Bread and Butter

My wife's cousin, Graham, was visiting the UK from his naturalised home in Australia recently.

Born in Hull he emigrated with his family over 40 years ago but retains strong and fond memories of his Yorkshire roots.

Quickly recovering from his jet lag after the usual 20 plus hours travelling time between the hemispheres he wanted to have a drive around what had been his old haunts and before breakfast.

There was not much that he recognised along the Hessle Road corridor which is understandable given the process of demolition, clearance and re-development that took place in the inner west Hull area from the 1970's ostensibly in the name of progress. The population from the densely packed terraced Streets, Avenues , Groves and Courts off were given a vision of a new life in the broad open spaces of the satellite estates of the City but at the inevitable cost of community spirit and knowing who your neighbours were.

Road names, previously on the gable ends of well maintained two up and two down homes now hung askew on lamp posts in paralell streets of sparse industrial premises which buzzed with activity in daylight hours but became deserted and unfriendly after dusk.

A few of the larger buildings on the main road were recognised by Graham but were now being used for completely different and unrelated activities from what he knew them as. The old Picture House was a discount shoe warehouse, a former church sold bulky furniture, the Co-Operative Home Stores was the local undertakers. He remarked on how grubby and run down everything looked but to me, seeing the same things on a daily basis, I had not really noticed a decline and stagnation.

I sensed that Graham was also people watching. Perhaps it was a hope to see a face from his past although the memory of a persons features from 40 years ago ,however deep set does not have any built in allowance for the ravages of time, age and circumstances.

Hessle Road has not really changed in terms of footfalls and shopping activity over the decades although not many of the pedestrians , today, carried any bags or provisions as though they just felt they had to be out and about regardless. There may have been nothing much else to do at that time in the morning and being in the great outdoors will have been infinitely more healthy than a damp and mould infused house.

One familiar sight caused much excitement to, up to that moment, a rather weary and demoralised Graham. It was an old property over three floors which formed the end of a long Victorian terrace of shops but had been attached to a rather bland, modern  and featureless retail warehouse which was so much at odds with the character of the street. On the end wall just peering out beyond the warehouse was a once grand handwritten sign, now faded but with the name of Dixon's Bakery still legible, just.

A recessed entrance with blue wainscot boarding sat adjacent to a very traditional shop front. The portico, scrolled columns and plate glass window had resisted the pressures for modernisation. There was no brushed aluminium or anodised steel here. Just more woodwork and the same dark blue paintwork. It was still quite early in the morning and business from the bakery appeared to have been brisk because the only items on display were a few oven bottom bread cakes, macaroons, flaky pastry sausage rolls and fairy cakes. Obviously home baked the good were quaintly rough and irregular, all of varying sizes and shapes even though from the same batch.

Graham wandered in and was received by the baker, his wife and a back room full of family members as though he was a long lost relative. They got to chatting and it was at that point that Graham revealed that his father had at one time owned and run the very shop and he himself had lived above the premises for part of his early years.

This led to the resident family bringing out the photo albums and a book of old streetscenes of Hessle Road over the ages. The property featured on various shots in glorious black and white with passers by a bit blurry but identifiable in terms of the period by frock coats, sunday best suits, long pavement sweeping dresses, horses in the background pulling drays and carriages. Other views introduced cars from the 1950's and 60's and beehive and Brylcremed hair styles. The 1970's photos appeared to be in a large dust cloud as the terraced houses, just out of view, were being bulldozed into extinction.

Graham purchased a good proportion of the stock in the window representing somewhat of a bumper trading week for the business and had his picture taken standing at the counter which he said had not changed at all from his recollection of it apart from it seeming lower and less imposing.

This solid surviving piece of his memories was special and precious to Graham and I feel that it did form the highlight of his three week stay with us. Some weeks later I was driving past Dixons Bakery in the late afternoon. The shop window, framed in blue woodwork, seemed to have the same stock left on the shelf from the time of our visit and which Graham had not acquired. I secretly hoped that, with the windfall of sales to that Australian chap the family had taken a well earned break from the business, even just for one day or part of it.