Ambitious Plans for Civic Vandalism

A few weeks ago Hull Council announced what it called "ambitious plans" to capitalise on the city's maritime heritage, you know the kind of thing a museum here, a dry dock with an old trawler there so far so yada yada ... the plan was to put in for some cash from the National Lottery heritage funding ... and all seems pretty harmless but then for some godforsaken reason, they propose the ruination of this road by Queen's Gardens, Guildhall Road I believe is its name. Yes this delightful grass verge with its dozens of mature flowering trees and shrubs has somehow caught the eye of developers and so inflamed their ire that it must be ripped up and replaced by a brick paved desert just like the rest of the City of Dull. Quite how this goes with the maritime thing is beyond me ... but this is the one-horse-town that gave permission for the extension to Burnett House so I guess the abomination will get the nod from the asses who decide these things. I can only hope the National Lottery people reject the begging bowl from these idiots.

You think I exaggerate? ... well go feast your eyes on this illustration of  civic vandalism and tell me I'm wrong.

"Hemos pasado"

Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost

                                                 L. Cohen

Close by yesterday's statue of Mankind Under Threat stands this new memorial to those few (very few indeed) who took it upon themselves to go off from Hull to Spain with the International Brigade while that country was tearing itself apart in a bloody civil war. I suppose they thought they were helping in some way, it's difficult to see how.  The slogan on the top is that old cliché of the Left (and other lost causes) "They shall not pass". The plain truth is not only did the buggers pass they hung around for nigh on forty years ...
I'm not sure that this memorial with its Communist era references (I'm seeing a star, a bulging Stakhanovite arm, a hint of a sickle, it could just be me) is really apt given the well documented bloody betrayals and murders of socialists and anarchists by Stalin's Soviets. The plinth with "Freedom" and "Democracy" inscribed  is, unfortunately,  so white as to be illegible in bright sunlight so the names of the few (Was it eight or nine? Who knows? Who at this distance cares much?) who went off to fight Franco cannot be discerned nor can the little etched scenes. Still there's long been a plaque in the Guildhall with the names of those involved should you have any interest ... and now I'm set to wondering did any go off to fight for Franco? And where is their memorial?

 

Under Threat

 

Ah so there's our old friend Mankind Under Threat squatting in the belated May sunshine all safe and sound now betwixt the City Treasury and the Guildhall. I wondered where he'd gone to. I suppose, technically, he's on public display but so far off any beaten track no visitor to Hull would come across him by accident. Unlike the old place in Queen's Gardens this site is hardly conducive to the contemplation of mankind being under threat. The threat to our friend here is clear: pointlessness and obscurity. He has already become a mere decoration. There are plans to secure this area with gates (the slim to non-existent terrorist threat to Councillors and council staff must be taken seriously ... and a quarter million pounds is the serious money that must be spent to take it seriously). Anyhow once the gates are built our caged friend will be even more secure and even more out of reach.

Bring back the birch

The birch is a pioneering tree, so I'm told, spreading rapidly and colonising clearings and waste lands. It is short lived (if 80-100 years can be called short lived) and makes way for longer lived species such as oak and pine. I don't expect to be around for that development but we plant trees for future generations to enjoy or so they say. There are signs around town telling us "Change is happening"; how true that is.

So to the building itself, well, what can I say? It's a bit fancy and somewhat overdressed for the surroundings the now closed M&S to one side and a hideous brick thing (also, as is the style on Whitefriargate, unoccupied) to the other. Nowadays it's a butcher's shop, or rather a purveyor of meats since I doubt any actual butchery takes place there and everything is wrapped in sealed plastic and looks like it came out of a box rather than a grazing animal... A minute's research reveals the place was originally a public house (yes, yet another ornate Victorian boozer) built in 1884 (the boom years for Hull) with alterations to the ground floor which are so dull they need not detain us.

Mea maxima culpa

                 
                           "The Philistines were Wrong: Culture can bring a city back to life"
                                                                                       Richard Morrison, The Times

I noticed how vibrant Whitefriargate had become as I wandered down there on a rainy day last week. It was like the old times, only seen in those black and white films of smiling folk in fifties coats and suits all wearing hats trying not to look at the camera but somehow failing ... and the sun always shining. The sound of thousands of happy shoppers thronging the revitalised stores and small shops near deafened me and I had to struggle through the milling crowds as they ambled slowly along to the rattle of filling tills ... I was wrong, I thought, I lacked faith, with a little bit of imagination, Culture really can bring a city back to life.

And this, this is just fake news, I wouldn't pay it any mind.

The Larkin Spectacle

... and speaking of old Pip Larkin, as we were, his statue in Paragon Station has caught the attention of those who would reshape the world they see before them. Maybe he should have gone to Specsavers ...

The large cool store is closed ...

Last Saturday (May 4^th) Marks and Spencer on Whitefriargate closed after nearly ninety years of selling "cheap clothes/ Set out in simple sizes plainly/ (Knitwear, Summer Casuals, Hose,/ In Browns and greys, maroons and navy)". Truth is that M&S has been on its way out since well before old Larkin went to the inevitable. There were rumours that the store was somehow bribed not to leave Whitefriargate when St Stephens was built a decade ago. Whatever the truth the customers no longer "leave at dawn low terraced houses/ Timed for factory, yard and site" and haven't done so for generations. I haven't bought anything from M&S this century, certainly no clothing ever. Their food store became pretentious and much parodied (This is not just tosh; this is M&S  tosh ...)

 

Perhaps, though, it's not too late for a blue plaque commemorating Larkin buying his kecks at Markies ...oh,  and writing "a silly poem about nighties" .

The building with its classical columns and bronzed shop front was designed by Jones & Rigby in 1931~ish when M&S were in competition with Woolworths not only for sales but in shop design. Woolies (always a much cheaper store in price and attitude than M&S) went to that great administrator in the sky eleven years ago during the 2008 evenements. There's a wee Viking boat on the top which I've shown before but a second look won't kill you.

Those who seek more about the architectural history of Marks and Spencer's  stores could do worse than take a peek at this link.