Nothing but the night

Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
  Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
  There's nothing but the night.

                                      A.E. Houseman

A war memorial in a town is, unfortunately, no great surprise, every town I've been in has one. Hartlepool, no town of any great size, has a massive one in the heart of town, Hull has one (well several really if you start to add them up 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 ... though this is not exhaustive). This is King's Lynn's sad remembrance for fallen youth in a quite splendid setting next to the Greyfriars' tower. 

Don't you know there's a war on ...

And so to Bridlington, and what is all this then? The High Street was chosen to be the location for filming a rehash of Dad's Army, a late 60'-early 70's BBC sitcom about the Home Guard in WW2 (sounds dire but was actually very good, and still is, a bit of classic). The filming was in 2014 but the film itself has only just been released (some say it should be recaptured and never see the light of day). A review in the Times called the venture "cultural necrophilia", the Guardian said (more or less) it wasn't as bad as it could have been while others politely called it a "bad idea". As the original show is repeated constantly on TV I really can't understand why a second rate repro would get off the ground. Anyhow shops on the High Street are brazenly cashing in while they can with windows taped up against air raids, vintage posters and a general attempt to recreate 1940's Walmington on Sea; and who can blame them?

The Black Lion pub was renamed the Royal Oak in the film and no-body seems to have taken down the sign.

Mission creep

To the sickening braying and howling of a pack wild animals filled with an unsatiated blood lust the Commons after a ten hour so-called debate that was a litany of hypocrisy and cant, voted yesterday to make our streets safer by making the streets of Syria considerably less safe. The RAF likes to practice its killing in the skies over Hull and East Yorkshire presumably because our skies are so similar to Iraqi and Syrian skies.

Sharp Street Roll of Honour

Two years after being removed to make way for the demolition of Goodfellows supermarket the Roll of Honour has been restored. Actually it was restored in March but I've only just noticed it. There's a plaque to show a bishop blessed it, the Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire (the what now?) and a host of Council knobs turned up to be seen to be there. The supermarket was pulled down to make way for much needed new housing but since I posted about it not a single brick has been laid nor even the ground broken up, nothing, ... the mills of planning grind slowly, they grind exceeding small, with impatience we're still waiting, no doubt they'll grind us all.

The fishermen of England go down to the sea in ships

Sometimes in the fog of war regrettable incidents happen that, if they did not involve the loss of life, appear to be farcical and if not utterly ridiculous. Thus, in a dispute between Russia and Japan in October 1904, the Russian Navy fired upon British trawlers in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea, believing them to be Japanese torpedo boats. The British trawler Crane was sunk and two fishermen from Hull lost their lives. Other boats were also attacked and another fisherman later died of his wounds. Compounding their error, the Russians then started firing on themselves; killing at least one Russian sailor and an Orthodox priest on board a Russian cruiser. The only reason more damage wasn't done is that the Russian Navy couldn't shoot straight.

Unsurprisingly, the British Government took a dim view of all this, especially as Britain was allied to Japan at the time. Compensation, to the tune of £66,000, did manage to calm things.

The statue was unveiled in 1906 and shows the dead fisherman George Smith. The other two dead fishermen were William  Legget and Walter Whelpton. It stands at the junction of Hessle Road and the Boulevard, in the centre of the old fishing district. 

(Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, and it might well be; this statute was another of those that sat upon a public convenience; like Queen Vic and King Billy. The conveniences have now gone and so has just about all the fishing fleet.)