One law for them and another one for you

South Street

Well if you parked your car here on these double yellow lines you'd expect the passing traffic warden (now tweely called a Civil Enforcement Officer or CEO in the jargon) to write you out a ticket for illegal parking. But this bright fellow just walks straight past this vehicle. Could it be that Hull City Council can park where it likes and damn the rest of you? Seems that way...

...and the irony of a CCTV van designed to spot wrong doing being parked illegally... but that's Hull City Council for you, a law unto itself; well it does employ the traffic wardens so it would have to fine itself. It's all done by smoke and mirrors.

Clearout

Whitefriargate

I think it's clear that Clearout has cleared out.

Jack Kaye Walk

Jack Kaye Walk connects Ella Street and Goddard Avenue. If this bridge or tunnel looks a bit odd for a footpath that's because originally the Cottingham Drain ran through here until it was culverted and turned into a  path. This place used to attract the graffiti artists and that was frowned upon now it's been 'decorated' by a 'community' group and that's OK. Jack Kaye ran a shop on Ella Street that has since been pulled down and is now housing. There's a plaque that reads "Jack Kaye, Epicurean Grocer served the Avenues area 365 days a year from this shop here 1947 to 1998" seems a bit OTT for a corner shop proprietor but maybe he was special.

Deserted

At the end of Middleton Street this small play area was clearly not the place to be.

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Percy Cottages

What we have here is the housing equivalent of putting a quart into a pint pot. Instead of just building a straight row of terraced houses our greedy little Victorian builder has missed out every third house and squeezed in another terrace between the rows. So now there are eight houses where one would have been. This was fairly common practice in Hull and elsewhere I guess. These little off shoots were often given  names like Percy Cottages in this case, there's a Minnie's Grove further along and I've seen an Annie's Grove as well, often however they're given somewhat ridiculous names such as Victoria Avenue which is next to old Percy here on Mayfield Street. I once lived in a similar place to this (Willow Grove off Alexandra Road, long ago demolished) and these houses are teeny, damp and squalid, how a family with children was expected to thrive in them I cannot imagine but many generations have and continue so to do. In fairness Mayfield Street is exceptional in that there has been no redevelopment, the neighbouring Middleton Street which was very similar to this has been modernised and these hutches demolished.

And tell me what street compares with Hutt Street in July?

Running off Spring Bank, Hutt Street is one of those mid 19th century rows of terraced houses built to accommodate the booming population of Hull. The street is named after Sir William Hutt  MP for the city. Looking into Mr Hutt online I find that, yes, it is agreed he was MP from 1832 to 1837 when according to the internet he was defeated by William Wilberforce. Now you've all heard of William Wilberforce haven't you? Abolished slave trade and all that, died in 1833, whoops hold on a minute, died in 1833? How did the dead William defeat the very much alive William four years after dying? I don't know but the said Wilberforce was unseated by petition (not exorcism?) in 1838, maybe they couldn't stand the smell. Surviving this encounter with the spectral Wilberforce Mr Hutt went on to become MP for Gateshead and served under both Palmerston and Russell. Hull has Hutt Street but New Zealand has Hutt City (upper and lower) along with the Hutt river,  not to be outdone South Australia has a Hutt river as well.

At this point I'd like to thank Wikipedia and those who clearly cut and paste from this excellent source for inspiring such trust in the collective effort to make history more interesting.

Callooh! Callay! It's Cottingham Day!

A part of me thinks they hold this in July just celebrate the students having gone home for the Summer but I must banish such thoughts. This isn't just some local day for local people. Everyone's welcome except maybe the riff-raff from Orchard Park. So make a note in your hectic social diary ...

Over at City Daily Photo they are 'Celebrating Summer' for some reason and not without cries of foul from those south of the Equator who are relishing their Winter, lucky them. You can see what 'Celebrating Summer' looks like here.