Ze Frank's Human Test

I really like this TED Talk by the American Humourist Ze Frank.

This is the Human Test, a test to see if you are a human.

Please raise your hand if something applies to you. Are we agreed? Yes?

Then let's begin.

Have you ever eaten a booger long past your childhood?

It's ok, it's safe here.

Have you ever made a small weird sound when you remembered something embarrassing?

Have you ever purposely lower cased the first letter of a text in order to come across as sad or disappointed?

Okay

Have you ever ended a text with a period as a sign of aggression? Okay Period!

Have you ever laughed or smiled when someone has said something shitty to you and then spent the rest of the day wondering why you reacted that way?

Have you ever seemed to lose your airplane ticket a thousand times as you walked from the Check In to the Gate?

Have you ever put on a pair of pants and then much later realised that there was a loose sock smushed up against your thigh?

Have you ever tried to guess someone elses password so many times that it locked them out of their account?

Have you ever had a nagging feeling that one day you will be discovered as a fraud?

Have you ever hoped that there was some ability you hadn't discovered yet that you were just naturally great at?

Have you ever broken something in real life and and then found yourself looking for an "undo" button in real life?

Have you ever marvelled at how someone you thought was so ordinary could suddenly become so beautiful?

Have you ever stared at your phone smiling like an idiot while texting with someone?

Have you ever subsequently texted that person with the phrase "I'm staring at the phone smiling like an idiot"?

Have you ever been tempted and then gave in to the temptation of looking through someone elses' phone?

Have you ever had a conversation with yourself and then suddenly realised you're a real asshole to yourself?

Has your phone ever run out of battery in the middle of an argument and it sort of felt like the phone was breaking up with both of you?

Have you ever thought that working on an issue between you was futile because it should just be easier than this or this is supposed to happen just naturally?

Have you ever realised that very little in the long run just happens naturally?

Have you ever woken up blissfully and suddenly been flooded by the awful remembrance that someone had left you?

Have you ever lost the ability to imagine a future without a person that was no longer in your life?

Have you ever looked back on that event with the sad smile of autumn and the realisation that futures will happen regardless?

Congratulations.

You have now completed the test. 

You are all human.

Steam Packet Union- Hull 1837

The practical applications of Steam Power in the 19th Century heralded a halcyon age for industry and as a means of transport. It influenced almost every aspect of everyday life for the Victorians.

However, the harnessing of this technology also had its perils and tragedies. 

One of the most shocking events of the era took place in my home city, the Port of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire in 1837. 

It was a lovely summer morning on Wednesday 14th June and there was already a bustle of activity on the quayside of The Humber Dock (now Hull Marina Basin) as a number of ships took on passengers and cargo in readiness for sailing. 

The Steam Packet "Union" was a newly built vessel for inland waterways and had, before entering into commercial service, been used to carry cattle from Hull down the River Trent. 

On this day it was preparing for a scheduled sailing to Gainsborough. As it also coincided with the Retford Fair, some 12 miles from the place of destination there was a swelling of the usual passenger numbers . Around 100 were thought to have been on the deck or in the on board salons which included what was described as the "Best" cabin which had a stewardess in attendance. 

At around 6.15am close to the time of the high tide one of the steam boilers exploded with devastating force. 

Within a few seconds Union foundered and sank low into the dock. 

The scene will have been most distressing. Passengers had been thrown into the water. Mangled, bleeding and badly scalded bodies lay around on the quayside. The rescue effort started immediately from boats already in the Humber Dock and with the arrival of the Police from a nearby Station House. 

The sheer force of the explosion was illustrated in a number of gruesome incidents. 

A Crane Worker who had been working close to the berth of Union was found on the top of a house some 60 yards away. The impact of his body had caused the roof slates and timbers to be badly damaged. The badly mutilated body of a respectable Hull Brewer, Mr Chatterton was found on the deck of the Steamer Albatross which was moored on the opposite side of the Pier. 

Three hours after the explosion, at low tide, further horrific scenes were revealed. 

The wrecked hull was now exposed and all around on the mud was strewn furniture from the cabins, pieces of deck timber and the clothes and personal effects of those who had had the misfortune to be on board. 

There was thought to have been 30 to 40 persons in the best cabin but in its mangled remains only 3 bodies were found. The lifeless body of Richard Tomlinson of High Street was found near Long Jetty. The corpse of a well dressed but unidentified gentleman lay on the mud near the slipway. Five women, well to do and with their servants were missing either vaporised in the steam cloud or washed out to the Estuary. Two bodies were found on board a small boat in another part of the Dock by its skipper.

Rescuers and those who had come to see off the passengers sought frantically for any survivors. A large crowd drawn by the sound of the explosion also gathered but was reported to be of an appropriately respectful rather than morbidly curious demeanour. 

A few had very lucky escapes after having jumped off the deck, out of the cabin windows or after having been propelled into the waters. 

It must have been an apocalyptic scene. As well as the human carnage a 200 pound weight bale of freight had been thrown over the roof and into the Timber Yard of Messrs Westdales. The intact top of the exploded boiler was found outside Minerva Terrace  and the safety valve damaged the building on Wellington Street from which the York Steam Packet Office operated. The stone steps of a house on Humber Street were cracked by the counter weight of the safety valve. Sacks and casks from the freight manifest of Union littered the surrounding streets.

Other vessels in proximity also sustained damage and those who happened to be out on deck were amongst the injured. On the Leeds Steamer a passenger was struck by a splinter which split open his cheek but he was able to be treated with the other walking wounded who by now had been taken in by the Quayside Inns and Pubs. 

Personal tragedies were poignant. Mr Hutchinson, a builder from George Street, Hull upon hearing of the explosion had hastened to the Humber Dock to enquire about his two sons who had intended to sail that day. He hoped that they had taken another ship on that June morning but he later discovered that they had both died, one in the Infirmary from fatal wounds and the other found later. 

The list of fatalities illustrated the nature of Victorian business, occupations and lifestyles. These included a Gainsborough Tradesman, a property dealer from the West Riding, visitors from Manchester, Brewers and Publicans from Hull, an elderly lady who derived an income from selling fruit on the quayside, a shop keeper from Whitton, a grocery assistant from Hull and not forgetting members of the crew who, in the engine room will have been at the epicentre of the explosion. Amongst the dead was a small child from Scale Lane although its mother was reported to have survived. 

At the later Enquiry one of the crew recounted that he had heard, some five minutes before the explosion, a crackling noise like someone breaking sticks. He also stated that the fire doors were open and when he had turned a valve this had emitted not the expected water but pure steam. This must have been a concern but before any preventative action could be taken the ship and quayside were enveloped in a dense mist and the hellish events ensued. 

In all some 20 souls were lost and many more injured, maimed or traumatised. The events of that June day in 1837 remain as one of the worst steam boiler explosions on record.

Saucy Cinema Fun in Hull 1930

The Golden Age of Cinema-going in the UK was, without doubt, over the years from the late 1920's towards the outbreak of the second world war. 

The nation was just emerging from Depression and Recession and an outing to the local Picture House had a special place in the social life of a good proportion of the population. It was affordable to the masses and with the dominance of movies from the much more glamorous Hollywood Studios being a real opportunity for escapism from the privations of normal life. 

In addition to main features the cinematic screens gave presentations of newsreels of home and international news, a catch up of the engagements and activities of the Royal Family, sporting events and snippets from what we would call today the antics of celebrities and the rich and famous. 

In my home city of Kingston Upon Hull the year 1930 was a bumper one for the local cinemas. 

The Monday night edition of The Hull Daily Mail on 8th March 1930 was a typical one for the listings of films so that its readership could plan for the week ahead. 

We, today, take for granted the wide screen, quality sound and razor sharp digitalised images as well as comfortable seating, air conditioning and a good selection of snacks and goodies. In 1930 many of the Cinemas will have been very old fashioned and uncomfortable but they quickly geared up for the revolution of the age, the Talking Picture. 

Only two years before had seen the release of The Jazz Singer, the first synchronised talking movie although of the sound on disc method. 

This was the catalyst for the industry to churn out Talkies and the Hull audiences were attracted in huge numbers to witness the phenomena for themselves. 

There appears to have been a cinema on every street in the city centre and out into the newly built suburban areas fronting the main highways. Some of them still survive today but most in other guises of Bingo Halls and Entertainment Venues as the Duplex and Out of Town Complexes became dominant.

Other buildings are hanging on in a semi derelict state or, as in the case of The Eureka which I wrote about yesterday, long since demolished and cleared.

Their names are iconic in Hull's urban and social history. 

Take The Cecil on Ferensway, The National on Beverley Road, Carlton on Anlaby Road, The Savoy on Holderness Road, The Playhouse on Porter Street, Tower on Anlaby Road, Monica on Newland Avenue, Rialto, Mayfair, Sherburn Street, Ritz, Strand, Regent and Boulevard. Quite a choice for Matinees during the week and the big night out on a friday or a saturday. 

All of the column inches heralded the wonders of the Talkies via Western Electric although not all. For example the Rialto continued with its dedication as being "the silent house with orchestral music. 

So what was being shown on the stage mounted screens in that week in 1930? 

I don't recognise a great deal of them although amongst the names of the stars of the screen are Barbara Stanwyck, Ronald Colman, Maurice Chevalier and a good mixture of lesser known, up and comings and home grown talent. 

A few names that I am not at all familiar with are Rod La Rocque, Betty Bronson, Gypsy Rhouma, Joseph Schildkraut, Anny Ondra and Madge Bellamy. No doubt much loved and idolised in their day. 

The IMDB resource is invaluable in finding out about the performers and movie releases and a few can still be found in grainy black and white on You Tube. 

I recognise the title Bulldog Drummond but not so such movies as The Locked Door, White Cargo, A Dangerous Woman, Behind that Curtain, Innocents of Paris, Master and Man, The Great Divide, Tonight at 12, Her Private Affair, The Faker, The Manxman and The Passenger. 

The plot lines were certainly of what we would regard as racist, sexist and politically incorrect by today's sensitivities covering abusive relationships, sexy and saucy heroines, colonial misdeeds, crimes of extortion and embezzlement and a host of shady characters. There were also comedies and musicals for the more genteel of cinema goers of the era. 

In all a feast of entertainment could be had by the population of Hull in the magically darkened auditoriums in their sparse and therefore valuable leisure time.

No more cheap seats left

To tell the truth, I never really took notice of the Eureka Picture Palace at the western end of the main shopping area of Hessle Road, Hull, Yorkshire, England.

I am a relative outsider and largely unaware of the significance of many buildings to a particular location and resident population. I do appreciate architectural styles but the Eureka was not a building that was in any direct line of sight particularly following alterations to the road system in that part of the city and even to a regular passing motorist like myself it could as easily be missed.

What did capture my attention in the summer of 2005 was a concentration of activity and a cloud of dust and debris as the once proud Cinema came to be demolished and the site cleared in readiness for a Lidl Supermarket.

In most of the urban environments of UK towns as well as the suburbs there has been a very dramatic decline in old cinema venues and so you may ask what was particularly special about The Eureka.

The authoritative work by Pevsner on "The Buildings of England" gives part of a sentence to it which is quite an endorsement for what was a functional building, specifically "Eureka Cinema, 1912, striking front in green and white faience".

I had to look up faience in the dictionary which refers to "the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated by French speakers with wares exported from Faenza in northern Italy". Available archive photographs do not do justice to the splendour of such a material on a large front elevation but it would be clear, when built just two years before the outbreak of the first world war that the Eureka was a major commission.

It was evidently very well received by the Hessle Roaders  as a leisure facility for the  local population of which a high proportion earned their living from the hazardous industry of deep sea fishing.

The cinema was a show of the glamour of the movies and somewhat ahead of its time as the halcyon years of the silver screen were yet to come. As a sign of good attendance the seating capacity was increased in 1921 with construction of a balcony.

A local resident recalls the magic of a trip to the Eureka. "I was only a kid when we used to go there and see all the matinee idols on the big screen but I remember always longing to sit in the double seats at the front where the couples went. It was very sophisticated and seemed really posh."

It was certainly the place to be seen, a good night out or somewhere to go on a date.  The saturday cinema club and matinee performances entertained thousands of children at a time when there were few amenities for the younger generation.

The trawling industry, bringing great danger in the Arctic fishing grounds and with a heavy loss of life also brought money to Hessle Road. Cinema going figured high on the activities of local families in their valuable time off and for crew members who on their short periods of shore leave earned the title "Three Day Millionaires".

There tends to be a natural cycle in the life of the older generation of cinemas and the Eureka was no different. Having survived the Blitz in the second world war the Eureka stayed in business showing films until 1959 suffering from competition from larger city centre establishments and the arrival in many living rooms of television. The natural progression was as a Bingo Hall, another popular pursuit but this was itself under threat from a declining population as the old terraced streets were cleared and the occupants relocated to large sprawling new build Council Estates some four to five miles out on the far reaches of the city.

In 1984 a revival was attempted as a live music venue but this proved to be unviable and the premises were sold in 1989 for redevelopment. The location, by now a bit isolated and surrounded by car sales garages and secondary shops was not conducive to a conversion of The Eureka to flats and through a combination of inaction and neglect the building began to deteriorate rapidly.

Within ten years it was necessary to carry out partial demolition including removal of the roof. Now open to the elements the former grand interior of the elaborate and ornate facade took on the appearance of a wooded and overgrown copse.

The very visual demise of the Eureka caused concern to the Hull Civic Society who started a campaign try to save it as an emblem of the past and part of the heritage of the by now decimated trawling industry which had supported the Hessle Road Community for so long. The website, "Cinema Treasures" expressed the need for a rescue operation of such a fine example of a pre war building but to no avail.

I felt, in a strange way, privileged to be a witness to just a small part of the demolition of The Eureka cinema in 2005. It was the passing of a landmark and institution serving as a pleasure palace to a proud, hard working and long suffering  Hessle Road community.

Kingston Upon Hull in the 1930's Part 1- Statistics

Here are a few of the Survey and Census Findings for Kingston Upon Hull, in East Yorkshire in the years before the Second World War.

In the inter war period Hull was the eighth largest city in England with a population of 318,700.

It was the third busiest Port behind Liverpool and London with goods being exported to the value of £28.6 million and those arriving from around the globe at £69 million.

As a fishing port the total catch in 1938 was at five million hundred weight which represented the largest of landings in the UK.

The industrial base of Hull included 14% of the total of those employed in the fishing sector nationally, 7% of the nation's paint manufacturers and seed crushers and 8 percent of makers of heating and ventilation equipment.
The unemployment rate in 1938 was 11% and in the same period 80 percent of the Hull workforce earned less than £4 per week.

The 1936 Census recorded the highest number of bicycle use of any location in Great Britain with over 7300 cycles noted within a typical 16 hour day.

Public Transport was in its heyday with 75 million passenger journeys per year on the municipal bus, trolley bus and tram services which equated to 235 journeys for each of the head of population clocking up some 5 million vehicle miles.

Railway patronage was at a similar volume with the Central Terminus collecting at the gate some 2 million tickets every year.

However, a major disadvantage of the high levels of passenger and freight trains to and from the network of stations around the city and the Dock areas was the regular closing of crossing gates on the main arterial routes, so much so that in a typical 15 hour day there were 500 individual gate operations and an accumulative delay of nearly 1000 minutes.

It was recorded that 80,000 vehicles were held up as a consequence. Worst offender was the main Hessle Road crossing where the gates were closed for the equivalent of six hours daily.

The City had a housing stock of 86,600 houses.

Of these the level of private renting was 56.4% and a further 11.6% managed by Hull Corporation.

Just over a quarter of the houses were over 60 years old, therefore dating from the mid to late Victorian era and of which about the same proportion were deemed to have exceeded their economic life, ie slum standard.

In fact applying a measure of six adverse factors of blight as to condition or habitability around 10% of the housing should have been condemned. The later estimate for slum clearance was for around 5000 houses.

As an indicator of poor amenity standards the figure of 39.3% of houses in Hull lacked a bath or hot water.

To serve the large city population there were 3653 shops although one third of these were empty. 52% of the shops sold food and of this number 42% traded as traditional grocers. This in effect supported the characteristic of the UK being a nation of shopkeepers although the original commentator used it as a derogatory term.

The 278 Public Houses in Hull had a concentration of 35 percent in the central area of the City.

There was also what was described as an appalling level of road traffic and pedestrian accidents. In 1939 alone there were 3137 accidents resulting in 1275 injuries and 38 fatalities. The most probable cause was attributed to the ribboning of shops along the main City roads and the increasing volume of road traffic along these routes. The main involvement in the accident record was of course private cars but with pedal cycles a close second.

Source; A Plan for Kingston Upon Hull 1945 (Lutyens and Abercrombie)

Hull Floods 13 year retrospective

It was 13 years ago to this very week that it rained. I can remember it very well for a number of small, trivial reasons and two massive ones.

The day started off with the sighting by me and The Boy of a wild deer which was, with no regard to its own welfare, just grazing and gazing within the excavated bowl of the new road junction about 2 miles from our house. How it had got into the inner sanctum was not clear and after our initial wonderment at just having seen such a timid, sprightly creature, we did express concern about how it might get back into its more natural environment farther up the wooded hillside swopping a forest ride for the busy dual carriageway.

We were on the way to the unreasonably early start of a car boot sale at a new venue for us. It had promised well from chatting with other sellers at our usual recreational field pitch. It was in more affluent catchment area, close to a motorway junction for casual passing buyers, well established and popular or so we had been told. It actually turned out to be well away from any population areas, off the main traffic flows, in an old chicken farm and quite a dead loss in terms of actual trade. We had arrived early and were directed by a toothless old boy, the smallholder, to a narrow, claustrophobic pitch even for one outside, right in the middle of an old strawberry field complete with canes and wires.

It was the first sale we had participated at that we had not been pounced upon by dealers and scavengers as soon as we had opened the tailgate of the car. That did not promise much for the rest of our confinement in that place because we were now well and truly trapped by the slow build up of other sellers. There would be no possibility of leaving early even if we felt like giving the whole thing up. The first couple of hours dragged by with only a few pounds sterling to show for our endeavours. My best offering of a Champions League Final programme, £8 from WH Smiths, was looking a bit sorry and curling up at the edges in quite a fierce and persistent heat from the sun and with no respite from any shelter or shade.

The Boy first remarked on some quite magnificent towering cloud structures that had sailed from the west into the otherwise powder blue sky. They were like nothing I had ever seen before, and I had always made a point of commenting on such phenomena with the children and so knew what constituted a noteworthy cluster. Billowing, dazzling white. The occasional vapour trails of high flying passenger jets seemed to punch through the meringue-like peaks which again was something I had not seen before. We were certainly witnessing quite an unusual formation.

Such was our concentration on the clouds that our entire stock and the pasting table itself could have been whisked away by unscrupulous car-booters and we would not have noticed. Our meteorological observations made the morning fly by.

Then a gap in our closely packed row opened up as a fellow seller expressed frustration and upped and went and we too made our escape.

That very afternoon was to be at the 90th birthday party of a family friend. Me and the Boy were quite radiant facially from a south facing morning and were expecting to attract attention as a consequence from the other guests.

As we arrived at Clarice's house for a garden party the mountainous Cumulus, which had followed us from the farmyard into town were in freefall. The collapse resembled a slow motion avalanche into a dirty grey full sky cover of rain cloud and with a strong driving wind now developing. The party, momentarily basking in the heat , had to retreat indoors in what became a torrential downpour and with no indications of a reprieve or even a brief sunny interval.

The rain continued for the next 36 hours and developed into the misery of the Hull flood with hundreds of houses inundated in flash flooding and from the complete overwhelming of the foul and surface drainage systems over large parts of the urban and suburban areas.

This weekend, the thirteenth anniversary of the floods has fortunately, so far, not followed on from a similar spate of weather. In fact there is talk of a possible hosepipe ban following a record breaking May of negligible rainfall. There has been some heavy and persistent rainfall but interspersed with close to 25 degree heat to evaporate any surplus moisture,  The clay soils which underlie much of the low lying Hull have not been able to fill up and unlike 2007 we may have much less to worry about on this anniversary. 

Lessons have been learned from the events of  13 years ago. There is no guarantee that a similar chain of events will not occur again and chances are given the unpredictability of Climate Change we will certainly see their like again.

The Leaving of Eden

A favourite from a couple of years ago. I'm out that way tomorrow which led me to think of it again.

This island of ours, Britain, is a small land mass.

There cannot be a square foot of its soil on which no soul has trodden over the millenia.

Imagine this scenario. You buy a house and look out over the back garden.

You might wonder, in an idle moment, about its history or past land use but in the majority of cases not much thought is given to this theme.

It is different when you purchase something with a designated Ancient Monument within your boundaries.

This was the case just this week when I was asked to look around an old farmhouse close to the North Sea coast of Yorkshire.

The Estate Agents were understandably vague in their sales details about the existence in the grounds of the site of a deserted Medieval Village but then again some folk are a bit wary and suspicious of the thought of long lost souls on their doorstep.

On the adjoining paddock there is nothing really to see apart from a few lumpy bits of earth and a regular arrangement of trench type excavations but in the context of a nicely elevated site, proximity to a source of fresh water and an abundance of natural resources who would not think that this specific location would be an ideal place to make a home and a living?

A few country dwellers around the time of the Domesday Survey obviously held the same opinion as a settlement existed at Southorpe just to the south west of the town of Hornsea around that time and evidently thrived for some centuries after that.

By the year 1374 there was reported to be a population of 60 persons of which 28 were of sufficient personal means to be liable for an early form of taxation- the Poll Tax.

The land was obviously capable of providing a livelihood in what must have been a fairly precarious existence and all crammed in to a life expectancy not beyond 30 or so years.

This Deserted Medieval village (DMV)  has been the subject of archaeological and scientific study in the modern era being regarded by the academic community as a well preserved example but still with considerable evidence of an ordinary working life yet to be investigated.

Nothing much has been imposed on that environment to disturb the wealth of information and insight concealed within those earthworks.

The house adjacent to the undulating pasture has been part of a larger agricultural estate for decades and the land  kept , as though in thoughtful consideration, as pasture.

In fact the only alien structure in that landscape is a lozenge shaped concrete pill box from the second world war civil defence programme.

A series of investigations in the near past identified a small group of houses, gardens, yards, streets, paddock, village green, a manor house and church all of which were fundamental to a God fearing community devoted primarily to survival through agriculture.

So what contributed to the decision of the occupants, en masse ,or at least in the majority to abandon Southorpe village some time around 1600?

Those villagers were not alone in making that sort of life changing thought process.

Across the UK there are over 2000 deserted Medieval Villages and the reasons for leaving are almost as numerous.

Most cited is the decimation of human life by the ravages of the Black Death in the 14th Century but other documented cases suggest peculiarly local or regional circumstances at play.

The whims of a powerful landowner in handing over a village to sheep pasture often resulted in depopulation.

Environmental changes could not be ruled out as although we regard Climate Change as a modern phenomena there were crop and livestock failures at other periods in history from volcanic eruptions, mini ice ages and heat waves, drought and flood.

In the situation of Southorpe Village there may have been a disastrous decline in the potability of the freshwater supply of the adjacent freshwater Mere or an inundation affecting the grazing and cultivation of the lower lying marshland.

Fluctuations in the ground water levels or water table could cause bore holes and wells to run dry therefore depriving villages of one of the prime resources for habitation.

The abandonment of any place of livelihood will not have been an impulsive decision, being more of a grinding down of the residents with variable determination and means to tough out any threats.

Financial burdens will have been a contributing factor through the imposition of lay subsidies, poll and hearth taxes and pressure exerted by the landed classes with Manorial Rights.

The Civil War in England in the 17th Century saw a few villages burnt to the ground by either of the protagonists for strategic reasons withe their populations distributed elsewhere locally.

Villages which had, for example, relied upon the trade and patronage of Medieval religious pilgrims could become discredited by rumour or falsehoods of miracles and experience a catastrophic decline in fortunes.

The rise in the attraction of a neighbouring settlement could also sound the death knell for a previously thriving one.

The Domesday roll call could conceivably have been misleading in its recording of a local population as although a monetary value was given to a certain location this could have been concentrated on a cluster of farmsteads and buildings giving the impression of a larger cluster of population where none existed.

 A very specific example of the desertion of a village is from another location in East Yorkshire when in the 17th Century a popular Preacher took with him to America the majority of his parishioners. In reality they could probably be counted on one or more hands but still represented a good proportion of the village-folk.

So, in the case of Southorpe we may not ever know the motivation to vacate what even today was clearly a bit of a garden of Eden.

English Lesson 17

This is a bit sparse. 

Followers of this English Lesson series will know that I have sourced these from the compilation by Super-Fan Kevin Hales of the Uxbridge English Dictionary definitions which were a feature of the long running BBC radio show "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue". 

I am up to the letter Q which by definition is a bit limited in its versatility. You just have to look at the Scrabble tile value for the letter Q which is only matched by the equally uninspiring letter Z at 10 points.

Here goes. I have supplemented the actual broadcast definitions with a few tenuous ones of my own.

Quango- a gay tango

Quizzical- being interrogated about a dietary regime

Quince- not quite a coincidence

Quaker- a posh duck

Quadrant- four people arguing

Quadrangle- the argument above becomes a bit violent

Quash- cordial made from quince

Quince- vegetarian substitute in a burger

Quisling- an underdeveloped Q & A session

Quarantine- a malty bedtime drink for lockdown 

Queue- the line of those auditioning for the role of 007's gadget master

Quantity- Page 3 compilation

Quest- one of the heraldic symbols on the family coat of arms of Jonathan Ross

Quasimodo- a sort of transport

Quid pro quo- immoral earnings

Queer- an odd twelve months

Qatar- a middle eastern road surfacing material

Quest- the best type of vest

Quartermaster- someone else looks after the other three bits

Quit- computer support for the LGBT community

Quill- a superior type of sickness

Quantitative- lots of spuds

Quantas- a large bottom

Quality- a posh brew

Quell- shouting by posh people

Quietude- good table manners when eating

Quartz- where Judgez give their rulingz

Smokescreen

Some people do this all the time but many of us, during Lockdown, discovered for the first time the delights of memes, You Tube videos and small clips of a comedy nature with which to amuse ourselves and send to our contacts via the various social media platforms. 

The process for me was both therapeutic and also a means of keeping contact with family, friends and acquaintances. 

The following is the transcript of a video,sent to me by my good mate Dave, depicting somewhere in the Southern States of America . The attire of those assembled in what appears to be a Church Hall suggests it dates from sometime in the 1980's or early 1990's. 

The Orator is a Senior and a very good story teller. 

He intimates that the tale is a true one. I can well believe that having had first hand experience of the main protagonists. 

It centres on a Lawyer who purchased a box of very rare and, as a consequence, expensive cigars.

He insured them on a commercial basis against main losses and in particular the risk of fire.

Within a month he had smoked all 24 of these great cigars and even before he had made the first premium payment on the Policy he filed a claim with the Insurance Company. In his claim the Lawyer stated that the cigars were lost in a series of small fires.

The Insurance Company refused to pay out on the Policy citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The Lawyer sued in Court and won.

Delivering the ruling the Judge agreed with the Insurance Company that the claim was frivolous. He further stated that the Lawyer did have a Policy from which the Insurers had warranted that the cigars were indeed insurable and had guaranteed that they were covered for fire without defining what was considered to be acceptable fire. Therefore they were obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than face the prospect of a lengthy and costly Appeal process the Insurance Company accepted the ruling and paid out $15000 to the Lawyer for the loss of the 24 cigars.

As soon as the Lawyer had cashed in the settlement cheque the Insurance Company had the him arrested for 24 counts of Arson.

The Hull Shipbuilder and The Marxist Revolutionary

History can throw up some interesting connections.

One of the most unlikely to come to my attention is a link between the City of Hull, East Yorkshire, UK and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Marxist Revolutionary, although perhaps better recognised as the face most likely to stare back at you from a 'T' shirt.

I would say many people, and embarrassingly myself included, do not have a good practical comprehension of his background and significance to the political map in South America. I have never studied that period in history nor yet seen the quite recent movies of his earlier Motorcycle Diaries and the two part dramatisation of his life and times.

Hull has in its own history being known to mix-it in a revolutionary way, for example in refusing entry to Charles II reputed to have been the catalyst for the beginning of the English Civil War. Hull has passionately defended its rights and liberties and even to the present day a strong socialist allegiance and sympathy is to be found in its Members of Parliament and grass roots activists.

Another thing that the Port has excelled in and has still managed to just about hold on to is the building of ships and it is this particular maritime activity that brought about the coming together of 'Che' and 'Ull'.

Earles Shipbuilding and Engineering Company was founded as a family enterprise in 1853 with its works in Victoria Dock, on the very eastern fringe of the Old Town, now a large genteel riverside housing estate.  Up to the demise of the business in the depression of the 1930's around 700 vessels were built ranging from Royal Navy Cruisers to trawlers, coastal water freighters to luxury steam yachts including commissions by Tsar Alexander VI in 1873 and 1874 , the Khedive of Egypt and the Duke of Marlborough.

The company earned a reputation for excellence in engineering and naval architecture and the order book thrived through the last half of the 19th Century. Their championing of the triple expansion steam engine, and its upscaling to a commercial application giving class leading efficiency in power and fuel consumption, proved a sensible economic choice for such operators as the Wilson Line arguably from the late 1800's the largest shipping concern in the world.

This major customer came to purchase Earles in 1900 when the Joint Stock Company went into liquidation after labour and cash flow problems.

In new ownership and with a more passenger and freight orientated outlook the world markets were open to be exploited. In 1904 the Peruvian Railway Corporation placed an order for a Steam Ship to operate not on the ocean routes of the Pacific Coast but across the landlocked Lake Titicaca, lying at an altitude of 12,500 feet or more than two miles above sea level.

British built vessels from yards on the Thames and Clyde did already operate on the main crossing routes but these were of a smaller tramp steamer size whereas the subsequently made in Hull  Inca at 220 feet long was considerably larger and able to carry bulk cargo and passengers in greater quantities.

The logistics of the commission required a special process and after initial construction on the banks of the River Humber the ship was then taken to pieces and the marked sections carefully packed to such a system that no part of the dismantled ship weighed more than 12 tons and the largest wooden case was no larger in dimension that ten feet by eleven. For an all in contract price of £22,285 (1905)  ship parts were shipped in this 'knock-down' state to South America and then hauled by rail some 200 miles inland and uphill to the shores of Lake Titicaca. The pieced together steamer marked a new era in the Peruvian economy centred on the Lake.

By way of after sales service a replacement hull from Hull was sent out for attachment in the late 1920's and Inca continued as a major haulier for a further decade. Trade across the lake between settlements and inhabited islands as well as between Peru and neighbouring Bolivia was increasing and by the 1930's the ageing fleet was struggling to cope. Inca and its success resulted in a repeat order to Earles Shipbuilders in 1930 and the keel of Ollanta was laid down in Hull in the early summer months. Some 40 feet longer than her sister vessel, Ollanta was the latest thing in steamship travel taking 66 First Class Passengers and 20 Second Class with dining room, smoking rooms and promenade decks in addition to a deadweight capacity for 950 tons of cargo.

After a five month build in Hull the same dismantling and packing took place as with Inca and after a long sea and onward train journey the boxed kit arrived at Puno on the western side of the Lake.

A problem not seemingly encountered when the Inca was re-assembled in 1905 was evident to the Earles engineers accompanying the crated up Ollanta in that the local labour lacked suitable skills and experience for such a task.

A slipway had to be built from scratch and old railway equipment was cannibalised to make heavy machinery. Ingenuity and enterprise in conjunction with innovative engineering application saw Ollanta in full service by November 1931 only 8 months after the crates had been opened .

It was during the service of Ollanta that 'Che', when a student, took passage and my tortuous link is at last explained.

Inca was eventually scrapped in the 1990's although it was reported that this had been a hasty decision and the ship was actually in good lake-worthy condition.

Ollanta is still to be seen on Lake Titicaca although now in a more tourist income generating roll having been recently refurbished for genteel cruising rather than general haulage. The Yard Build Plate number for Ollanta at 679 indicated only a short remaining period of activity for Earles Shipbuilding in Hull before falling to the global depression.

As a contractural condition of the winding up order in 1933 no shipbuilding could take place on the Humber Bank site for a period of 60 years. Much of the equipment and the distinctive Earles Crane was sold off and ended up in Kowloon which saw emerging economies take over as the main source of new build ships which appears to have been maintained to the present day.

Other yards on the Humber frontage have in more recent years produced smaller specialist vessels and the latest demand has been driven to service the offshore turbine industry.

The halcyon years of maritime engineering excellence in the City may seem a very distant memory similarly the link between a Hull built steamer and Che Guevara but nevertheless, in the same fashion a viable future in renewable energy represents an undeniable wind of change.

Cloudburst

As we approach the 13th anniversary of the widespread surface water flooding of Hull, Yorkshire I recount this epic tale, based on a true series of events. Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Place; Hull, East Yorkshire, UK
Date;  25.06.07

It started to rain hard at about 2pm on June 24th 2007 and did not cease until well into the following day, a Monday.

The excessive and unprecedented volume of surface water produced under these climatic conditions caused the sewers and domestic drains to become overwhelmed and discharge onto the public highways, footways and around a good proportion of the city housing.

Mrs Bravo, as we will call her, was anxiously watching the weather from her terraced house on Prince Consort Road, Hull.

In the street outside there was a wall of water across the full width of the carriageway and passing cars caused a violent bow wave and tidal type bore which lapped the murky mess at her very doorstep.

Her garden wall provided a barrier against more significant wash and thankfully the clearance from forecourt to the level of the air bricks ventilating under the house ground floors was not breached.

Running through to the rear of her property Mrs Bravo watched as a swell of murky water approached across the rear garden. A solitary air brick, redundant after concreting of the back lobby floor, disappeared under the liquid surface but did not provide any potential for further ingress.

The remainder of the length of wall to the kitchen and rear living room remained free of any inundation to its air bricks.

The hundred year old house had been built sufficiently out of the ground to resist a one in one hundred year flood event. No water entered the property and after conversing with her neighbours Mrs Bravo learnt that they too had escaped any ingress.

It had been a narrow escape. Ten thousand households in Hull had not been so lucky that day.

A few weeks later mould appeared in a kitchen base unit and erring on the cautious side, as was her nature,  Mrs Bravo casually rang her Insurance Company to notify them of this observation.

She was not otherwise too concerned, after all the house had not been flooded. It was an old house. Moisture and mould sometimes happened.

Surprisingly, in early August, a Surveyor arrived. He had been engaged in a roundabout way by a Flood Remediation Company themselves at the beck and call of Loss Adjusters and so on up the paperwork trail to her Insurance Company.

Even more startling was the Surveyor's recommendation for a full strip out of the ground floor and very extensive and comprehensive flood remediation works.

Mrs Bravo respectfully asked why this was necessary given that no water had entered her house.

No satisfactory explanation was given.

Faced with an impending invasion by contractors Mrs Bravo moved upstairs with her possessions including pets. The bathroom became an impromptu kitchenette, the three cats resided in the back bedroom and Mrs Bravo established a bedsit in the front bedroom.

The haste of the builders to attack the job in order to move on to a vast backlog of similar work in the flood stricken City led to their depositing of the larger items of furniture in the back garden along with the carpets which were soon ruined by the open air and by now cold early autumn weather.

Although in no way damaged the casualty list of stripped out items was added to by the removal of the, until then perfectly functioning central heating system and gas fires.

The estimated time of enforced upstairs living was given as no more than 12 weeks, therefore with the inferred prospect of everything to be back to normal well before Christmas.

In January 2008 the ground floor accommodation of the house remained as an empty shell.

The project cost to return the house to habitable condition was running at £40,952.56.

Worryingly there was no apparent co-ordination between the Insurers, Loss Adjusters, Surveyors, Remediation Company and the on site Builders.

Mrs Bravo had suspected this all along from observing the infrequent comings and mostly long on site absences of workers and trades persons from her first floor vantage point.

A meeting of all parties in late January 2008 was an opportunity to express concerns and apportion blame for fundamental omissions of a Health and Safety nature and not a little shock from some attendees that Mrs Bravo was still in residence when in such projects the policyholder would normally be moved out and found suitable alternative accommodation.

Closer scrutiny by those responsible for issuing payments for work done could not account for invoiced figures for a number of items including replacement joinery, plastering and flooring which simply did not exist.

One individual claimed item was loosely described as "Flood Allocation uplift figure" at £12,720.91.

Works and squabbles dragged on and it was not until July 2008, more than a year after the event, that the Surveyors felt able to certify the project as having been satisfactorily completed.

Mrs Bravo, by now somewhat of an expert herself in the theory of flood remediation was not of the same opinion and added a lengthy list of incomplete items. She reserved the right to express her position that the attendance on site by the original and main building company to attend to snagging issues ( items of incomplete or inadequate work) was not welcome given performance or lack of it to date.

The Loss Adjusters sent to the Insurers a Final Report and a note of costs charged under the claim in the sum of £58,936.

Resuming as much of a normal life as possible Mrs Bravo moved back downstairs to re-occupy the whole house.

In August 2009 dampness surfaced in the repaired parts of the property.

The Flood Remediation Company, under whom the original builder had been sub contracted, were instructed to carry out any such works as necessary at their own cost as part of Warranty and "after sales service".

Mrs Bravo was increasingly frustrated and distressed by her experiences.

Although to date the repair costs and her incidental expenses had been borne by the Insurers Mrs Bravo then found that her annual Policy Premium upon renewal had increased by a factor of ten from that paid before the flood. 

In September 2009 she took action independently by engaging the services of a Claims Consultant Company to try to sort out the whole mess. Ironically the Claims Investigators were a subsidiary company of the original Loss Adjusters but it took a couple of months for them to realise this, declare their conflict of interest and drop out.

The respected watchdog organisation, The National Flood Forum, was approached by Mrs Bravo, and sent along an impartial Surveyor to inspect and advise.

With very little investigation a number of significant and fundamental defects and deficiencies were revealed in the extensive works undertaken under the insurance claim. There had been no ventilation provided in the sleeper walls under the replacement ground floors. The Electrical system was not to Regulations. Dampness persisted in previously stripped out and reinstated areas.

The Loss Adjusters disputed that anything more than minor works were required.

Under further and more detailed inspection the suspicions of the new and impartial Surveyor were confirmed beyond doubt .

The only reasonable course of action, he concluded, was to strip out, again, the whole of the ground floor.

This incurred a further cost of £37,062.55.

The Combined Grand Total ,give or take a few pence, stood at £98,000.

The market value of the property at the time of the original claim was somewhat less.

As part of the inevitable enquiry into the scandalous chain of events the extensive paper trail was scrutinised in fine detail.

Way back in August 2007 it appears that the original Surveyor had made written notes to the effect that water did not appear to have entered the house.

It was estimated by the National Flood Forum that ,to have addressed the initial concerns of Mrs Bravo, a sum of around £4000 would have been sufficient to cover a "worst case" scenario of any and all eventualities.

The closing remarks of the Independent Expert attributed the vast difference in figures to negligence, contempt and greed.

There is no record in the public domain that any sanctions were ever imposed on those involved.

It appears to have been a write off or a whitewash.

Fire in the sky

Something unusual and unexpected caught my eye. 

It was a dark November night, actually 17th November 1999 and we had just crossed the border on our way back to a rented cottage in Northumberland after a day in Edinburgh. The previous weeks at home had been typically noisy at all hours, dark or not, from the intermittent explosion of lone fireworks as mischief, mayhem and anarchy gripped the minds and motivation of the under 15's. They were acting out their own cossetted version of urban warfare amongst the leafy suburban streets. Of course it did no real harm in their immature minds apart , in reality , from compounding the fear of crime amongst the elderly occupants of the quiet avenues and distressing resident pets already on edge for their expected duties of patrol and protection. 

Over the border we had not really been aware of any random detonations. Bonfire Night is a peculiarly English activity, more political and nationalistic than we may wish to admit in polite company. We revel in making loud noises, setting fires and generating plenty of white smoke with which to annoy the neighbours. 

The A1 from the Scottish Capital takes a looping route to the north east before sweeping down paralell to the north sea coast towards Berwick Upon Tweed. At that time of the year it is a fairly dour journey and we just ticked off the miles in anticipation of reaching our cosy self catering accommodation.

After an hour or so of driving we passed the large squat rectangle of Torness Nuclear Power Station, its squat block-house structures plain and functional in appearance. 

About half a mile past the entrance gates I noticed a flickering flame working towards us level with the side windows of the car and then directly across our path so low that it was framed in the middle of the windscreen as it crossed from right to left. 

A momentary thought was of a rocket firework let loose from the gorse cover of the verge, a bit of a jape for bored locals startling the traffic. The trajectory was however all wrong for a domestic firework, regular and steady. As the object crossed our forward line of vision it took on the unmistakable outline of an aircraft, a sleek fuselage and swept back wings with a distinctive tall tail and on fire. 

I recognised the profile, being a bit geeky about planes, as a Tornado Jet. 

No sooner had the fireball of a Fighter emerged it simply disappeared into the dark. 

I pulled the car over behind another vehicle whose occupants had been witnesses to the same scene. The night was completely silent, simply explained by the fact that the plane had crashed into the sea. 

A flare went up some distance inland. I cannot explain, even now, why I crossed to the other side of the road, climbed a barbed wire fence and set off across a field towards the direction of the purpley hued cloud line. 

Perhaps I was on a mercy mission, a single handed rescue attempt for the two crew members who, I hoped, had successfully ejected before the downing of the aircraft. I was thwarted in progressing any further by a deep cutting in the field. Squinting in the murk it was the electrified course of the main east coast railway line.

I hesitate to think what I would have done if I had come across the crew, either whole and alive or in bits. On returning to the car I stood around awkwardly with a few words spoken with the other driver and his passengers. 

There was nothing to see or show for what we had witnessed. No explosions. No drama . In fact we expressed mutual embarrassment at our prolonged stay on the verge. After a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, a local Police patrol arrived. We gave names and home addresses with the proviso that we may be contacted for a statement. 

The incident was briefly mentioned on the news broadcasts of the day. 

In the interim I believe a reasonable proportion of my tax payments have gone towards recompensing the nation for the loss of a twenty million pound asset. 

Quite an expensive firework display after all.

On the eve of the return of the beautiful game

Those under the age of, say 35, may find it hard to comprehend but in the pre-social media and gadget era one of the most treasured possessions of youth was the autograph book. 

The what? I can hear some tech-savvy dependants ask with incredulity but it is true. 

The humble shop bought or home made book, often multi coloured in sections through its pages, was the constant companion of teenagers and not just those actively seeking the stars and celebrities of the day. 

My own autograph book was a rather flamboyant one for a 10 year old lad. It had a padded floral front cover and gawdy lining which was noticed by my peer group with some inevitable remarks of a non-politically correct nature along the lines of it being, put mildly, a bit effeminate. This was a fairly regular and consistent form of language for the 1970’s. 

I just didn’t care though as I had bought it with my own pocket money and it was a very personal thing, perhaps even my first proper possession. 

The first signatures were my own. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not spent a good few hours in practicing their own signature just in readiness for becoming a noted personality and it is a tricky process to achieve a convincingly grown up and legible one. 

The main purpose for the autograph book was to collect the signatures of teachers and staff at that momentous occasion of the last day at junior school before the summer vacation and the prospect of resuming education as the small-fry at the huge and impersonal secondary modern in September. 

I never actually got the autograph of anyone famous apart from, I seem to recall, the Bishop of Lincoln who was a bit taken aback by my approach with book and biro whilst he was on a visit to our local parish church. 

The popularity of the autograph book evidently suffered with the development and widespread availability of the mobile phone as well as the almost intimate association possible with the famous and infamous through an almost hourly update of their moods, behaviour and often inane thoughts on their managed Twitter feeds and on Instagram and other social media platforms. To me the mystique and worth of celebrity status has been irreparably cheapened by 24-7 access. 

The selfie has taken the place of a good old physical signature, of course  that assumes that the current gaggle of wannabee personalities can actually write in the first place. 

My well founded cynicism was however tempered just this week with an open day for supporters at the stadium of our local team, Hull City. 

The invitation was to attend at a training session on the beautifully manicured pre-season grass of the pitch followed by an opportunity to meet the full first team squad.

It was a free event and so I volunteered to go and take along with me the sons of a friend, aged 5 and 9. They were in their replica kits although the players named on the shirts had been sold off in the close-season as part of a major shake-up including a new manager, the first Russian in English football. 

The event was attended by about 2000 children, parents and guardians keen to get in close proximity to an otherwise cosseted and chaperoned collection of wealthy athletes. 

Just one hour into the three hour timetable I could see parents in conversation with their youngsters about getting into a good position to take advantage of the meet and greet opportunity. Gradually a straggling line grew just inside the low perimeter wall of the pitchside with jostling children as well as a surprisingly well attired and made-up group of young mothers. 

This move was quickly dispersed by the club organisers who gave directions for an orderly queue to form in the stadium concourse to allow small clusters to be led down to the long line of table tops and chairs where the players were to be sat after completing their training session. 

What caught my attention and made me strangely nostalgic was that the majority of the children and a few of their mothers were clutching a proper and traditional autograph book. 

These, over the final hour of the open day, were passed in turn along the line of players who with care and respect filled the pages with well practiced thickly inked scrawls and squiggles. 

I could only stand and stare at this wonderful sight. 

I did however have some sympathy for one of the Hull City squad who along with the whole stadium heard a small girl, no more than 7 years old, point and shout out to hear father who was way up in the stand more than once “ who is that dad, who is that?” 

You never know, that ego-crushing anonymity could spur that player onto great things in the coming season. 

Who are you?

Left to our own devices

We called it "The Device". 

It was a name that suited our sense of mystery and excitement as young children making the most of the play value of our local environment. 

Before the realisations of stranger danger and the like we roamed freely through the town streets, back lanes, fields, woods and any private property not protected by anything that resembled a physical barrier to inquisitive minds.

The Device had appeared one afternoon. We did not see how it came to be in our domain because for some part of the day we were required to be at school. In reality, two men from the Council had arrived in a van carrying the apparatus. 

It consisted of two parallel cables, thick, rubberised and secured to the road with hammered in brackets through the tarmac. Fairly ordinary stuff to us who had experience of quite technical things from prising the lids off gas meter boxes, leaving metal objects in the path of Municipal Grass Mowers  and throwing old plimsolls up and to straddle the lines and cables that criss-crossed the district. 

We stood on the kerb and verge and weighed up The Device. The ends of the cables were just that, ends. Squatting like a golfer in the planning of a long putt we squinted along the full distance of the strands. They were perfectly aligned and with regular and solid fixing to the carriageway. A stout stick, wedged under the sections between the brackets was unable to dislodge anything to any satisfying extent and we soon lost interest. 

The road itself was a busy one. In our short lifetimes to date we had seen the traffic levels increase significantly as our town continued to expand with new housing, shops and business premises. When at one time it was possible to just sit on the kerb, feet on a drain gully for a good proportion of a summers day the same practice now ran a real risk of being run over or tossed up into the hedge in the bow-wave and slipstream from a large articulated lorry. One of our number had been hospitalised after having his toes crushed under the wheels of a delivery van for Liptons Stores.

A project in school about the olden days had included studying a yellowing parchment type map, or even a bit like linen on a gauze backing. What was now the busy road had been, some 100 years before, but a single line rough cart track going and coming from nowhere in particular. 

Times had certainly changed. In a lull in the otherwise constant movement of vehicles the braver amongst us mimicked a tightrope walk along one of the cables or straddling both. As the black lines lifted up over the far kerb they disappeared from view into the unkempt grass of the verge. A scuffing action with our feet cleared the vegetation where it covered the cables. It was at that point that we found the main part, the brains of The Device. It was a small metal box. 

Our Mother had a Tupperware container about the same size which could easily cope with a full packet, although of shortlived existence, of digestive biscuits and remnants of former wrappings around Custard Creams, Abbey Crunch and , my particular favourite, Bourbons. The sizes of the rectangular objects were compatible and perhaps Mother should have followed the example of The Device by fitting a large, imposing padlock to the biscuit container to prevent it from being opened.

Even the best tempered steel was not strong enough for the impact of half a brick and the lock was easily demolished. Inside we found some sort of mechanism and a dial display of black numbers around a series of white drums. As we stared at our discovery there was a whirring and a clicking sound. The right hand digit increased by one. The same sounds and process repeated on a regular basis and the counted total increased each time by a single increment. I think we must have been a bit thick because it took some time for us to realise that the action of the display was caused by the passage of a vehicle, along the road and  over the cables. 

In a collective expression of "oohh, The Device counts traffic" , thoughts of mischief and mayhem flooded into our young and active minds. 

In the following weeks and at every opportunity out of school and having completed any domestic chores we all took it in turns to jump up and down on The Device. 

It was quite a logistical operation involving most of the kids in the area. There were those keeping an eye out for cars and lorries using the road. Others were witnesses to the increasing count of the dials. On a strict rota all of us, bar none, showed great energy and commitment in jumping up and down. 

Initial curiosity in increasing the digits on a steady, plodding, marching action basis soon developed into very intense competition to acheive the highest count in any sixty second stint. Quite maniacal behaviour ensued and the All Comers Best Record for counts per minute changed hands, it seemed, just about every time someone took up the challenge. 

Within twenty four months that stretch of road had returned to its mid Victorian status as a quiet and sleepy lane, going from nowhere to nowhere because the town had a brand new, dual carriageway by-pass. 

Apparently the Council and Highways Departments, after undertaking a structured and authoritative traffic survey had grossly underestimated the amount of vehicle movements in proximity to the housing estate and what was evidently a very popular open play area for the local children. The original 10 year plan to create a safe, family orientated environment was accelerated in the interests of safety and amenity.

Even today, some 40 years later, when I drive along the 'A' Road that runs around the periphery of my town I have a sense of misguided civic pride.

Was it all in Vain?- Hull 1845

Looking through the Classified Advertisements in the Hull Packet and East Riding Times of 1845 you would get the impression the readers of that publication were a bunch of hypochondriacs or terribly vain. 

Many column inches are given over to those in the business of herbal and general medicines, surgical appliances and do-it yourself Quack Doctor type cures. 

This could be a reflection of the high cost of medical advice and attention which would only be within the budgets of the Middle and Upper Classes of Victorian Society. 

The majority of products were available nationally and with a number of Hull based Apothecaries, Druggists and Chemists acting as official stockists and agents. 

Most prominent of the local outlets were Ross and Burton of Lowgate, Thomas Walker in Whitefriargate, Mr Kenningham of Beverley and a few others including Messrs Hammonds, Bell, Weir, Ryder and Reinhardt. 

So what was on offer to alleviate the symptoms and ailments most commonly afflicting the good people of Kingston upon Hull in 1845? 

Natural based remedies were very prominent. 

Senna, as a fluid extract was advertised as an efficient and easy Purgative with one or two teaspoons as the dose guaranteeing no sickness or gripe but yet helping with the torpid action of the stomach and bowels. The extract, prepared in vacuo, was for sale in bottles for 2s6d, 5 shillings or 10 shillings. 

Brand names did form a strong pedigree in a market where there will have been many imitations of lesser quality and diligence in production and provenance. 

Simco's Essence of Linseed was directed at parents and guardians for the treatment of influenza and coughs in children. 

Ginger based substances were also widely available being sourced from the Colonial Empire. Williamsons were the makers of a highly concentrated essence of Jamaican root ginger. Its special properties have been known to ancient civilisations over the millenia and in particular for stomach and digestive tract complaints. The Victorian diet of the wealthier and privileged in society and lifestyle certainly promoted conditions for which ginger could help with such as gout, palsy, rheumatism, flatulence and what is described as hysterical affections. 

For the teetotal amongst the Hull population extract of ginger was marketed as a viable substitute when taken as a cordial to replace intoxicating spirits. 

A few herbal remedies have names straight out of folk lore.

 One of these is Foss's Pectoral Balsam of Horehound. It's target market was those suffering from coughs, cold, flue and pulmonary conditions. 

Some claims of products seem a bit basic, for example the property of Dennis's Family Pills to promote the secretion of bile to alleviate the effects of indigestion, headache and spasms. 

All of the Brand Names dedicate parts of their paid for advertisement space to warnings of spurious and ineffective imitations being hawked around. 

Rowlands appear to have been a prolific manufacturer of preparations for a wider market. Unique tonics and substances were offered for hair, skin and teeth. Macassar Oil was a popular scalp and hair application, hence the need for protective covers on furniture to prevent absorption and staining. Kalydor is a name associated with the treatment of pimples, freckles and chilblains being championed as a botanical. Gentlemen were urged to use it as an after shave lotion. 

Of course there were the mainstays of every family medicine chest such as Cod Liver Oil to boost the immune systems where diet alone could not provide adequate nourishment. 

It was not just internally taken  treatments on offer. 

The use of hand drawn diagrams such as of an adult leg, unisex, showed the wearing of elastic laced stockings on knees and ankles (spelt ancles), as well as Ladies Belts and Baileys Trusses. Obesity is not obviously a solely 21st Century problem.

Two intriguing products were Dr Davis's Medicated Flannel which may have been a poultice and Pastilles de Belloc for the purification of blood. 

The Victorian Era did see a dramatic improvement in Medical Science and Surgery for the populus and so gradually the reliance on self-treatment using those products aimed at the domestic market will have diminished over time. 

Saturdays

Growing up, a Saturday was always a very special day. 

It was the only day that could really be enjoyed by a child. It marked a school week that be ticked off as having been endured. Another 5 days done out of, well, from Infants school to being a leaver at age 17-18, at least 3500 days of full on education minus genuine sick days or those when fast persistent breathing can cause a light headedness which persuades your mother to let you stay at home. I did this trick often until I was about 13 years old. 

Unfortunately, I cannot now watch a black and white film without feeling sympathetic anxiety from those days when a skive off usually involved watching Miss Marple movies just before my siblings burst in and took over. 

By contrast, a Sunday was not to be enjoyed. Smartened up for Church, usually people around for lunch or out visiting family or friends and then  preparation for the next days return to school. Bath, hairwash, Nit scrape (seasonally optional) and recovering the contents of the satchel which had been enthusiastically dispersed about the house after getting back on a friday. 

In the 1970's I remember the saturday morning TV. Champion the Wonder Horse, The Flashing Blade, Marine Boy. Then along came Swap Shop which was a revolutionary concept for a Kid's programme. The combination of a Live broadcast and interviews with children was highly risky for the BBC but became an important part of the schedule. 

Following the chaos of Swap Shop was the order and procedure of Grandstand. The sports coverage started with a whistle stop summary of what was on during the day. Horse racing, rugby, the one off annual coverage of the Boat Race, boxing, athletics, rowing, cross country running, very infrequent and poorly reported cycling and of course, Football. 

I avidly watched the forerunners to Football Focus as it previewed the days main games and from not just the old First Division. In the pre-satellite TV days any football action on the small screen was extremely rare, usually the FA Cup Final and some England or the Home Internationals. The short snippets of action from the previous weeks games was all that was available. There were features on new managers and the best players, all of whom seemed to drive a Ford Capri and have a hairdresser girlfriend or wife. They were easily on at least £100 per week but even at such a high level of earnings they were somehow approachable, literate and articulate. 

After the football section and faced with the prospect of horse racing from Chepstow it was time to do some activities outside. Perhaps a trip to the shops, a play out at friends, kick about or just up to mischief generally. Somehow, and without a watch, clock or timepiece I always sensed when it was time to get home for the next TV session. Play-Away. This ran from about 3.30pm to 4.30pm. A mix of singing, nonsense, sketches and all round entertainment usually accompanied by the smell of cheese on toast from the kitchen. 

Then, the pivotal part of saturday. The chattering of the ancient teleprinter with abbreviated latest and final scores and then the football results read on the BBC by Tim Gudgin. Actually, his name was rarely mentioned or at least not at all noticed by me as I lined up my slotted league table from the pre-season Shoot Magazine and prepared to meticulously write down, for posterity, the days scores. 

Tim Gudgin had that sort of familiar voice that gave a great feeling of calm and well being in the world. The results were never hurried or mis-delivered. There were hints in the tone of his voice of a score draw or a surprise away win even before he gave the facts. The big scoring games were always reported with style and with great emphasis on the second teams heriosm if retrieving a draw after being many goals to the poorer for much of the game. He gave no hint of where his allegiances as a fan lay which showed exceptional professionalism and a very thick skin. 

The reading out of the results would always, however, drag on. A full league programme extended into the Scottish second division or, if there were Cup matches, even some non-league results to make up the fixture on the Pools Coupon. We did the Littlewoods Pools for a short time but my maths was not that strong on small numbers and fractions and I must have given false hope to my family of a massive pools win by adding up with great innacuracy. 

I saw the coverage of Tim Gudgin's last broadcast and I was sad. Change is a disturbing thing. It was the same when the Speaking Clock changed sex, when John Peel died and sherbert fountain packaging went plastic.

I await to see the pedigree of the next incumbent of the institution that is reading the football results. 

I hope it is not some automated voice or a regional accent that would require sub titles. The BBC will have asked, no doubt, that Tim Gudgin pre-records a number of announcements to cover all future eventualities. I would not at all be phased or distressed by a voice over the airwaves announcing, for example, "  And now for the final moments of the world threatened by meteorite impact read by.........................." 

As a footnote, the ultimate football result almost came true on the 1st of November this year.It was amazingly, East Fife 4, Forfar 3.

I would have like to have been at that game for the last few moments of unprecedented expectation. 

Perhaps Tim Gudgin felt it was a case of so close but no cigar and faced with insurmountable odds against it actually ocurring this may, I speculate, have led him to think about retiring, oh, and he was 82 years old.

1794- another busy year for Hull

There was a lot going on in the year 1794. 

As reported in the newspaper in Kingston Upon Hull in the summer months it was a mightily troubled time. 

The aftermath of the French Revolution carried on and from Paris there was news of further public executions by guillotine with some 139 souls dispatched in just six days. 

The States of Holland and West Freisland expressed determination to retain their independence. 

The armies of the French were active across Europe with skirmishes in the Rhineland and the Prussians were besieging Warsaw. 

British troops were on alert for outbreaks of military action on a number of fronts both onshore and on the oceans. 

Even the mild mannered Swiss were engaged in a civil war in the Geneva Republic. 

Against this very militaristic background, for the people of Kingston Upon Hull there was a semblance of normality. 

Column inches in the press were given over to Notices of Auction Sales, Bankruptcy, Positions Vacant in affluent households and on the docks there were postings for imminent sailings to distant and not so distant destinations. 

The sail ship Rochdale captained by Edward Lake was taking applications for passengers and goods either to the Master direct or at the offices of shipping agents, Knowsley and Eubank. 

There appears to have been a bit of malicious local gossip possibly from competitor vessels as the following statement was issued 

"A report having been circulated that the above ship was not instructed to sail with the first convoy without having a full cargo, the owners of the Rochdale take this public method of assuring their friends that such report was groundless and unfounded- Hull August 15th 1794". 

A sailing to Cadiz and Malaga was the intention of The Leeds under Captain Tho. Hudson. With safety in numbers essential for the hazardous journey through enemy infested waters and territories as well as with the constant threat of being seized by Privateers it was the case of preparing to join a convoy. 

The Leeds was ready to sail for the Spanish Ports with the first convoy. 

The new Brig Prospect with Capt Francis Clark at the helm was sailing to Bilbao. At berthen weight of 180 tons it succeeded the Brig Ann. The shipping agent, Peter Atkinson could be approached for passage. 

Also for Bilbao but also for the Northern Spanish port of St Sebastian was the ship, Nancy. Her master, Abraham Ward went under the title of a constant trader. They would actively accompany the aformentioned Prospect on the next Southern Convoy. 

Closer to home in inland waters was the destination of Aberdeen for the ships, The Jean and Bell. Such was the inherent danger from weather, tides, rocks and reefs that the timetable for shipping was a bit vague merely stating that a vessel was expected any day and would sail again some 10 days after arrival. 

For all of the peril and stress of those turbulent times you would wonder why anyone at all would risk leaving the safety of their homes and hearths.

The Quiet Revolution

An upsurge in interest in cycling amongst the civilian population in the first decade of the 20th Century for leisure and recreation had created mass demand and production to meet the demand brought about a lowering of cost and greatly improved efficiency and reliability of different models.

In 1910 King George the Fifth was made Patron of the Cyclist Touring Club and this Royal Endorsement was the catalyst to the further rapid growth of clubs and societies who would organise cycling day trips and tours to appeal to the largely urban population. It was an activity that crossed many of the social divides of the time representing independence and excitement for all ages, genders and standings.

I am not sure thought process led to the role that bicycles played in the First World War (1914-18) being seen as an important means of transporting troops to the battle zones and as a support for regular infantry. It may have just been the pure economics, a cheap mode of movement or the realisation amongst recruiters that enthusiasts on two wheels could just continue their  activity but in a war zone and on the front line. The poster below was typical of those appealing for cyclists to fight for King and Country.

                                                                                                                                                

There is a very strange use of words linking a fondness for cycling to a potential killing role in war. I can only think that those with bad teeth would be encouraged.

The first bikes in military use were just ordinary shop-bought types very much of the sit up and beg style of the time.They would be painted in camouflage khaki green and taken back to bare essentials in order to be used by quick response battalions to engage the enemy in skirmishing and in scouting for main operations. The machines were easily dispensed with in a conflict situation being just thrown down to release their riders for immediate action.

In the early period of the First World War with roads and byways not yet churned up by heavy artillery or the deep ruts of gun carriages and supply wagons the bike could be used for patrols, field exercises and to compliment the mounted divisions. Other roles included two wheeled messengers, signallers, runners and the Military Police. The very first fatality of the conflict was a cycling soldier.

As the workload of cycling soldiers increased it was necessary to develop purpose built bikes and these were by design more robust and adaptable. The standard equipment that had to be loaded up consisted of great coat, mess tin and rations, blanket and kit, waterproof cape, webbing  and of course a gun and ammunition. These were mounted on a series of fitted carriers and racks making a heavy payload that only a more solid and robust bike could cope with. 

A handbook was brought out for the wheeled regiments with such practical advice as push the bike up hill to save on wear and tear and make sure the mechanical parts were well maintained. The theatre of war was dominated by heavy trench fighting and mud and it soon became impractical for bikes to play anything more than a support and logistical part . 

The Second World War saw a return of cycling soldiers, particularly in the Wehrmacht or German Army in its rapid over-running of much of Europe. The Low Countries were of ideal flat terrain for bikes to be used in the occupation and this was down to great effect, often with the element of surprise. However, the increasing use of heavy weapons, tanks and the new found dominance of aircraft in warfare sounded the end of cycling soldiers, somewhat primitive as military equipment in comparison.

Those fortunate enough to return in one piece from the savagery of the First World War resumed their two wheeled leisure and recreational pursuits and cycling went from strength to strength in the inter war period which was the halcyon period for the activity. In the post war years there was the same trend of a resurgence in riding bikes for pleasure and any association with warfare and killing was confined to the history books and a sizeable library of grainy black and white photographs.