28l12; Open and closed shops, Charles St, 1981 - City Centre
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A view of Hull
Still Occupied
Images on this site are arranged into rough areas by location as in my book 'Still Occupied', available on Blurb. Eventually this site will contain all the images in that book and more.
Much of Charles St was facing demolition as I took these pictures, some being cleared for the building of a kind of bypass road around the north of the city centre, the Freetown Way, named for Freetown, Sierra Leone, which Hull twinned with in 1980. Freetown is the largest city in Sierra Leone, rather larger than Hull, but like Hull is a port, though on the Atlantic rather than the Humber and with a fine natural harbour. The first settlers in Freetown were black Britons who had been born as slaves, and were emancipated and shipped out from London by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. There settlement didn't last long, being burnt to the ground two years later by the local black ruler, who had probably not realised they intended to stay permanently. The city's formal beginning came a few years later when it was settle by over a thousand former slaves from Nova Scotia.
All this happened a little before Wilberforce became involved in the fight against slavery in 1787, but it was his connection with Hull that, at the suggestion of former Hull University student and High Commissioner of Sierra Leone, Dr S T Matturi, the two towns became twinned. Which also explains why Freetown has a Kingston-upon-Hull Way.
People in Hull voted overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit, with over twice as many wanting to leave as to remain despite the fact that the city has benefited enormously from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund, which have supported pretty well every major development in the city since we joined Europe - including the Freetown Way. The vote came despite too (or perhaps because) Labour's 'In' campaign being led by Hull MP Alan Johnson, and Hull's two other MPs both supporting remain.
THe picture shows bargains in Bedding and Jewellery (cheapest in Hull!) painted on the window of a shop with fine ironwork around its windows, and a row of shops opposite reflected in the glass; the only name across the street I can read clearly is that of Oswald T Hall, who was I think a family butcher.
Peter Marshall
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