that was correct, for it was exactly that, but we realise now, looking back, it had already become something more. Merrill's Exhibition of Village Life had really been a de facto museum for a long time before 2005. Indeed, it could already have been styled as such when I first called in at the Old School about the year 2000. I recall being astonished by the place and by the amount of artefacts - big and small - gathered into such a small room, as well as the family histories, research volumes and even by then, a prodigious collection of maps. Indeed, there already was the nucleus of a small costume museum.

It certainly was an education centre, and Merrill and the enthusiastic team of volunteer attendants gave many guided tours to school class visits, explaining local and social history, connecting each generation of children to their forebears whose own attendance at the school could be witnessed by their entries in the preserved registers. The new St James' School down Dorchester Rd were perhaps their most regular visitors, being the old St James' School simply removed to a modern building. Other school visits were, and continue to be, from Cavendish Rd, Ings and Spring Cottage Schools. More recently, Biggin Avenue School have also started to make visits, and we were delighted to recently host Wawne Primary School in their first visit to our museum. In most cases, (apart from Wawne) the schools are close enough for the children to walk to the museum in long lines of pairs of boys and girls being shepherded along by their teachers and volunteer parents. All these schools have been very supportive, not just in their enthusiasm for our project, but also in their generous fundraising to keep us going.

Increasingly, the Old School opened its doors not just on Fridays, but on selected Saturdays during some special weekends too, with extended opening till 4.00pm. For instance, major anniversary weekends such as the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII in 2005, and more recently for two or three days over Hull City Council's Heritage Weekends every September. This partially addresses the problem of giving access to the many families who cannot get in to the museum on Fridays. But not entirely - we would love to open more.

Admittance has always been free and we strive to continue in that vein. Major running costs such as heating and lighting have hitherto been largely underwritten by annual support from the local charitable Ann Watson's Trust. The Trust gives support to start-up projects, and had a particular interest in the Old School as one of the terms of the Ann Watson bequest was that support should be for projects of an 'educational nature.' As well as the initial massive financial input from the Reverend Terry Doherty and his wife, the Reverend Deana, which saved the school in the first place, it was the Trust's ongoing support that enabled it to open as a heritage centre for its first 15 years or so. Other funds were raised by visitors' weekly donations, raffles, extra events on those special weekends, and by many anonymous donations of various sizes over the years.

A milestone was passed in 2009, that being the 150th anniversary of the building of the school in 1859 on land donated by the Harrison-Broadley family. We did indeed have a school reunion party, and a wonderful celebratory cake! The Old School hall resounded to laughter as old school friends, some in very advanced years and some who had travelled very great distances to be with us, exchanged news and tales of the old days. We learned even more about how happy a school St James' was; the affection old pupils had for their teachers was clearly more than we already knew.

Artefacts continued to come in periodically, including many photographs to enhance what is already a remarkable photo archive for such small places. For indeed, the collection and information relating to Wawne continues to grow too. It took me quite some time to latch on to the fact that St Peter's at Wawne had once been the senior church back in the aeons of time. Sutton's church, consecrated in 1349, was a mere chapelry of the much longer established St Peter's at Wawne, already by then some 200 years older. The links between the two villages are enduring, and no doubt go back much further than the thousand or so years of our written history. We see it as our business to tell that very long story and keep those ancient links very much alive. The total photo collection already in albums numbers some 30 or so volumes, all laboriously indexed, and even more enhanced by large collections of donated glass plate positives, negatives and more modern slides. To us, they are more than just photos - they are people. Moreover, they are families - the very families that farmed, built and developed the places we love and seek to preserve the memory of now. They loved them just as we do.

A sort of crossroads was reached in 2012 with the demise and consequent condemnation of the old gas boiler. The radiators are the original ones from 1911, but we think the boiler was more recent, perhaps 1950s. It had had a good life, but was not all that efficient, and became a source of constant problems. The time inevitably came when, although it had not failed altogether, we were told spares were no longer available, and we were strongly advised to 'consider its position'. An immediate campaign was started to raise the funds required, and so the "Friends of Sutton Old School" was inaugurated; this proved to be a remarkable success. Against what seemed to be horrendous odds, the funds were indeed raised to replace the system - before it failed altogether - with modern, electric oil-filled radiators that are not only more mobile, but also have more efficient thermostatic controls on timers. Another crisis was passed.

The problems with heating and the boiler also coincided with the news that the Ann Watson Trust could no longer offer continued support to the Old School as they had done since the beginning. From the summer of 2016, we have had to be self-supporting and pay our way. A major effort is even now under way as I write to source other long-term funding and ensure the Old School in Sutton, and it's increasingly famous museum within, continues to exist for future generations of Sutton, Wawne and Bransholme - and indeed, for residents of the wider Hull area - to learn more about their collective past and very rich heritage.


PRODUCTION of the 'SUTTON VIDEO'    -    and the WEBSITE:

I initially only became involved with the museum when I offered to create a couple of helpful web pages, announcing to the world at large a Family History research facility that helped to put Sutton on the map. From that tiny beginning, the web pages grew and grew as I invited Merrill to give me more and more lists and details of items such as census discs and monumental inscription booklets that were held in this amazing 'Resource Centre'. Merrill most firmly did not see the place as a museum, but with so many donated artefacts over a very short period of time, it could not really be anything else. She, with the help of those early founder volunteers, had created almost unconciously, a very real heritage museum and remarkable exhibition of village life.

The reason I was up at Sutton at all, not living in the parish myself, was on the recommendation of a friend, who implored me to call in one Friday when I could get by. I was in full-time work then, and Fridays were not generally mine for leisure. I first became involved and interested in Sutton's history through another good friend, Rob Walters, who has sadly since died, in 2008. He came to me at work one day and blandly announced that 'we' were going to make a video. Of what? Of Sutton village, he declared. We? Yes, I was going to help him, he informed me. Rob was at that time an amateur but aspiring video maker who had progressed from home movies to making documentary films, notably about Hull's trawling industry. Neither of us were aware then, nor for a long time after, of the historic connections to Wawne, which is a shame. Such are the errors of ommission brought about via sheer ignorance.

At that time we both worked as bus drivers, for Hull City Transport. For myself, I had always enjoyed working service 32, that old route that had started right back in the 1920s in the early days of buses themselves. I very much liked both Sutton and Wawne, the twisty, winding streets and lanes, the old cottages and beautiful churches. Even in the 1990s, the atmosphere of ancient history was palpable, you could feel it in the air. Reversing the 32 at the terminus at Wawne was like putting the clock back some two or three decades. At that time, the 37 also went through Sutton, turning right out of Leads Road when that was a mere T junction and terminating at the far end of Salthouse Road. Working back from Wawne and through Sutton on a Sunday, just as the congregations were leaving church, and the bells were ringing, really was a step back in time and a real joy. As well as working those routes like myself, Rob also very much liked Sutton. He was more local than me, and had known the area since boyhood. Furthermore, as part of his growing video business, Rob had already attended weddings at Sutton as 'the video man' and already had a strong feel for the place.

The first film I helped Rob with was not about Sutton, it was about the history of the Humber Ferry. We went on to do two volumes about Hull trams and trolley buses, and a few others about the Hull trawling industry, before he announced his plans for a Sutton Video. I sort of got roped in, mainly because I was getting fairly good at computer graphics, which he required for maps, diagrams, titles, etc, and also as a narrator for the film. He was determined I should narrate his films because he thought my fairly neutral East Midlands accent would sound better on video than his own. I had only lived in Hull since 1973, still very much a newcomer and with a southern accent at that. I was very conscious of not being local, particularly when making the trawling films. But that is what he wanted. Rob's own accent was, bless him, broad 'Ull - he did have a point.

Many people used to bring Rob various films, old ciné film of Hull in general, and old trawling and fishing film in particular. Indeed, he advertised and sought these old films out, the deal being that if the owners allowed their use - with appropriate credits - in his documentary films, Rob would not only give them a free copy of the finished programme when it was released, but also a full VHS video of their own film copied entire and transferred for free. One such customer to call in at Rob's studio one day was John Riley, a former TV electrician and shop owner in Sutton village, and by then retired. He brought Rob several reels of old ciné film for conversion that he had taken himself, in and around the village and at Sutton fêtes and fairs in the 1960s. Thus an inspired idea was born.

I think it was on Remembrance Sunday, in 1999, that Rob phoned me at home and told me to get myself up to Sutton; he was taking his video camera to get some modern footage of St James' Church to include in his film. I was then still fairly new to the wiles of the internet and, try as I might, I found very little about Sutton or its church other than a web page detailing a group of regular bell-ringers. If I was going to script and narrate Sutton's history as Rob had in mind, I needed to get up there and start talking to folk, but I was very unsure about just turning up and expecting to be able to film. It turned out that it was already partly arranged as Rob had already spoken to the then vicar, Rev'd Tony Rablen, and had his permission to film inside the church after the service.

It was while Rob was moving around between the pews, with his Panasonic camera on his shoulder filming this and that, that I got talking to some of the 'church ladies' at the back of the church over a coffee. I happened to mention that information on St James' was frustratingly difficult to find online, and ventured the opinion that it was a shame that they hadn't already got a website. One of the ladies quipped, in a sort of joking retort, "Why, are you offering?" Well, I suppose I could do them a page, of basic information, and post it on some spare space on my own webspace.

After the main congregation had dispersed, and the memorial garden was more clear, Rob also decided to take video of the memorial area, including all the name plaques of the war dead. So he filmed and recorded the names of not only the 36 Sutton men carved in stone around the base of the cross, but also those on the plaques set into the ground around the base of the steps. These had the names of all the 140 or so men of Stoneferry, Wilmington and The Groves lost in The Great War. That was when I decided to transcribe all the names from the film stills, and post them all up onto the new St James' Church website I was going to create.

So for me, my involvement with Sutton was well underway. It was about then that I called in one Friday at the Old School for the first time, and met Merrill. And thus the next dice was thrown in what has become a very fulfilling involvement with the Old School and its now increasingly famous museum - an involvement that has made me many new friends and continues to this day.

The first VHS edition of the film - Sutton; Portrait of a Village - was released around mid-summer of 2000, and sold very steadily from the start. Rob suddenly died in February of 2008, though considering he had already had quadruple heart bypass surgery, we shouldn't have been all that surprised. Heart problems had been the reason for him taking early retirement from driving buses and so setting up his own video studio full-time - he knew he was on borrowed time. At the time of his death, he had just been on the point of converting the VHS video edition to a new digital version for DVD. Indeed, he had made a master copy, though try as we might, we never found it in his studio afterwards. It seemed that, for a while, sales of the video would lapse. Up to the plate stepped Ken Cooke, one of the original team of volunteers and also a dabhand at ciné and video work himself. He undertook the task to make a digital copy from the VHS copies he had and re-issued them in a printed sleeve and so for quite some time, Ken alone kept Sutton's story alive. It came to be seen as a very nice adjunct to go with Merrill's book, and the two often sold together.

Into the ring then stepped Ian Wolstencroft, the mutual friend who had first advised me to go up to the museum and see Merrill in the first place. Ian and Rob were already long-term friends, mostly because of Ian's classic car film interests and Rob had already produced a classic car film from old film and photos provided by Ian. This had all been about the time that Rob's new Sutton video was almost completed, and essentially, the research and scripting had already been finished. In a sense, I was almost too late. What I found up there, and in the hastily borrowed copy of Merrill's book, was more than enough material to make the video far more interesting, complete and a little more accurate than it otherwise would have been. As it turned out, it was a reasonably good effort, for an amateur such as myself. I just wish we had taken a little more time because then we could have made it really good.

As a result of meeting Merrill, Rob and myself were also introduced to the late Eric Johnson, the last headmaster of Sutton school when it closed in 1977. Mr Johnson was himself a prolific and accomplished photographer, and Rob received permission to include a great many of his photos in the finished film. It would be much later that I would learn more about Mr Johnson and his photographic skills, and about the tremendous slide archive and legacy of Sutton that he has left for posterity. Sadly, Mr Johnson never got to see the finished film because he died just months before it was released.

Following Rob's death, after his studio had been wound up, his daughter Tracy offered Ian several master copies of various videos she had found and didn't want to keep. She gave Ian the master tape to the Sutton video, essentially transferring to him the legal copyright, which Ian received most gratefully. He set about making a digital conversion from what was a very good VHS professional master and we believe the one Rob would have used himself. That has since been a little edited to erase anomalies and mistakes in the first editions; it also includes additional film of recent events like Christmas Fairs and the Sutton Fête. To all intents and purposes, it is clearer than the VHS film we formerly sold. It is that version we have and still sell today.

We hope that this new DVD, of Merrill's book but adding much, much more, will further those historic ties and expand the knowledge of the history of the whole area and contribute yet another chapter in the continued life of 'The Old School.'

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Merrill Rhodes worked as a teacher in Hull for many years. In 1990, she was appointed as the Schools' Liaison Officer for the Sutton and Wawne Team Ministry, working with more than 20 schools in the parish. This book was written to celebrate the 650th anniversary of the dedication of St James' Church, Sutton, on 12th September, 1349. It also celebrates the 150th year of the founding of St James' Church of England School in 1849, and marks the 850th anniversary of the much older foundation of Meux Abbey. This is a splendid book which will surely give much pleasure even to those who have no intimate knowledge of the Sutton and Wawne area. It not only reflects events of great significance to church and state, but homes in so easily to the lives of local personalities, their everyday experiences and concerns. There is sound factual information with happy anecdotal material. It is easy to read, and each chapter stimulates interest and the desire for more.

This book is dedicated, with great affection, to:
Rev'd Deana Doherty


. . . for without this generous couple,
there would have been no 'old' school to save.

Back to the Home Page             Back to Chapter 1       

Sutton & Wawne Website

---

Back to Home Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am most grateful to the archivists and staff
who have so willingly helped me gather information:

Hull Local Studies Library; Hull City Archives;
University of Hull Brynmor Jones Library;
Beverley Library;
East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service;
Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York.

Many quotations, much information and loans of photographs are acknowledged in footnotes, but I am also very grateful
to the following people who have helped so willingly:

Mr & Mrs Anderson, Carr House Farm; Dorothy and Ted Arnett; Hilda Atkin;
Len Bacon; Geoff Bell; Bernard Blashill; Mrs Borrill; Charles Bromby;
Gladys Broughton; Mr & Mrs W Burn; Margaret Casson;
Nancy Clark (née Wheelhouse); Mrs Cockerline (née Priestley);
Sylvia Cooke; Barbara Cross; Ian Curtis; William Curtis;
Ronald Ducker, Nora and Hugh Dyer; Richard Easingwood;
Alan East; Edna Flowerday (née Hakeney); Mrs Gallagher;
Hilda Goodwin (née Blashill); Cliff, Jessie, Joe, Ron Hakeney;
Evelyn Handley (née Foster); Annie and Lily Harman;
Barbara Harrison; Jean and Don Harrison; Molly Hilyard (née Brown);
Pat Howlett; Peggy Hutchinson (née Fewlass); Mrs Ireland;
Dennis Ireland; Doreen Jarrold; Dorothy Johnson (née Stainton);
Chris Ketchell; Allison Lewis (née Jarrett); Mr Mcfarlane;
Mr McPhee; Clive Medley; Terry Mills; Mary Moorhouse;
Sam Nicholson; Olive Noble; Jim Northgraves; N Porter;
Barry Ramsden; Syd Ransom; John Redhead; Mike Reed;
Mr & Mrs Rollinson, Riseholm; Stanley Shepherdson;
Edith Shipley; Mr & Mrs Smales, Newbald;
Mrs Smith (née Shillito); Olive Spencer (née Rowntree);
Thelma Steele; Enid Storr; The Suddaby family; Lily Tether;
Patrick Thacker; Harold Thompson; Betty, Peter, Tony Topham;
Nora Turner; Renée Turner; Laurien Whillingham (née Stephenson);
Betty Wilmott; Dennis and Dorothy Wilson;
Keith Wilson; Sylvia Wood (née Hickey).


I must also thank my husband, Peter, for constant support,
and for copying hundreds of photographs and transparencies.

© 2006 Merrill Rhodes
asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this digitised work.

Originally published in paperback as ISBN 1 902645 47 2

by Highgate Publications of Beverley, HU17 8EG