Filey remembers the Hull Blitz . #Hull2017

Hull Blitz from Cammish Family 

Our family parrot the much loved Polly died during the last war , not through old age , but because her diet of oranges and bananas was withdrawn and she would not eat the substitutes. 

That is one of the few stories we Bruce children of the 50s were ever told of the  1939-45 WAR in Hull by our Grandfather. From our father and aunt we gleaned more, 

• how our father had to be careful cycling to the docks seeing to telecommunications , careful not to set off unexploded stuff
• how one lemon would make lemon curd , lemon meringue and the skin wiped round the nails to improve the look of them .I ask you , 1 lemon?
• how the Morrison shelter was in the breakfast room of Church Mount and Grannie had to be wheeled in her wheelchair and how the time before the All Clear was usually spent playing cards
• How wonderful a real egg was
• How counting the seconds after a Doodlebug cut out was the most frightening thing in the whole war in Sutton
• How father went to work at the telephone exchange all day and fire watched in Sutton  many nights
• How visitors from the College , a couple of hundred yards away from Church Mount  would always bring their ration books with them in case they couldn't get home
• How the pantry window still had the criss cross tape across it in 1986 

Fireman Eddie Cammish 

We only heard random and seemingly trivial stuff, and now that I am in my riper years I wish I had  asked more questions. I blogged about this once before and can add little to my meagre knowledge .

This is not the case with friends in Filey . Joanne and Ian Cammish at Cammish Outdoors shop have plenty to tell . 

Joanne writes of Ians Dad

Hull Blitz.

Hull 1941

The year was 1941 this was the year where Hull suffered the most bombing and night raids ,most nights in the early summer onwards the young Eddie Cammish of Filey was a fire man in Hull for the war effort at that time one Sunday night in particular he re counted to me that he had a 24 hour pass home ,as he left Filey for Hull walking up Station avenue(FILEY) the sky was already a light from the bombing that was to greet him on his arrival . As the train neared Hull the whole of Hull seemed to be ablaze, he went out of the front of the station many bombs had caused serious damage and bombs were raining down on him as he ran to the top of Spring Bank (Blundell’s yard) the fire station buildings were damaged too, his fellow officers shouted come on Eddie were off just now so he jumped on the engine as it took off. the scenes were of blasts and carnage all over their first job was a wholestreet that had been blown to bits, with a lonesome armsaluting 

heavenwards ......There was no body attached ....all through the night the Salvation Army tea wagon stayed by their side as they tried to dig bodies out of the mayhem, constantly at their side offering support tea and sandwiches, and they didn’t leave till they were all done. Eddie would be very emotional when recounting these tales .he always donated to the Salvation Army; they were very dear to his heart.

Hull Blitz  photo from Cammish's 

My friend Mick Corner who grew up in Beverley tells another story of the Hull Blitz. He tells of relations who lived in the Boulevard, and being completely bombed out set out to walk to Beverley but were turned back from doing so( as road blocks contained the city -my understanding). The family did find a way out and turned up at Beverley with nothing but the clothes they stood up in , and covered in black soot. 

Ive blogged about this today as I was so moved by the MADE IN HULL installation and light show in Queen Victoria Square .

Thanks!!

Guardian article was brilliant

Te Deum laudamus

Thank you for Kingston upon Hull :Muddy "Umber flows into R Hull 

At Morning Prayer at St Oswalds yesterday we said together  the much loved Thanksgiving Hymn of Praise known as the Te Deum . In the last week of the church year before ADVENT starts and implores us to put away the works of darkness  its great to go out on a CHRIST THE KING bang , and do a real thanksgiving hymn.

This last week has left me maudlin. A much loved and faithful member of our tiny mid week congregation , and former Church Warden has died suddenly after a short illness.  Most of the rest of the mid weekers had gone off to Wydale yesterday  for a day studying Revelation. I was left to keep the show on the road with another faithful stalwart , and not being in any way licensed or recognised I was able to organise the corporate reading through of the liturgy and read out some acceptable  writings in the homily slot . I did my own thing however and discarded the ghastly Revelation reading for the much more upbeat one in Philippians 3v17-4v9(extended by me!) set for the day to commemorate Clement Martyr , a lesser festival to be thankful for. It was a true God incident too as other faithful stalwart declared before she read it to us that it was one of her favourite readings in the Bible.

For me, one way of getting over  feelings of gloom , heaviness and numbness is to do as my mother taught me: 'Count your blessings, name them one by one......'. This may take a conscious act of will and I might  even be going through the motions , but I do find it helps me,sometimes eventually being the key word. Every day when we read our Bible together after breakfast spouse and I thank God for our blessings. It is simple these days, and much to do with the concerns of many Older People . 

• Thank -you for enough  food
• Thank you that spouse can walk to the Paper Shop , the Chemist and Spar when its not a windy day.
•  Thank-you for the footpath at the back of our cottage which takes spouse to Church or Choir Practice out of the wind and on the flat.
•  Thank-you for the friendly shopkeepers of a small town.
•  Thank-you for a daughter and family living 2 mins away.
• Thank you for Central Heating , a gas cooker and a log burner so we are never at a loss for heat or hot water even in power cuts .
• Thank you that we have State -pensions .
• Thank you for warm clothes  
• Thank-you, that we live near the Doctors. 

And so it may go on . On this day of Thanksgiving for my American Cousins, I am thanking for Religious Freedom in the UK, and remembering the Pilgrim Fathers forced to flee to the New World. I'm also thanking God that the Native Americans showed them how to grow food.

Here are some random things I'm being THANKFUL for today 

#Hull2017 Just discovered a VR postbox In Whitefriargate 

#2017Hull Long live the MINERVA

#Hull2017 Local History enthusiasm for the Peoples Memorial 

#Hull 2017 Quirky Old Hull

Thank-you NHS

Thank you for my New Shed 

Te Deum laudamus from BCP

We praise thee, O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud : the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim : continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge thee;
The Father : of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true : and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man : thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death :
    thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come : to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants :
    whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory everlasting.

Remembering the past

So I'm listening to my favourite and oh so dated 1955 recording of the Marriage of Figaro with the Glyndebourne Chorus and Orchestra, and principals Bruscantini, Sciutti and Wallace,Stevens and Calabrese. Of course I'm remembering all the times I went to Covent Garden in the 60s as guest of a colleague , and continued my Musical Appreciation and Education started in Hull. Music, aroma ,objects trouve , and more recently Facebook Groups of Old Photos all may spark some Happy or Sad remembrances from the recent or distant past . I look at pictures of the Locarno in Hull and the Gondola Club and can still feel the upset but relief that my parents wouldn't allow me to go to either .

Last week Susanne offered me some plants from her allotment for mine , as she moves away from Filey to a huge garden . I have  a new Gooseberry Bush,  an intriguingly named Blackberry Sage (I think!); spouse enthused at my new neat bed of  Globe Artichokes , but loved more the Tea Trolley made by Susanne's Father in 1946 . I love it too as we had one just like it in Saltshouse Road during my childhood. Afternoon tea was wheeled into the lounge every Sunday . There would be bread and butter, sandwiches , maybe scones . maybe Flapjack , often cake and always a pot of Tea, a hot water jug , and china cups and saucers, never ever mugs, they were just for soup . Heavily embroidered tray cloths sat top and bottom, beautifully laundered and starched . Mother had some special ones of worked Lilacs made for her as a wedding present in 1946 . They dropped to bits eventually as post war fabric was very thin , not best linen , Mother would say . I wonder if my sisters remember those beautiful cloths, more embroidery than cloth . 

My Grandparents also had an identical trolley which was wheeled from the breakfast room to the Sitting room (known as 'the Room') every single day . It was a long way along that dark hallway , and children were not allowed to wheel it on the bumpy floorboards. When my aunt became infirm in Old age she used to use the trolley to help her to walk .

#Hull 2017
My Hull sister reminded us of the exhibition in the  Hull Truck Theatre last week to accompany the  production of Janet Platers homage to the city's fighting spirit in Play 2 of the Hull trilogy, simply called Gaul   after the factory trawler FVGaul lost with all 36 hands in 1974. A fellow Hullensian living in Filey has written of her memories of the Gaul .

It brought back many memories as the first mate on the Gaul and his family lived in the same avenue as my parents..... I invited his father to Eastfield Junior School to talk to the children about his life at sea. They enjoyed it very much-so did he. I introduced him as Mr Spurgeon  and his friends called him 'Spud'!After the tragedy the headmistress invited Mrs Spurgeon to the school as a classroom assistant to perhaps take her mind off it a little.

I remember that in my Secondary School , Greatfield High School , (1959 to 65) we sometimes  had to stand for a minutes silence during Assembly as a mark of respect for a former pupil who would have died at sea. 

#Hull2017 Progress Indeed.....

  

Paragon Station Welcome Point for #Hull2017

On all counts I see progress, and I'm not talking about the fiasco that is called the PresidentialElections in the USA, which is certainly progressing into a Feydeau Farce , except it is REAL! I agree with Bishop Baines here, a SHAMBLES it is !

I prefer PROGRESS of the positive kind. 

• So the in your face welcome desk complete with bright looking volunteers has arrived at Paragon Station . I'm glad note was taken of the London 2012 livery and welcomers , for the volunteers in Kings Cross and St Pancras , and again at the Olympic Park were fantastic. HULL your livery is a welcome turquoise ! I'm an difficult inquirer and your volunteers remained bright and focused with my awkward questions. GOOD you can go to the libraries of HULL to get tickets for the Fireworks. I know the librarians will talk the IT illiterate through the use of the in -house ipads . It has worried me that HULL people who are not yet or never will be part of the cyberworld will be sidelined during #Hull 2017 and unable to access ticketed events.
• GOOD , THE MAPS HAVE ARRIVED, though called HULL Mini guides. They are ok , and highlight the pink OLD TOWN , the orange FRUIT MARKET and the purple MUSEUM QUARTER . This amuses me greatly, as places Ive known for over 60 years get makeovers. Bring back Fields I say, with the coffee roasting machine tempting punters in . (Please Hull , make some decent coffee, or Im going to have to go to C... N..or C...a, which are nothing to do with Hull , though I must say Kardomah 94 does a mean skinny flat white!) 
• THE BOOKLET HULL OLD TOWN IS GREAT ,WELL DONE!  I particularly like the Fish Trail Guide at the back . Here I confess that I'm still using my 1992 one 
• MADE IN HULL SEASON GUIDE JAN TO MARCH has even arrived in Filey Library!! I love a decent whats on guide. Not got one yet ? Try your library and all the TI display leaflet stands . Ive got my tickets for La Boheme . Its the first live opera I ever saw, and was at the New Theatre in about 1959, a treat with my Mother which set me up for a lifetime's passion . Spouse wants to see Aida , and will see if we can do that as well . My musical Education actually began at the City Hall , music festivals with the school choir, and then the cheap Concert tickets for school groups. My first ever classical concert contained Fingals Cave, and Beethoven Symphony , about 1960 , then home on the bus to Sutton feeling I had made a great  new friend . 
• The Pavements are coming on very well HULL . Eurovia ,@EuroviaHull are certainly speeding on . Ive never seen a worker slacking , and they are so polite as passers by hurl comments at them . 

  

  Eurovia hard at work outside City Hall 

• The first NEW SHOP that I have noticed in the last 2 weeks has arrived ! I love it of course ,as I only wear Docs or Birkis , so yes please to a Birkenstocks and a Waitrose , my shop HULL Heaven will be complete.
  

Thanks Guardian 

The promise of Flowers #Hull2017

Last New Years Day I set out to record all the wildflowers IN FLOWER , and post the pics to BSBI Twitter using the hash tag #NewYearPlantHunt . It was great way to have an objective walk on the Country Park . I enjoyed it , but found few flowers. This little Speedwell being one of the 16 I found, a poor showing compared with some of the pics sent to Twitter, but the walk was still a delight as the Country Park was flooded and I spotted wading birds at close range , usually at the Dams or on the beach .

This coming New Year 2017 is already planned. Not able to go to Hull Fair this week I am thinking of what I have to look forward to . Half term is soon upon us, I've planted my onion sets , more leeks , a Wildflower Meadow (only 1 m by 4 m but  mine own), am about to wrap up the Echium and look for my winter berets. We've already had the log burner on in the evenings with the new supply of kiln dried Ash Logs from the Dalby Forest, and I will be making Parkin soon for Bonfire Night . I live on the coast but have not been on the actual beach once this year, time has just fugitted in a productive year of Allotment , Plant surveys and our active Social Life of hospital, doctors , another hospital, clinic, and chemists. 

SO NEW YEAR 2017 is going to be GREAT.

• Three generations including aunts and grandchildren are meeting in Hull on December 31st . I might even drive !!
• Four adults and 2 children will go to the Hull Truck for the matinee of Treasure Island on that afternoon . Four adults, 2 children and 2 aunts including the Kingston upon Hull one will book into our rooms in the Premier Inn Tower Street . We love it . Views across the Humber , the River Hull , the city of Kingston upon Hull, King Billy, The Deep, Saltend , Victoria Dock -we have a ringside seat . 
• We will enjoy our meal on New Years Eve in the inhouse restaurant Thyme  . Small boys will already be planning their meals .
• Good nights sleep guaranteed 
• New years Day 2017 , start of the Year Of Culture 2017 , which has already been going on for a year or so . The day will be spent as we like , Morning Service at Holy Trinity , concert on BBC from Vienna , a walk round the Old Town  , we'll see. Spouse and I have never even been to the Deep yet . 
• 8.17 pm . We will all watch the Firework Display that promises a spectacular start to the Year of Culture . Spouse will watch from the 6th floor of the Premier Inn , we might too, or see where the Ticketed venue is. (Tickets Not released yet)
• Next day , Small boys and parents depart. 
• WE might  drive to Sunk Island and Stone Creek followed by lunch in Patrington and a walk round the Queen Of Holderness 
• before doing the 'Made In Hull' Installation in the City Centre , as it gets dark
• Another night in the rooms with views BUT 

One thing is certain . This New year I will be doing my New Year plant Hunt again and tweeting the pics with #NewYearPlantHunt . Ive already spotted the place with loads , right next to the Premier Inn 

Bit of Botanists Heaven from Premier Inn

Get it mapped, Hull!

'Why not walk it map ' 

Been thinking about how great it was in London when the 2012 Olympics spawned some great spin offs for plebs and nerds like me.

I’m still using the excellent Transport for London ‘Why not walk it maps? These showed 10 min,15min, 20min and 25 min walks from concentric circles from a London Station .

I hope Hull already is past  thinking about it stage for its free maps. They will get people walking and show just how near all the venues and varied places of interest.

2013 free Hull Travel Maps now outdated 

Those given out a couple of years ago are great , but the bus numbers have all changed.

The Bus transport system in Kingston upon Hull is fantastic. Make the most of it!

The Interchange is efficient ,  but its coffee shops are awful-bring some better coffee in please ! I always have to walk over to Hammonds (House of Fraser), but the ambient noise and MUSAK in there is an assault on my senses.

  *NB .Croydon has tackled fights and nuisance at its trouble hot spots in West Croydon Bus Station, a minute from the area where there were riots ,by playing the gentlest of Classical Music . It must have a calming effect or they would not use it . 

The new online maps of Kingston on Hull  are OK . However , one in your rucksack can be much more manageable , and at present would attract a much wider take-up . I do all I can to find hotspots and places to recharge my phone, and  have a solar powered phone charger but nothing beats a piece of paper for me when walking around . Or put free charging stations in all coffee shops! Please Kingston upon Hull City Council  just update the fantastic maps you published in 2013.  I have known the city for over 60 years and am only just learning the street names around what is now termed (rightly) Fruit Market Area. Great little bus there from the Interchange too, as I accompany friend who cannot walk far, but it took lots of research since all the numbers have changed . Listen please, we have money to spend in the new Cafes, and will come again with more punters . 

Out of the corner of my eye yesterday I saw 2 painted gable ends . Well Done Hull , I’m ready to go and see them right now . I've always thought such street Art defined Belfast culture, and excited even further Brighton's and London's. 

Whilst Pickering is looking for vast funds to renovate its medieval wall paintings , the cost of actually painting new wall paintings on 21st Century walls in Kingston upon Hull has much more appeal to me . I remember sort of seeing the Doom painting high up in a Coventry church near the new cathedral  and wondering what all the fuss was about , whereas in your face new ones can be photographed for later touch ups instead of agonizing in expensive conservation . Please map them ! I do understand that maps go out of date very quickly . I'm hoping that in the years 2016 to 2017 and then onwards you will just update them every 6 months or so rather than printing millions the first time. 

These days , all my posters and downloadable graphics and stationery that I  designed  in Publisher for Word or Pages for Mac are stored for future use, and its never been easier . 

I'm just an amateur , you not telling me that the firm  who produced the 2013 Bus maps do not have a them all stored!! 

Better still use a Kingston upon Hull firm , or get the local Graphics students on to it . I hope that the hundreds of children taught by me to use Publisher in 2002 to 2007 in Hilderthorpe Junior School Bridlington will have still retained their skills.and updated them as DTP becomes so much easier. Even my under 12 grandchildren are about to learn coding . 

Outsourcing is all very well , but its time for my city to  show the rest of the world what it can do .

Spray Can Mural

Would someone please tell me where this great mural is hiding ?

Just found it on Google Images by searching for SoHO.Its in Posterngate .

Reversal

For nearly 60 years the beginning of September always meant for me the going back to school. Now I love it because I don't have to go back to school ever again.

I don't have to spend every evening working on Smart Board programmes for my Maths Lessons, ransacking the house for that bit of material I knew would be useful one day if I could remember where I had put it or being so tired I couldn't even remember where I'd put the car .

I leave it all to the next generations. Today youngest grandchild started school.

I have all  worked hard during the Summer. I have played Yo! Ho! Ho! and walked the plank ,  found Miniclip  and Moshi Monsters and policed the Pc. I had a hairy moment last week when R managed to rotate the online display on the laptop screen by 90 degrees. It happens all the time apparently when the arrow keys are mis-hit  during juvenile gaming . I had to move R upstairs and allow him on the Mac. I had banked on 30 minutes of time to sew his PE bag.

Colin and I had a great trip on the train with both boys to Hull last week, that City on the East Coast that is my birthplace. 

Pedestrianised streets are a godsend for carers of wild small boys. The updated Streetlife Museum , an hour of tearing around and pressing all the buttons and climbing on everything that did not bear a warning notice was much enjoyed. 

I don't think Philip Larkin would have liked the way HCC allowed the statue of him in  Paragon Station to be put up. John Betjeman at St Pancras he is not. *

We all did like the free  Table Tennis tables in the Nelson Mandela  Gardens. That gave C and I  30 minutes of peace and quiet to eat our packed lunch.

My Grandfathers Tram

The boys were not really impressed with the Tram Model built under their great -great grandfathers supervision. It didn't do anything, and they couldn't open anything or climb on anything.

The Hockney's Bigger Trees near Warter just didnt work in Ferens Art Gallery. It was far to big for the space. It would have looked Good in the City Hall. I'm glad I went to see it in the RA in 2009. (looking forward to to the exhibition in the RA starting on 21st January). His Yorkshire landscapes are all painted  near here, and on my drive to Beverley  across the Wolds I see all his trees and fields and hedges.

Back to the Quiet Life then. Schools Back!

* Colin says when he was at Liverpool Station yesterday there were statues of Ken Dodd and  a middle aged woman with a hat_just  Googled it -Bessie Braddock.

#HULL CITY OF CULTURE 17 of course it will be!

A city on the East Coast

Kingston upon Hull is a great place for a weekend.Now that the ABC (remember David Whitfield and Gene Pitney) has been knocked down it is so much more convenient to stroll to Albion street past the One World Shop, and then the Chinese supermarket and get a bus somewhere. How about the 115 to Newland Avenue-do the second hand book shop have lunch in the veggie cafe behind Skeltons .
Then wander down Marlborough Avenue and see if the Post Office in Hardwick Street is still there or check out the Tenfoots, or is that tenfeet.
Spend the evening at the New Theatre listening to 'The Marriage of Figaro', (Opera North) in English , in the stalls of course, see the geasepaint.

Stay at Madam Claphams and have a really clean room with a proper bathroom , not a cut out corner borded in, eat a Full English with great service, no brown bread. Then stroll on across the square, into a Sunday with no school Monday to ruin your enthusiasm or a later Heartbeat. Walk past the remains of Queens Pub and across the end of the Technical College. Remember your mother once took the car and put it in that multi-story when it was first built and then forgot and went home on the bus. On down the staithes along the river. Have Parish Communion at Holy Trinity , and Thank God for preachers who tell it as it is.


MY VERY FIRST MENTION OF HULL CITY OF CULTURE IN THIS BLOG