I thank those who post comments and even read what I have written, I start out with a goal of being at least a little bit interesting with what I write and I often just browse others musings to see what is interesting them. But I’m afraid I’m inevitably drawn back to local stuff, I don’t know why but its crept up on me the last few years that I have re-discovered my locality so to speak. Now this is a problem as the majority of people have probably never been to or even heard of Kingston Upon Hull, or to us locals, Hull (actually we don’t even pronounce the ‘H’ so it sounds like ‘ull’).
I’m not going to ramble on about the history of the place as its easier to Google the stuff about the English Civil War and how the city locked out a monarch, Charles 1st if you are interested, but here’s the rub, suddenly I am interested. I have been doing the rounds of our museums, they have been there for years, and suddenly I’m finding out more than I ever thought possible. Hull has a big tradition with fishing and the oceans which goes way beyond what I ever realised even though my family had a tradition in this direction.
We have some historical artifact I never knew existed in Hull, like replicas of Egyptology including a genuine Mummy plus all the usual artifacts from years gone by, money, transport, clothes and pictures, loads of them, even reincarnations of the place before I was born. And the thing is I’m actually fascinated by it all as everything about history seemed to be located in bigger and better cities in the UK not right on my doorstep. Some beautiful historical buildings have long gone and from the pictures I have seen that is a big shame, but some do remain.
A lot more could be done to the city but economics and geography is against us as we are, shall we say literally at the end of the road, meaning we are a port so the roads stop. Hull has a proud industrial past but as with a lot of British industry it has gone ‘global’ which means in essence their headquarters head for London, the latest being Comet the electrical retailer, recently gone bust and Seven Seas who make fish based products, like cod liver oil capsules. Hull could do with influx of industry to alleviate unemployment in the area, but other places seem more attractive is seems if only for the better road situation.
Ironically Hull doesn’t help itself as when I was in the Whaling museum a few weeks ago there was a party looking round who were Dutch, there is a daily overnight ferry service between Hull/Holland and Hull/Belgium but there was nothing in their native language that they could read as they looked around. I mentioned this to the people who worked there and I was disappointed as they replied it had been mentioned before but nothing had been done, shame.
And its not only in the city centre that all this museum stuff is located, handy though that is, but Hull is blessed with some glorious surrounding countryside which has its own significant historical, the rolling areas of East Yorkshire as far as Beverley all contain mansions built by past successful locals now open to the public. There are plans to restore the fishing heritage some buildings remain, just, the Lord Line building being one in question, but again the money has to be found and that ain’t easy.
Maybe your own area has hidden gems that you never realised seek them out, libraries and local history archives are a good source, Hull has those as well, and yes the internet is a big help but I can’t get over the pleasure of finding books, scrolls, pictures, newspaper cuttings over just clicking on a computer, and of course you need a bit of spare time, if you have any then make time to check out some history, you may surprise yourself.
TRAVELOGRAPHY 