Stack 'em high

After having done the research behind the blog about surviving the inner city in Hull in 1847 I found an interesting aspect of Public Health which I had not really given much thought to. 

Amongst the hazards and risks to the population of Hull in that middle part of the 19th Century and over and above those posed by open ditches, fetid pools of sewage, bad drainage, pigstys and pollution from industrial processes was that of Intramural Interment. 

This relates to the common practice of using the precincts of a Church for the burial of bodies. 

At one time in Medieval history this was a custom reserved strictly for Priests, Holy persons and the wealthy. 

Over the centuries it became the common practice for all and sundry to be received after death in this way. 

A major flaw in this arrangement was that with a high mortality rate in the population in the Victorian Era the often confined spaces of churches and their immediate grounds became quickly overwhelmed with coffins. 

Furthermore, as urban areas expanded many great churches, originally long pre-dating any development became enclosed with houses and general buildings. 

The Sanitary Committee of Hull, in producing their Report on the state of Hull in 1847 highlighted what they called the "offensive burial grounds". The accumulation and decomposition of corpses stacked in many layers in and above the ground or having fallen out of their coffins had been going on for a number of years. 

The sheer volume of coffins in St Mary's Churchyard had rendered it necessary to remove three or four of them for a single funeral to take place. The High Church burial ground in Hull was also reported to be heaving with corpses

You can imagine the noxious vapours and matters injurious to health with conditions ripe for Cholera and dysentery. 

It was this type of indecent and dangerous aspects that brought about an outcry on the practice of intermural interment. 

Notices were issued to Clergy, Wardens and Gravediggers in 1853 about an Act of Parliament which had just been passed to allow the founding of cemeteries farther out of the main urban areas. 

It was not however until 1875 that it became forbidden to form a vault or grave within any church from a qualifying period. 

Impressment in Hull

A life at sea in the 18th and 19th Centuries was the chosen career of only a few. 

To the majority it was a necessity to head for the high seas to support a family and dependants or to escape the squalor and deprivations of a shore based existence. 

Saying that the turnover of personnel was huge and a startling statistic from the era was that out of the hundreds of thousands of fatalities whilst in the service of the Royal Navy the vast majority of these were not from actual conflict but from diseases such as malaria, dysentery and those of a sexually transmitted type. 

In the interests of keeping up the numbers for the vital maritime service the power of Impressment was available. 

Not a common word in the modern vocabulary it meant the collection by force of unwilling recruits for the navy and the army. 

In its more common manifestation of the Press Gang it was a most hated and violently resisted practice and in my home city, the Port of Kingston Upon Hull in Yorkshire, England there was often bloodshed and rioting of its townspeople against its use. 

The legitimately operating Press Gangs were based in vessels anchored in the Humber Estuary known as the Inner and Outer Guard. One of these positions was just off the Old Garrison and the other at Whitebooth Roads. 

From here the Press Gangs were able to intercept merchant ships as they approached what they expected to be the safety of the harbour after many weeks, months and more on the High Seas. This was particularly cruel as many of the returning crew members would be within sight of their home Port and the welcome prospect of a reunion with loved ones who may have been witness to the very events from the shore. 

Perhaps the most common perception of the Press Gangs was of a land based contingent preying on individual seamen who may have been separated from their peers or were worse for wear from drink or other forms of stupor. 

In Hull the main Press Gang was of 12 men and an Officer. They were regularly involved in scuffles on Church Lane and in Humber Street in the Dockside areas which invariably ended in bloodshed. There were reports of sailors being dragged from stage coaches on the Beverley Road or a hunting ground which yielded forth a good quota of unfortunates was amongst those leaving the popular public houses of Ships Glory and Labour in Vain. 

In the early 19th Century a seaman crossing North Bridge was accosted by a Press Gang but wriggled out of his jacket and was then pursued. 

Workers at the Old Dock Basin saw his plight and joined in on the side of the seaman. Being outnumbered by the public the Press Gang ran down Lowgate and headed for their base on Humber Street. Such was the venom of the mob that the premises were wrecked and furnishings thrown out into the street and into the river. 

This type of public reaction was common where the actions of Impressment were seen or rumoured to be about to take place. 

A good proportion of the massed rank mobs were women which was understandable in that their menfolk, whether husbands, lovers, sons or brothers were at risk from being spirited away to the far reaches of the Empire, likely as not never to be seen again. 

Examples of mob action were common.

In 1798 a Naval Lieutenant and his Gang were attacked by a crowd and the Militia had to be called out to enact a rescue. 

In 1803 a mob chased a Gang to the Ships Glory pub and proceeded to tear the place apart. 

A spy gathering information for the Press Gang on the Beverley Road was spotted by a group of women who were working haymaking in a meadow. They challenged him .His fate is not known. 

It was not just seamen who were in peril of being forcibly requisitioned into the Royal Navy. A Shipwright in 1815 was seized as he left the Dockyard. In desperation he jumped into Humber Dock but was followed in by two of his pursuers. A fight ensued in the murky water before the civilian was rescued by onlookers who had found a rowing boat. 

One of the most violent conflicts was not on the shore within the Old Town of Hull but just out on the Humber. The two Guard Ships, the Nonesuch and Redoubt approached and attempted to board the Blenheim, a whaler on its return to Hull from Arctic waters. The crew of the Blenheim were tough, seasoned seafarers and put up a stiff resistance using the tools of their trade, knives and harpoons. 

The Blenheim was also fired upon but got through the Old Harbour Entrance and was run ashore. The Press Gang boarders closed in but two of their number were killed in the fight. One of the Blenheim crew had his hand on the bulwark when struck by a cutlass. He thereafter became known around the Port as Three Fingered Jack. 

The battle drew a large crowd who were partisan in their support for the Whaling Crew. The outcome was that the Captain of The Blenheim was sent to York Assizes Court but was acquitted of all charges and returned to Hull to a heroes welcome. 

The era of the Press Gangs became well established in the history and folklore of Hull although was not the most auspicious for its violence and as a cause of aggravation to its hard working people.

Surviving the Inner City in Hull 1847

If you take a few moments to study old 19th Century maps of a place you start to build up a picture of what it must have been like to have lived there. 

There is only so much however that a one dimensional representation can convey. 

What cannot be imagined is the combination of sights, sounds and smells that will have been part of a typical everyday life for the residents and work force. 

A very graphic and disturbing account of my home city of Kingston Upon Hull as it was in 1847 really emphasises the squalor, deprivation and disease ridden environment of a good proportion, if not the majority of its inner city population. 

The document was a report of the Sanitary Committee of the Medical Society of Hull specifically on the sanitary state of the town. 

The streets, alleyways, courts and cul de sacs did have interesting and somewhat idyllic and characterful names. 

These are, apart from a few examples, long lost to todays Hull A to Z map. 

Bore's Entry, Dibbs Court, Caleys Entry, Paradise Place, Old Dark Side, Atlas Alley, Westwards Yard, Eastcheap, Botanic Terrace, Mechanics Lane, Tripps Square, Boteler Street, Popple Street, Marvel Street, Milligans Buildings, Dickens Entry and Black Swan Yard are just a few names. 

On the old maps the areas around the River Hull corridor and the network of land drains and ditches is a solid mass of black to denote the density of development. There is little differentiation between houses and industry as they co-existed wall to wall, yard to yard. 

The dwellings were rented as the notion of owner occupation was only within the means of the very wealthy and emerging middle class and so the slum landlords went for the smallest floor areas, back to back buildings, tiny windows and no fireplaces which meant very poor natural light and ventilation. 

Overcrowding was the norm with reports of 3 married couples in one room, concentrations of 15, 16 and 21 persons both adult, child and infants across 3 rooms. The highest density seen in Hull was 46 persons in less than a handful of rooms. 

Even worse was that the essential amenities, however crude, had to be shared and it was not unusual for 1 privy lavatory albeit just a bucket of soil or open trench, to serve ten users. 

Very few of the housing areas had, what the Committee Report referred to as "covered channels of communication with the main drain" meaning that all foul waste, bodily and other, just ran under natural flow into the nearest drains or stagnated.  

There were badly constructed outfalls which impeded the removal of the sewage to the usual watercourses such as the Damson Drain. The occupants of St Quintins Place, William Street and Hedgerow Drain were said to be "strangers to the purity of atmosphere". 

The description of stinking ditches and smoking dung hills was as damning as it was evocative of the poor living conditions. 

The term "Muck Garth" was used for the location at the end of each terrace or block of tenements and houses where human excrement and detritus was deposited. They were no more than open ditches and the combination of decomposing effluent, animal carcasses and vegetation made for a cocktail of stifling and toxic emissions. 

There was little open space for a breeze to dissipate this stench and in the summer months in particular the air quality was oppressive. The liquid refuse could only be depleted by evaporation under the sun. 

Add to the human lifestyle factor the presence of domestic animals in the houses and courtyards and you got the cumulative effect of pig waste and from kept rabbits. The word Middenstead, long since disappeared from the vocabulary, referred to a dunghill. These could be piled up against the walls of the houses and with pungent and harmful liquids and residues seeping into cellars, wells and standing in fetid pools on the unmade or badly paved paths and roads. 

The population were captive in these areas of Hull because it was where they found their means of employment. 

There was no regulation or control of where and how industry could establish itself or in its processes and waste products. Factories on the very doorstep of the squalid housing produced noxious and hazardous gases and odours. A common stench was from Sulphate of Ammonia which was used in many lines of manufacture. Dense smoke persisted in the districts and was absorbed into the lungs and wash-line hung clothes of the residents. 

The industry of Hull included fish drying, bone boiling for soap and glue products, slaughter houses, glass and rope works, whale blubber processing, foundry's and ship building. 

The work force eked out a pitiful living in these operations and suffered for it in frequent debilitating illness and mortality rates for adults and children were disproportionately high in all of the Inner City Wards of Hull even those where improvements in housing and drainage had been implemented. 

The impact of fever, stomach complaints, English Cholera, dysentery and respiratory illness was disastrous on families and the wider population. 

The 1847 Report will have shocked and terrified its authors in equal amounts but was the catalyst for public expenditure by the Corporation to bring in clean water, swiftly and hygienically remove waste, upgrade living conditions and slowly improve the existence and health of the people of Hull. 

Many of the aforementioned streets  were not actually demolished and cleared until the second half of the 20th Century.

3001- a blog oddity

Today's blog is the 3001st of my adventure in the bloggersphere. That is hard to believe. In actuality the number is not as high as when busy or tired I have cheated and revisited what is after all a huge achve of work and re-posted with, if necessary, a bit of an update. I wrote the blog featured below way back in September 2011 with the news of having reached an earlier milestone of just 50 blogs. 

It is with some sense of pride and achievement that I have reached the milestone of my 50th blog ever.

If I could track down my primary school teacher who said I would not really stick to any worthwhile thing I certainly would. No longstanding grudge there then. 

With Oscar speech aplomb I admit that getting to 50 has been a labour of love, mispellings and bad grammar and I apologise to those who have been offended by mixed tenses, misappropriation of commas, semi colons and  frequent use of parenthesis. 

I have many people to thank for getting me here and especially my 6 followers. 

Thank you Blogspot.com for flatteringly recording 7 followers although one of them is obviously me. 

My family deserve credit for the initial encouragement to launch my blogography. 

Writing down nonsense, bad taste and politically incorrect notions has been therapeutic and to my family it means that whilst typing I am quiet and concentrated and therefore pretty harmless. 

From one to ten of my bloggings was quite difficult. I was unsure of myself at first and went for the usual rants and angst ridden text which looks mature but is quite juvenile really and always looking for a cheap laugh. Toddling along I got through the formative stages and then entered the blogging teens. Eleven to Nineteen were more of the style I was looking for. A bit observational, some self criticism, a lot about Volkswagens, spiders and animals that I have run over. 

Towards the upper teens some element of sophistication emerged and I announced to the bloggersphere that I had two cafetieres and attended farmers markets. I believe that I lost a lot of readers because of these revelations. 

In my twenties the inevitable critics began to twitter that my material and inspiration was drying up or was becoming a bit predictable. I was in fact beginning to settle down and find my own style. I did want to be entertaining but also to exercise my own personal demons and in self analysis and regression to rid myself of bad things I have done in my life. 

I have trafficked in people by swopping a girlfriend in junior school for a packet of rainbow drops.(sorry Louise Smith). I think I may have killed my Gran's dog. I have ridden my bike on the pavement many times in breach of the law. I have not used the recycling bins appropriately. I eat whilst driving and am often distracted if the salt and pepper shakers roll under the seat.  

Unfortunately by admitting to these things I have lost out on at least five blogs. 

In the blog thirties my reminiscence gene kicked in and I recalled times spent fishing, cycling and canoeing. Psychotherapists may attribute this to a past dreamlike state, a distant memory of Halcyon days but I think it is because I am now too lazy and fat to ever do these activities in any serious capacity. The canoe expedition to the source of the River Hull excepted.  

Things slowed down in my blog forties and with  a noticeable middle age spread of subjects. I have however resisted being grumpy, judgemental and political which is quite remarkable as that is how I am in the non-blog world. 

I do prefer my blogself and feel it is more me, or at least how I could be if unfettered by the burdens of modern life. I have blatantly used the blog to make a record of family memories and this is a very rich source of experiences. If anyone wants to take out an injunction against publication of certain things I advise that you start proceedings now. You well know who I mean...................................

Reaching 50 blogs has not been easy. I have struggled to meet my self imposed discipline of at least one blog a day and I admit that I have sometimes considered the easy option of regurgitating current news topics ,slagging someone off, dissing others or posting a photograph (that I do have) of cloud shapes over Drax Power Station resembling Godzilla humping. (requests by e mail only. High Res jpeg). 

In conclusion blogging has been difficult and hard work particularly where any original creativity has been bludgeoned out by modern life, pressures and conformity. 

It has however been very enjoyable for me. 

I have no grudges with the aadvarks because as Spike Milligans most unsuccessful joke goes...."aadvarks never killed anyone"

Down on the Farm

Every so often I come across an urban property that has been used as a drug farm. 

In recent years these have mostly been large commercial buildings with a full scale cultivation mechanism in place but more recently there has been a scaling down into compact units within the four walls of someone's house. 

I should qualify that statement. 

It is not people doing it in their own homes but where a tenancy is taken out, ostensibly for legitimate occupation as cover for setting up the systems and paraphernalia by which to generate a quick profit.

This was the scenario in a street in my area of work coverage just a couple of days ago. 

It is a quiet place of older inner city terraced houses with a mixture of longstanding owner occupiers and a more recent trend for shared occupation of rooms under one roof, bedsits or flats. 

This particular property did not distinguish itself from its neighbours from the outside. Through the front bay window could be seen a living room but beyond that facade of ordinariness and rather boring conformity lay a semi wrecked interior. 

Drug cultivation takes a lot of heat and moisture. The City Police Force did for some time have a helicopter with a heat detecting camera and this was invaluable in spotting localised abnormal temperature signatures which made rather a beacon of the roof above where the illegal activity was taking place. 

However, for financial and political reasons the chopper was discontinued giving the go ahead for an escalation in this type of specialised horticulture with a much lower risk of giving itself away to the authorities with the usual tell tale signs.

Venting out the excess products of the process calls for the excavation of lots of holes. 

In the room behind the comfortable lounge, previously concealed by a heavy hanging curtain, was the first in a series of openings in the timber floors. Passing out warm and humidity laden air under the house and then out through the air bricks is an efficient and subtle exhaust system. 

I had to tread carefully in the back rooms on the ground floor to avoid falling through into the void and also to dodge a lot of dog excrement and discarded dry biscuit canine food. 

The largest of the holes were however upstairs which appeared to have been the most productive zone. 

The chimney flues had been opened up just below ceiling level as another means to vent the rooms. In the corners of all of the former bedrooms there were similarly sized apertures to use the roof void above as a further dissipation route. 

Maintaining the perfect cultivation environment from thermostatically controlled heat lamps in these rooms called for a lot of foil based insulation and this had been suspended and stretched out using the clips and ties that were now strewn everywhere. 

My visit had been on the instructions of the unfortunate landlord to check on the insurance cover. 

It was not clear whether the drug farm had just completed its quota, packed up and moved on or had been raided and its contents seized and impounded for evidential purposes. 

In all previous cases of my attendance at such properties there was anonymity and mystery about the perpetrators. It was if they had just evaporated in the same way as the fantastic volumes of energy used in their short period of occupation. 

This house was different in that on one of the upstairs doors there was a brown paper bag with a hand written note. 

The script was neat and tidy but it told the story of part of the operation that had gone on. 

The room was numbered 4 and had at the time of writing the 120 square feet of space had been the location of 218 cannabis plants at two feet height. This had been achieved by 12 lights and 12 transformers. 

The business had not closed but just relocated. 

Seadrome Hull

In the first couple of decades of the 20th Century there were tremendous advances in flying. 

This was no better illustrated by the differences between the aircraft developed by the Wright Brothers in 1903 to the types of war machines just 11 years plus further on in the 1914 to 1918  conflict. 

The inter war years saw an upsurge in re-purposing of aeroplanes into the commercial sector for the carrying of paying passengers and freight goods. The route that was seen to be the most lucrative was the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean between the United States and Northern Europe. 

This was challenging given that long distance flights required frequent fuel stops making it necessary for a slower and indirect route to be adopted. 

As early as 1919 a new word entered the vocabulary related to flight- Seadrome. 

It will have sounded quite futuristic at the time, very much in the same sense as Space Port does today, but was intended to be nothing more than a floating platform acting as a landing stage, refuelling and relay/wireless station. 

However, in the context of the Atlantic Ocean a Seadrome about mid way between the two continents would open up the whole operation for flights with lower risk and more frequency. Various feasibility studies were carried out by engineers and inventors and the first three decades saw a rush to register Patents for what were not wholly dissimilar structures. A Canadian design was for a platform 1200 feet long and 500 feet wide at a height of 100 feet above sea level and a prolific Irish Engineer, F G Creed advocated a structure that would be able to stay level and steady in even the heaviest Atlantic swells. 

The scale of the floating Seadromes was meant to accommodate conventional take offs and landings but gradually the term became associated with Flying Boats. In the second world war there were proposals to develop Seadromes at regular intervals around the British Coast for strategic purposes. 

In 1950 it was the possibility of a flying boat service linking Kingston Upon Hull to the likes of Scotland, Ireland, Southampton and Falmouth that received an enthusiastic response from Civic and Business Leaders in the Yorkshire Port City. 

For a place of its size and strategic importance as a Gateway to Europe the lack of an airport within the City catchment was seen as a major disadvantage. There had been an airfield at Hedon which had been well patronised and with links to the Pioneering Amy Johnson in the inter war era and it would not be until 1974 that Humberside Airport was developed on the former RAF base at Kirmington on the South Bank. 

There had been lobbying from the Hull Chamber of Commerce for an airport for many years and the idea of a Seadrome to serve a flying boat service was well supported. 

The sponsors of the idea were South Cornwall and Falmouth Airways Limited who proposed the use of Hythe aircraft which could carry up to 50 Passengers. The Hythe was a civilian version of the very versatile and battle proven Short Sunderland and well up to the task of coastal and cross country flights in the British Isles. 

A Hythe Flying Boat about 1950

The same company behind the tentative Hull Seadrome had already established a route from Leith, Edinburgh to the South Coast but a combination of high fare prices and low actual patronage had seen the initially promising service founder. 

No actual material details were formulated to progress the idea of a flying boat Seadrome in Hull even after the excitement and speculation about its benefits for the City and its regional commercial status.

Wide Eyed Pupils

I regularly enter competitions. My entries are entirely impulsive. 

There are opportunities every day in pop-ups whilst browsing the internet or attached to those e mails that get through my on-line security measures. 

Such is their frequency that I just do them automatically and give little thought to making a note of what I have entered. Perhaps I should realise by now that every entry is actually a full disclosure of my identity to some marketing company who will mercilessly sell these details on to the highest bidder. 

No wonder I get bombarded by offers of products and services that I cannot recall either needing or expressing any curiousness about. 

My most recent competition entry was for the first prize of a two day expedition of my choice with one of the UK's leading mountaineers. To their credit, the outdoor pursuit retailers who were the sponsors did send all entrants notification of the winner and I sincerely hope that Denise from wherever has a lovely weekend. 

There are two main forms of competition that I go for. 

The first is a straightforward entry that just involves disclosing my name and e mail address. This involves no skill whatsoever. The second has a simple multiple choice question basis but again demands little knowledge as the answer is so obvious when two of the three options are downright ridiculous. 

I have not, to date, won anything at all. I exclude the £100 voucher sent to me by a national clothing retailer from winning a regional raffle on the basis that it was not a real competition. I just had to buy something and post off the entry form. It was however the means by which I had a nice brand new suit in which to attend my father's funeral. 

I am aware that some people do make a nice living out of a professional approach to competitions and there are magazine publications which highlight which are the best odds to come away with a prize. I have always wanted to win a trolley dash around a supermarket or be showered in confetti at my local Tesco as the millionth shopper but such things happen to other folks and not me. 

Some winners are unaware of having entered a competition . 

Take as a prime example the recent good fortune of a Russian schoolboy, Ruslan Schedrin, aged 16. 

His appears to have been a typical teenage life, apart from a bit of work as a child actor, with studying for exams, mixing with friends and spending a bit of time on his video or computer console indulging in warfare and role playing. 

He lives at home with his mother and sister but upon hearing that he had won a prize to mark the 100,000th visitor to a website selling virtual arms for games they have not been able to share in his obvious delight. 

Mother and son are not so much making a stand against the relentless marketing of conflict and violence amongst the youth of the world but that Ruslan has won a month in a hotel with a Female Pornstar. 

His mother is in fact furious and feels that a monetary equivalent, about 100,000 Roubles,  would be more suitable as a competition prize than a potential temptation and corruptive influence. 

There are some issues of questionable morality in the prize offering but for the competition sponsors it has presented an unbelievable level of publicity on a global media scale. 

The baby faced Ruslan was initially sceptical and suspicious about the whole thing and was quoted as saying "I didn't believe it at first, I thought it was rubbish" but this sooned turned into unbelievable joy and excitement. 

Although his further comments may have lost a bit in translation from Russian into English they are along the lines of "I saw her and I liked everything, she has got good sizes....and so on. .....everything is boiling inside me". 

The young lady concerned, Ms Ekaterina Makarova is of the opinion that 16 is a good age to be independent. She is quite philosophical about the whole situation and appears to have adopted a pragmatic attitude to what could be seen as a very controversial few weeks. 

I doubt that Ruslan's mother will relent in her position and give permission but whatever the outcome Master Schedrin will be quite a popular chappie amongst his peer group.