Best of One Last Soul- Great railway journeys

 

Great Railway Journeys

Amongst the great railway journeys in the world one of my favourites does not really figure in say, the top ten thousand.

There are no dramatic mountain peaks hovering vertically overhead, no sheer drops into a raging torrent in the bottom of the valley, no risk of rock falls or landslide in a constant battle against the forces of nature, no need to carve a snaking route through a harsh environment with dynamite or to provide an armed on board presence to discourage attack and insurrection.

My journey starts at a typical red brick railway station in the west of Hull commuter town of Hessle.

The old ticket office sits at street level in a leafy suburb and looking onto large late Victorian properties originally built as superior residences for the well to do of the East Riding but now either split into flats or operating in the Health and Social Care sectors.

In terms of progress in the latter part of the 19th Century having a railway station at your front door would be quite an attraction, a modern amenity. The platform for trains to Hull is set at a lower level following the topography of a narrow plateau between Hessle Cliff and a further, shallower slope down to the Humber Foreshore.

For those venturing westwards and served by the far platform it is a case of using a large metal gantry bridge with the accompanying whistle of a prevailing wind as it hugs the contours. The Station, once employing perhaps upwards of a dozen employees is now unmannned and only frequented by the distant voice of the announcer over the tannoy. As the sound system suddenly bursts into life with someone playing a xylophone those waiting can be seen to be startled or grimacing in equal numbers.

The early morning trains are the short local ones, two sections, bench seats, no frills, deserted apart from a few shop workers and early bird shoppers. I am excited as we move off. There is some deep rooted emotion about being conveyed by a train. I have tried to fight it by refusing to stand on a bridge to await the arrival of a specific named or numbered engine with binoculars, camera and anorak.

As part of my self imposed therapy I stare out of the window. On the north side of the line to Hull leaving Hessle stands a large area of post war built housing infilling between the grand Victorian Villas and a small terrace of railway workers cottages. Once isolated and well out of the town the neat engineering brick faced  properties are now hemmed in and squeezed by industry. The train rattles over a bridge where it crosses Hessle Haven although in land drain guise before it widens at the estuary mouth. I recall many a ship launch sideways into the tidal outlet of the same watercourse just out of sight.

As business and commerce has followed the trend over the last decade or so to vacate the old central city areas it has relocated to the floodplain between Hessle and West Hull. There are acre upon acre of sheds, multi purpose with the same basic pattern and style being adapted for either office, showroom, factory or recreational use. The out of town retailers have followed with large Sainsbury and Aldi stores. The new Park and Ride has also become established and always, when overlooked from the competing train, seems to be well patronised.

The low rise business district contrasts sharply with the large and tall edifice of a Hotel with coffee shop franchise and Health Club but even this yellow stone monument is dominated by the powder blue stanchions of the Arco Warehouse. The span and tension in the metalwork creates a huge clear working space for the storage and distribution of every manner of safety equipment. At 6pm every evening a fleet of parcel carriers leave the premises, straining on their axles to meet the 24 hour delivery promise for steel capped work boots or padded ear defenders and so much more. The articulated trucks complete a 12 hour cycle of peak activity on the industrial estate which started with the vans and lorries going to and from the wholesale fruit and flower market at its eastern end.

Having run quite close and paralell to the river and business district the railway line turns inland, north easterly at about the position of Cod Farm, a promontory, man made into the river where lines of filleted fish were hung out to air dry in the halcyon days of the trawling industry. Large mounds of gravel and salt can be seen in the marshalling yards where in the 1970's the sections of the Humber Suspension Bridge were assembled and gathered before being floated up river and lifted into position.

There is another estate of factories including a large manufacturer of Yorkshire Puddings but of older and now rather dated buildings. I avert my gaze from an area of open ground where, to the open mouthed amazement of the occupants of a train from London to Hull, a man was seen having sexual relations with a tethered goat.

The older terraced housing  on the outer approaches to the city made way in the 1960's for bland modern council houses . Current demolition and clearance has led to some striking town houses in deep glazed brick panels with gable balconies and neat wrought iron fenced in forecourts. Nice but probably only good and sustainable for about 50 years whereas the former housing had survived over 100 including wartime bombing.

A series of level crossings frustrate the busy city traffic but a vast improvement from the 1950's when constant rail freight traffic to and from the thriving docks meant that the crossing gates on the main arterial roads of Hull were closed for a cumulative total of 15 hours a day. My window flashes in and out of light and shade as the train passes under the Anlaby Road Flyover, one of the civil engineering remedies to bypass the physical severance of the road by the rail lines.

Houses close to the course of the railway have metal tie bars in their brickwork to counter the rattling and wobbling effect that a procession of diesel engines, and steam engines before can exact on an already fairly unstable foundation on a shrinkable clay.

The Infirmary is a large sprawl of old and very modern buildings, mostly in the shadow of the now very dated multi storey tower of Hull Royal. The train is slowing now, tic-tac sounding across points where the main lines into Hull Station converge. I laugh aloud at a piece of humorous graffitti on the underside of a road bridge and depair at the rest of the indiscriminate and illiterate offerings on walls, obsolete signal boxes and on every other accessible available surface.

The vast arched profile of Paragon Station is in view, a magnificent example of functional and beautiful architecture, much featured in film and television. It will have been marvelled at by the 2.2 million immigrants awaiting transit from Hull to Liverpool and beyond at a turbulent time in their own lives and world history over 100 years ago. Their onward journey will have been of epic and dramatic proportions. My own, about 6 miles and 7 minutes.

The Best of One Last Soul- The Infamous Pot Noodle

 The recent demise of the train robber Ronnie Biggs brought to mind the transition that often occurs from arch villain/blaggard/right nasty piece of work to just "a bit of a loveable rogue".

I am in sympathy with those individuals and families directly and indirectly affected by the aforementioned rail heist and other heinous crimes. The passage of time may have permitted them to arrive at a place of forgiveness in order to achieve some form of closure even if it is still not reasonable in any universe to expect  acceptance of the perpetrators as modern day Robin Hood characters.

There have always been heroes and villains and the moral position between them can often be vague and ill defined. Take Nelson Mandela. In the eyes of his comrade campaigners against the injustice to humanity that was Apartheid he was a freedom fighter. To the white supremacists holding desperately onto any recognisable sovereign power he was a terrorist. Many dictators have, before falling to moral corruption and their own God Complexes, been held as saviours of their nations.

On a not dissimilar theme the Pot Noodle was voted, in 2004, the most hated of all branded foods.

It took some time to attain that position of vilification from the consumer nation of ours. The origins of the quick snack were in the days of post war shortages and austerity in Japan and its first incarnations fulfilled a desperate requirement for a simple filler for empty stomachs.

The introduction of the more recognisable rebranded versions of Pot Noodle to the wider world and in particular the UK came in the mid to late 1970's. It was a logical addition to a freeze-dried line-up of cuppa soups and Vesta meals which represented the pinnacle of the industry in dehydrated foodstuffs.

I recall my first exposure to a Pot Noodle as a teenager.

Peer pressure was at play to try this new fangled lifestyle and aspirational product.

I was afraid to be caught sneaking back home before family tea-time with dry powder on my face or the unmistakable odour of chicken flavouring on my breath. In my year at school we all partook to one degree or another. Some became addicted to the infusion, the huge infusion of salt, preservatives and MSG and a little bit stupid on the highly charged sauce sachets.

I swear that I never inhaled. It was banned from packed lunches and had to be locked away if found in duffle or kits bags on the bus on the way to a Scout Camp.

It was the height of sophistication to treat the opposite sex to a beef and tomato Pot Noodle.

Unfortunately, the product was soon to fall from the high standing in which it had been launched through misinformation of its composition and not a little ridicule in popular humour. Doubt was cast on the nutritional benefits of the compact meal and rumours were rife as to what actually formed the ingredients. There were the usual, highly hilarious but ultimately upsetting jibes of "Not Poodle" and so on.

The product was however good enough in commercial performance to entice the massive Unilever Corporation to purchase the rights and intellectual property of Pot Noodle from Golden Wonder in 1995. A factory in Wales churned out 155 million of them a year as an endorsement of their popularity, albeit very much clandestine, underground and closeted.

The undercurrent of hatred never really waned through the 1990's and beyond. It was not helped by controversial marketing campaigns playing on the venomous attitudes of a noisy minority hell bent on driving Pot Noodle out of existence. It was as if they were personally offended by a dehydrated mix of noodles. "Slag of all snacks" was a strapline in the succession of negative reinforcement from slick marketing and advertising companies.

The accusers persisted in their criticism of Pot Noodle as low quality when in fact it was a cloaked attack on the main perceived consumer market of the lazy and the poor.

Pot Noodles have never been marketed openly to the Middle Classes although the newest Piri Piri Chicken may appeal to those spying it on the shelves in the petrol station shop or large bulk sale supermarkets. It may even become a matter of inverted snobbery like matt black and de-chromed motor vehicles.

Pot Noodle has been the perfect excuse for an "us and them " situation.

Wars, throughout history have started on similar pretences.

I have today attempted a personal crusade to act as an intermediary between the Noodlers and the Abstainers. My position has been strengthened by the recessionary conditions afflicting our nation which have inevitably led to an increase in Pot Noodle consumption out of necessity for a good proportion of the population to meet minimum nutritional needs.

I have, for my lunch today, consumed a Piri Piri and after a brief lie down and recuperation from the overall experience am ready and fully prepared to rally forth my troops for a long and bitter campaign towards the full and unconditional acceptance of the Pot Noodle as a National Pleasure.

Best of One Last Soul- In the footsteps of Richard the Third

 It felt like the beginning of a great expedition.

It was a thursday, but if you think about it, at least one in every seven of the great adventures of the world must have started on a thursday.

Christopher Columbus may have had a lie in on a wednesday and then it was too late to set off, etc, etc so thursday was best to begin the stumbling upon the Americas, ditto James Cook-  late delivery of ships biscuits on a wednesday night so best to set sail thursday, Cortez had a late swordsmans lesson mid week therefore making thursday the only possible diarised date to begin the exploitation of the native South American peoples.

As I headed away from the Hull urban area it was bright but quite cold out of the direct sun.

There was snow in the fields and hedgerows on the higher ground above Pocklington but not a cloud in the powder blue sky. I felt that it was going to be a good day for exploring and actually acheiving the circumnavigation of York along its magnificent walls.

The walls are the longest and best preserved in England at nearly three miles long.

Their origins are clouded by their substantial reconstruction and renovations in the comparatively modern times since the 19th Century but for authenticity there remains intact a whole stretch of Roman walls including two towers. As with a good proportion of the well planned and executed civil works by the Romans these formed the structural basis for many of the later attempts to form fortifications and monuments by the more civilised and lasting rulers of the country such as the later Norman invaders. Most of the renovated walling is early medieval from around 1250 AD.

My quest was to be clockwise starting from Lendal Bridge, one of the important crossing points of the River Ouse. On this particular thursday the river was manageable and well contained within its banks rather than marauding through the pubs and houses on the embankment which it often does even with modern flood defences in place.

The integrity of the wall beyond Lendal Tower was surely tested in the early to mid 1800's when it was permitted for it to be punched through in the interests of the progression of the steam railway. That George Hudson, the self proclaimed Railway King must have had superb powers of persuasion, significant economic clout or some very incriminating facts about the City elders who had strongly resisted any such travesties in the heritage of York.

The walls had served the City well over the centuries against pillagers and worse and in 1645 a Civil War siege.

Micklegate Bar is first mentioned in the12th Century. A strikingly functional and intimidating building over four storeys in gritstone and magnesian limestone with some nice carved embellishments. The walkway has escaped health and safety measures and the steep drop to the inner bank makes the meeting of those undertaking their own adventure but in an anti-clockwise direction a bit scary particularly if the whole oncoming family insist on walking 5 or 6 abreast.

The Victorian housing in the lee of the wall is in the warm and mellow brick characteristic to York. Certainly some of the most expensive two bedroomed real estate in the City. There is a clump of grassy bank as the wall turns east which is the former Motte of a castle and then it is down the slippery stepped courses off the wall where it ends just behind the warehousing and posh apartments built along the western bank of the river.

I crossed the Skeldergate Bridge which was still busy with tourists although obviously lost and confused by the temporary disppearance of the wall. The consultation by this representation of the United Nations of visitors of their guide maps allows another photo opportunity to be taken.

Along Fishergate the housing just inside the wall is mainly of rather plain and corporate looking flats and  low rise housing. The main road in from Hull along which I had driven earlier in the day halts at a busy traffic light controlled junction in front of the Walmgate Bar. This is well preserved with its 14th Century Barbican now part of the extensive cycle routes around York. On the inner side is a residence dating from the 1580's and must be one of the best and coolest places to live albeit possibly a bit cramped, noisy and draughty. Even following a battering in the Civil War the gateway was carefully restored along with its portcullis.

The wall is lower along this section with a short but steep embankment onto the inner ring road.

Perhaps this was the most vulnerable flank although give that nourishment and longevity were still very poor in the warring years the fortifications would present a formidable obstacle to the sickly, bandy-legged and quite short of stature armed forces of even the most determined and resolute attackers.

As the wall again disappears at the Red Tower, a squat very Romanesque looking citadel but from 1490 there is nothing in sight apart from Waitrose, Morrisons and a Wine Warehouse. There is quite an extensive gap on this eastern edge of the old part of York but to some extent the defences are in the form of a former fishpond now part of a canal waterway. This part of the wall walk is quite demoralising alongside crawling or stationary traffic and with a strange stagnant odour from the grubby canal.

It is good to ascend back up onto the all for the best section by far which takes in Layerthorpe Tower and exposed Roman walling.

Monk Bar is, at four storeys in limestone, a great landmark and many visitors cannot resist the museum to Richard III the infamous hunchback and villanous monarch who was a local lad.

Now travelling broadly north there are good views of York Minster and the gardens and grounds of grand mansions and town houses including the Treasurers House. The steep outer bank here also shows a deep defensive ditch.

Bootham Bar is the next vantage point and occupies the site of the Roman Legionary Fortress but is mainly of 12th century and later construction.  The end of my journey is soon in sight as I again approach Lendal Tower.

It has been a tremendous adventure, I accept probably never more than a few hundred metres from a Starbucks and with no significant danger apart from a temporarily loose shoe lace at one stage on a section of wall with no safety rail.

I did dodge a bit across the gaps in the ramparts to avoid imaginary arrows and projectiles and go through, word for word the dialogue of the French Kerniggets from Monty Python and The Holy Grail but only when I was out of sight and earshot of other visitors.

The circumnavigation provides a good but brief insight into the broad and varied history of York and does serve to get the vascular and respiratory system into operation after quite a long and lazy winter and early spring.

Best of One Last Soul- loitering at the Whitby Smoke House

I might not ever say those same words in the same order ever again. 

It is a quite unique combination of words perhaps muttered by mere mortals on a very rare occasion. 

They were the most apt and explanatory words for what I had to do but nevertheless caused quite a stir amongst my co-workers upon announcing them as the reason for leaving the office this morning. 

“I have to go and deliver some Kippers”. 

I was not being euphemistic, ambiguous or double-entendre-ing  (not sure if that is a real word).

My late Father had his own phrase about “going to see a man about a dog” which gradually sank in amongst the rest of the family as meaning that he had to leave and do some errand but with no predetermined timescale. 

I had no intention of developing my own euphemism but “I have to go and deliver some kippers” is as good as any and could cover all manner of trips, jaunts and absences from the office or home. 

In fact I was trying to help out my wife’s Australian cousin, who with his wife is on a visit to the UK after some seven or so years of last being here. 

On his wish list for the 3 week vacation was the purchase of some Kippers- surely everyone knows what these are- wood smoke cured herring. 

There is a good choice of these on any ice packed fish counter at a supermarket and even in the ordinary seafood display down the delicatessen aisle. It is even possible to buy a rather bland and unappetising boil in the bag version. 

However, the best ever kippers are from a specific source in a magical place. 

I am talking about Fortunes in the North Yorkshire coast town of Whitby. 

I had not actually heard of them before but as far away as Australia they were held with some reverence. They regularly featured on those regional food programmes on TV channels where celebrity chefs or just plain celebrities go in search of good, authentic, honest and artisan products. You know the sort of broadcasts where the presenter wears a safari suit, fancy hat and drives around in a classic motor vehicle decrying the globalisation and anonymity of food production. 

There has been a huge emphasis in the media on provenance of food especially after the controversy and public outcry about horse flesh in lasagne and the re-emergence in the food supply chain of previously condemned and supposedly confiscated meat, fruit and vegetables. 

You cannot get any more authentic and pure than a Fortunes Kipper- no, not a slick marketing slogan from a top-notch advertising agency but my own endorsement having been to the Whitby headquarters just yesterday. 

The use of the term HQ is as far from reality as you can get. 

Fortunes premises comprise of a shack of a shop about 5 metres by 3 metres and leaning against the back of it the smokehouse, another shack. 

We could smell the wonderful aroma of the curing smoke from the bottom of the steep 199 steps that snake up the cliffside from Whitby Town to the ruins of the Abbey. The odour reminds me always of the open log and coal fires of rented cottages during a winter weekend or early springbreak along that part of the Yorkshire coastline, Robin Hoods Bay and Staithes in particular which are not far off equidistant from Whitby to the south and north respectively. 

Yesterday was a beautiful late September one after some very mixed and unpredictable weather over the preceding summer months. The town, for a Tuesday and out of season was as busy as ever with the main pedestrian flow being along the narrow harbourside streets and up the ladder-like steps. 

We veered off from the pack following with our noses the smoky air, just visible as a light cloud between the parallel terraced houses of Henrietta Street perched high above the convergence of the River Esk and the North Sea. 

We could not yet see the source of the enticing sight and smell but were pretty close as successive cottages were named along a Kipper theme amongst the usual tributes to Captain Cook and nautical terms. 

A rather weatherbeaten sign on the side of a low single storey building could just be seen bearing the Fortunes name and pedigree of time served Kipper smoking. 

A hand written piece of paper in the squat window said that they were not open until 1.30pm that day, a tantalising 40 minutes ahead. We were not alone on that street. A few touristy types like ourselves were simply hanging around in anticipation of the start of business.

A white smoke, a sort of Papal vote hue, was wisping around the top of a hefty door on the outbuilding and was fine enough to squeeze its way seemingly through the roof and every knot hole, nook and cranny of the timber and brick walls. 

Time dragged by even with the purchase of an ice cream and a welcome sit down on a precariously angled timber bench in a warm sunny spot just around the corner. 

At last we retraced our steps along the well worn cobbles where you are never far away from the spirits and lost souls of the historic fishing and whaling community from centuries past. 

As a treat the doors to the smoke house were wide open having been emptied of the tarry racks of aromatic Kippers which now stood on a counter in the shack shop. The floor of the smoke house was strewn with part combusted woodchips and its walls caked in a treacle-like residue from over 140 years of production. 

We were first in a slowly forming queue, a bit like kiddies in a sweet shop and for £3.95 we could have a pair of mellow toned, fine boned Kippers of our very own. 

Six pairs were bought from a recited list of family members to whom had been promised a proper Kipper over the previous few days by our Australian guests.

I would be roped into the delivery service in due course.

Wrapped up by, I presume by the Mr Fortune, we whisked them away back down the narrow street and held them close as though freshly found treasure. 

Best of One Last Soul- The Return of the three legged dog

 This is a favourite piece of writing from a couple of years ago.

It may be a bit of an Angler's tall tale but there used to be a three legged dog that hung around the shoreline of a local freshwater lake.

It was friendly enough but to those sat quietly, fishing those well stocked waters, it seemed a bit anxious as though looking for something. It was from this that the narrative arose that the dog had been swimming in the weedy shallows when a large Pike, a notorious predator fish, had bitten off one of its hind legs, decisively and clinically.

That sort of story, whether in fact true or a yarn, fable, rumour or outright fabrication has given to the Pike an enthralling reputation. It is fearsome and to be feared.

It's latin name, Esox Lucius, roughly translates to devil fish, which alludes to the myth,legend and also the factual and real life of this species.

I have had some personal experience of the creature.

In my early teenage years I was a keen but rather chaotic angler. It was actually a genetic thing inherited in a much diluted form from my maternal Grandfather, Dick. After he died I took on some of his beloved fishing rods and tackle and found out for myself about the joy and peacefulness of sitting on a riverbank for hour upon hour.

It was not really that important to catch anything, rather just to gather your thoughts, drink pop, eat sandwiches, play with warm, bran covered maggots and watch the world flow by on a slow current.

I started to buy the Angling Times to give some credibility to my bungling, amateur status as a freshwater fisher and in those pages I built up a startling image of the Pike. Grainy photos of successful catches loomed out of the pages of that publication. The Pike weighing down the two arms of beefy angler types were all huge.

I became obsessed with finding out more about this natural predator in typical schoolboy fervour following on from a similar all encompassing thirst for facts on the Bermuda Triangle, UFO's, the assassination of JFK and how to become an Astronaut.

You would not expect narrow, fairly shallow and typically slow flowing English rivers to be able to sustain, yet contain, a fish of the voracity of appetite of the Pike.

It has the appearance of a prehistoric origin, a crocodilian head, pits in the flesh of the skull acting as a sounding board to detect its prey, large pear- shaped amber and black centred eyes to scour the depths, an intriguing dappled olive skin with golden dots and dashes to provide clever camouflage in the weeds and yet mimicking the effect of sunlight on the water, a multiple array of teeth with an inward slant to ensure that snagged prey, once impaled, had little chance of wriggling free, fins mounted towards its hind quarters to give powerful rear engined thrust for a short burst from hiding place to target and all of these attributes in a long, efficient and sleek, shiny body.

Amongst the rather, by comparison, feeble and comical fish such as Ruff, Gudgeon, Roach, Rudd, Bream, Carp and even the Eel it is a totally unexpected resident in Northern European waters. It has undoubtedly thrived with a life expectancy of up to 25 years and with recorded sizes up to a whopping seventy pounds.

It's technique for hunting is aggressive but clever and patient. It secretes itself in the weeds and just sits and waits until an unwitting prey swims past. In a powering up of the fins and a lighting fast strike it ensures a regular diet of smaller fish but is also known to take ducks and of course 25% of a dog's appendages.

Some individual Pike have been more ambitious and fearless.

Anglers have recounted tales of being bitten as a consequence of a Pike attempting to steal away the catch at the end of the line. Divers working on bridge piers report being head-butted by large Pike in a sort of territorial stance. There have also been tales of mules and cattle taking water in a river and being attacked.

In history the species were prized by Monarchs and the Landed Classes as food and many Castles and Manor Houses had Pike or Stew Ponds as they were called as a source of what was regarded as a delicacy. The rather earthy, small bone latticed meat was quite an acquired taste.

In my youth, a friend caught a Pike and decided to take it home for his Mum to cook. He had struggled to land it as Pike are strong game fish but then knocked it on the head before placing it length-ways, head down in his backpack. On the cycle ride back to his house the fish regained consciousness and a panicked lad had to go through the process again on the busy roadside. He didn't say anything about eating it after that.

A Pike could be caught at any time in the freshwater season but pursuit of the species in the cold, damp winter months was the best of activities.

Armed with brightly coloured spoon or small fish shaped spinning lures we would cover many miles along the river bank in search of the creatures.

Alternatively we would buy a pound weight of Sprats from the fishmongers and carefully attach them as dead bait to the biggest hooks we could manage.

Unfortunately, if enthusiastically cast the slim, silvery fish would often detach themselves and on a river bank bordering onto private house gardens the residents will often have found, mystifyingly, several Sprattus sprattus on their lawns and patios.

My enduring recollection and image of the Pike is having to sit astride a nine-pounder whilst my fellow teenage angler used the hinged gag and long discorger to remove the lure to allow the monster fish to be returned, unharmed but mightily disgruntled to its natural domain.

In that moment of restraining the pent up power of that fish I had felt as though I was astride a dolphin, a bit like the picture below but in my case, wearing a thick Parka coat, balaclava and walking boots.

Best of One Last Soul- The Roos Flashers

I was always a bit reluctant to take out and walk my dogs early in the morning 

This may have partly been down to laziness, the prospect of cold air supplanting that nice cozy, warm position under the duvee or the physical effort to propel my body along vertically when it was so much easier to give in to gravity and just lie prone and horizontal in bed. However, a tangible element in the whole reluctant attitude was that it always seemed to be reported in the media that the gruesome discovery of a body or bodies was always made by a man walking a dog or dogs in the early hours just after dawn.

 

I was happy to leave potential for such discoveries to the likes of taxi-drivers, joggers or the Postman.

 

In much the same chain of thought I always got the impression that men digging ditches, in the old way by hand, were always likely to come up with interesting things.

 

This is borne out with the stumbling across, by ditch digging men in 1989 , of the treasure trove of artefacts, thought lost, but actually just stored in the buried basement rooms of the bombed Municipal Museum of Hull since 1943.

 

Of course, any excavations with shovel, pick and wrecking bar can be hazardous for those wielding the implements. In Hull, even today, any construction projects breaking into the heavy clay top soils whether on a virgin site or previously built upon ground , stand a chance of unearthing unexploded Ordnance from the second world war. An academic year does not go by without a small child bringing in a live ammunition shell with German markings to 'show and tell' to classmates inevitably dug up from an urban flower bed by their Grandfather or Uncle. The sighting of the small white bomb disposal van with Police escort is still very common on our streets. 

 

Other risks include hitting an unforeseen pipe or cable or what must be a horrible initial feeling of the blade of a spade cutting into a human skull just under the surface. I have felt some concern for workers on a large housing estate on the site of derelict docklands close to the City Centre as my perusal of Old Maps indicates the prior existence of a Leprosy and Cholera Hospital. Diagnosis of symptoms of such afflictions may not be covered by Health Insurance if disturbed and made airborne by pick and shovel.

 

On rarer occasions, accepted,  the damp, waterlogged and unpleasant practice of ditch digging may find something fabulously significant;

 

 

Take these cheeky chappies. Just ignore the oversized genitalia for the moment and concentrate on the context of the image.

They were dug up by, yes, by a gang of labouring ditch diggers in 1836 way out towards the seaside town of Withernsea on a tract of agricultural land called Roos Carr. Their antiquity and significance were not really appreciated until modern radio carbon dating techniques were available in archaeological investigation and this revealed  them to be  about 2600 years old, well into the Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Experts without such technological assistance considered their origins as Viking from a raiding party or the work of an enthusiastic lone Scripture themed wood carver and depicting Noah and his family.

The location, so far in the past will have been reasonably inland from the coast particularly given that, in the documented period from the Doomsday Book in 1086 , there was at least three miles to the cliff top rather than about two farmers fields now. The location may have been thickly forested or marshy and barren.

The items, embedded in thick heavy blue clay were well preserved. As well as several of the distinctive and intimidating warrior Figures standing between 35cm and 41cm tall ( see picture above) complete with quartzite eyes and those nifty detachable genitalia, there was a serpent headed boat with paddles, and a wooden box. One of the figures appears to have gone missing until 1902 when it was acquired by Hull Museums after decades of having been played with as a doll by the daughter of one of the original labouring gang.

The Victorians fixed four of the figures with glue and nails into the serpent boat as it was speculated that they belonged as crew. Their prudish attitude either out of denial or to spare the blushes of Museum Visitors considered what was actually intended as the male parts to be short arms.

Carved from Yew their purpose has long since been a matter of informed discussion. The fact that they were buried suggests a Votive Offering to the gods with no intention for them ever to be recovered. The use of Yew is thought to have some significance as it was often associated with particular deities in the prehistoric world of ritual and religion.

Only 9 other similar caricature discoveries have been made in the British Isles and Ireland which makes the Roos Carr figures very important not only in the context of the history of this part of northern and western Europe but in world history. 

For all that, the figures are not that well known but were voted into the top 100 of the Yorkshire World Collection as part of the London Cultural Olympiad Programme. Presumably some way behind Geoffrey Boycott's cricket bat, Harry Ramsden's Fish and Chip Frying Range, Aunt Bessie's batter puddings, Pontefract Cakes, Black Sheep Ale, a night out in Hull and a picture postcard of Whitby.