So I arrived with a young wife, about to have our daughter within a few months, born down Hedon Rd at your marvellous maternity hospital. My wife certainly thought it was marvellous, for it seemed a good step up from the dingy, Victorian edifice we had left behind. Yes, I made jokes as a newcomer, amused at the proximity of a maternity hospital to a graveyard on one side, a rat-infested drain on the other, the local nick two doors away, and noisy docks with ships sirens and hooters with rattling railway sidings just over the road. But, it was almost out in the country, there were trees, fresh air – and a great deal of ample parking!  You Hull mothers would not want to have been where we lived.

I could write a novel called “A Tale of Two Cities”, except it’s already been done, forgot by whom, not important, but I have the dickens of a job with my memory of late. But I can remember this town, the atmosphere, the people I found and worked with, when I arrived here. A town, I very quickly learnt, that had a lot of local-born, native folk who were very quick to disparage it, and run it down. End of the line, they told me; a road to nowhere; the backside of the world … and that was the polite version.

Why the hell would I want to come here, of all places, they asked.

On the face of it, there are tremendous differences, of course there are. Who on earth could possibly say there were similarities? I had come from a midlands city just about as far from the sea as you could get, and generally surrounded by gentle hills. It was in a shallow valley. You are bound and governed by the sea, by tides and – back then – a thriving shipping trade.  Effectively, you are on the coast, comparatively speaking, albeit some 20 miles up a wide, muddy estuary.  But come on, when I came here you could smell it, as well as the fish. Your air was fresh, yes, fresh fish and a bit rank at times to a newcomer, but it was not full of industrial smoke and a smell of burning rubber. You didn’t have to go far in Hull to get to that river, to a waterfront, the Pier. Stone me! In comparison, you had a little bit of heaven here. So it seemed to me.

So what of the town?  Well, there are some similarities, believe it or not. Both are steeped in history, both ancient. I came from a city that was one of the five towns of the Danelaw, already established before the Conquest. And now we all know of the burial place of Tricky Dicky, that Richard the Third you’ve heard so much about.  I learnt all that at school, Bosworth Field and all that, where he met his cumuppance barely a quarter of an hour’s drive away. I used to drive buses over the very bridge and bit of a river where several generations of Leicester folk really did believe he was not so much buried, but just thrown away into the mud and forgotten about. That turned out to be False News, long before that phrase was invented, as we all know now. Folks down there are now making money on the story of his bones and dining out on it.

You are a ‘Kings Town’ no less, established over 700 years ago in the name of a very well-respected monarch, and later fought over by other monarchs. You have your Beverley Gate and your set of historic documents and memories passed down through the ages too, of intrigues, double-dealings and secret meetings in upper rooms, bloody fights and sackings (true, that was an earlier King, fat Harry) all giving you a history of being rebellious and not conforming, generally not doing as you are told.  A wonderful history, and to be proud of most certainly. It all adds to the total of England’s story and makes us all what we are.

There is one big thing both our cities have in common, and one that both take for granted. For you ladies and those mothers that historically did most of the shopping, you benefit from both cities being as flat as pancakes. At least, the very city centres are, where most of the big shops are. Not a hint of a slope here in Hull, let alone what might be called a hill, to encourage slipping on a frosty or snowy pavement, or your bicycle wheels slipping from under you. I had all that on Leicester’s cobbles. You can’t blame the lie of the land here if you do go over.

But there’s more. My wife, and her late mother, when she came to visit us, was delighted with your shops. They loved getting into town. You had Hammonds for posh, and Leicester had its Lewis’. But after that, you both had your Co-ops, Marks and Sparks, Debenhams, C&As, BHS, Littlewoods, Woollies, and a host of smaller and very different private traders. You had a little bit more too, for you had Thornton-Varley, Edwin Davis, Bladon’s, Alders and oh my word, what joy, you had Boyes.  

In short, shopping here was just as good, just as pleasant, as that we had left behind us. Your buses were just as busy, just as full, and didn’t I know it – doing my very first week on the road that hot July with eight Longhills (56) every day for a week. Forty Longhills I did, before I even got to drive anywhere else. I had to ask where Longhill was, which way to go. An old timer, born in Q.Victoria’s time and who’d no doubt driven horse-buses in the Boer War, he told me - just go right up Holderness Road, right up young man, and when you get to yon’ end, turn round and come back. If I had taken him literally, I would have missed the estate entirely. Busy wasn’t the half of it, your town was bursting at the seems. Apart from geography, I didn’t see much difference at all.

You had a central bus station; my old town didn’t. They only had central bus terminals scattered all over the blessed city centre in various streets and you had to know that city very well indeed to be able to travel around by bus with any efficiency. Moreover, you had your bus station slap-bang next to your railway station. How clever was that! Leicester’s bus and railway stations couldn’t have been much further apart! And most buses to most places here, probably with the exception of Beverley Road and Spring Bank, did a circuit of the town first, or passed right through the middle of it, to get to most outer areas.  When it came to walking with heavy shopping, and getting a bus home, you had it made here, believe me.  If you were a stranger, and needed to know exactly how to get where, ask the Station Inspector, on EYMS or KHCT, they put you right. You didn’t get so lost here in this town. And I should know, I learnt my way around pretty quick, but even so, I had lots and lots of help.

You did have some minor industrial things in common too. Both cities had a fair bit of heavy engineering, yours to support shipping and docks, Leicester’s supporting boots and shoes, knitwear and stocking factories, and oddly, both cities had a good reputation for printing firms, more than most other towns of comparative size. You both had Imperial Typewriter too – yes, I carried full bus loads to and from both of them in my time. 

I very quickly learnt of one major difference of recent history. My home town had barely been touched by the war, either world wars come to think. Comparitively speaking that is. Yes, Leicester did have two or three bad raids, and casualties, but nothing remotely on the scale of what you suffered here. You were effectively almost flattened, not unlike Coventry in some respects, and that got far more attention. In the busmans’ canteen, I learnt almost daily of your blitz, your nearly five years of ongoing constant fear and terror. Yes, that was different, and an eye-opener, and very sobering the more I learnt about it, and I’m still learning. It’s only in the last 20 years, because of my involvement with the museum at Sutton, that I’ve learnt of the tremendous losses Hull suffered in the Great War, in both the army and at sea.

You Hull folk, that disparage your town, you have a lot to be proud of, and thankful for too. Hull was thriving, buzzing, for the first 20 years we lived here. I quickly learnt more about your more recent past. Up to the 1960s, which for poorer folk, times had been very dire indeed. By the 60s, you still hadn't recovered from the dreadful 1930s and the last war.  Yes, Hull had it’s problems, all cities do, but you can take some heart from the fact that now, today, if your city centre is almost dead to you, then so is Leicester’s – and a lot of other cities too.  I used to love that place, but I have no desire to go back, other than to see what remains of my family. You can tell, I was – and still am - proud of my home town’s history, just like you Hull folk are proud of yours.  But, just like Hull, it’s taken a massive down-turn in fortunes. All those big-name shops have gone there too. Shopping is no fun there any more either, flat city centre or not. In fact, ‘Flat’ is exactly how to describe it, just as it seems today in Hull.

After I left, their transport system got trashed by privatisation and the bus wars, just like yours did. I speak from experience, for by then I was on KHCT and part of it, and remember the heartbreak, the strikes, the constant ongoing disputes as we fought to retain everything that had ever been given us in the past – in that industry locally and nationwide. As well as for pay and conditions, we fought a losing battle to actually retain the best of your city transport, to keep control of it here, in Hull.

On balance, despite everything, I made a good move, a very good move.  I love living here, the fresh air, the coast not far away, the relatively compact and easy city centre.  I love the banter and jokes between east and west, the stories of Rovers and Hull FC, the ups and downs of The Tigers.  I spent over 20 years in canteens listening to the jibes and jokes and fun, and me not being from either side of the city, could enjoy the humour – good natured too for the most part. There were times I could barely drive for the ache in my sides, doubled-up almost with laughter as I crossed the bus station after the most recent canteen tales and jokes of my more native-born collegues. That same 20 years, some of it working for Social Services on their ‘white granny buses’ as I called them, taught me a good deal about local folk and how you historically coped with every crisis and ill-luck that was thrown at you. Ribald jokes and uncontrolled laughter, for the most part as far as I can see.

Just as I describe my feelings on coming to Hull from another English midland city in those years, of course, as I alluded to above, there are already thousands of other Midlanders here that did exactly the same as me, many came long before my time too. From other cities all over, from Nottingham or Derby, from Coventry or Northampton, folks from all points of that landlocked English compass, and I would suggest that many of them too would find Hull much as we did.

That brings me to another point about folks here, and your heritage. You are not all where you think you’re from, far from it. Hull is far more cosmopolitan and genetically diverse than many realise. Helping folks with their family history this past 20 years has shown me that there was a great deal of cross-Humber traffic in days of yore, back in Queen Victoria’s time and before, and way before the time of your beloved steam ferries.  The 1910 Census shows that nearly a fifth, perhaps 20%, of the folks in Sutton village alone claimed to have Lincolnshire roots, marriages made out of crossing the Humber in search of trade, and often coming back with a life partner. I suspect that percentage is much the same in the other outlying villages around Hull as well as the town itself. 

That’s when I see a different side, showing someone that one of their great-grandparents was from the midlands like me, and everywhere else around this island’s compass. I see the frown and pursed lips, and sometimes dare to ask if they thought they would like it, to live back there, the town of their heritage. Maybe for a visit, see what it was like, they say. But no! No way, it’s still Hull for them.

You’re a good city, a proud city, a proud folk with a proud heritage. Please, do learn to enjoy what you have here. It’s not so good everywhere else, believe me.  Most of you Hull folks would not want to live where I come from. Trust me – I’m not from here.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS !!

HERE'S TO THE NEXT FIFTY !

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