Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
BOOK now for a holiday to Hull … a city on the north-easterly edge of England where its people have an understandable historic chip on their shoulder, eat chips covered with gravy and support a football team chipping away to collect enough points to survive in the Premiership, despite being owned by a wealthy Arab who appears to be antagonising some of them.
It’s also a place full of hidden gems with a swashbuckling history, a gritty determination to improve and endless charm.
The former home of celebrated poet Philip Larkin and host of playwright John Godber’s Hull Truck Theatre, was recently chosen as UK City of Culture 2017, giving the Yorkshire port an estimated £60 million (BD37.2 million) boost.
The city, regarded as one of the most deprived in the country, beat off competition from the Midlands’ Leicester, Scotland’s Dundee and Swansea Bay in Wales and succeeds Londonderry in Northern Ireland. No government money comes with the prize but it can be a catalyst for regeneration. Some 22 local businesses backed the move.
The announcement followed almost a year of hard work from people and organisations across Hull in putting together a powerful bid. Eleven cities originally entered.
Hull was revealed as the overall winner following the submission of a strong final document and a powerful presentation. Councillor Stephen Brady, leader of Hull City Council, said: “We are absolutely thrilled. Winning the title is a real game-changer for Hull. It will give Hull a platform to tell the world what this great city has to offer, transform perceptions and accelerate our journey to make Hull a prime visitor destination.”
Hull’s bid demonstrated how much the city wanted, needed and was ready to deliver the UK City of Culture 2017 title. The city promises to deliver a spectacular programme for 2017 that will deliver artistic excellence and events on a scale never seen before in the city to ‘entice visitors from the whole of the UK and beyond’.
Inspired by late English poet and adopted son of Hull, Larkin’s work Days, the ambition is for each day of Hull 2017 to make a difference to a life in the city, the UK and the world. Hull 2017 programme highlights include:
* An extraordinary opening ceremony that will involve four ‘rivers’ of light, people and sound flowing into the city involving 3,000 volunteers. During the event, elephants will walk the streets of Hull again alongside lost trawlermen, dancing white phone boxes (the rest of the UK has red boxes) and images of Hull’s rich past and creative future.
* An aerial spectacular – with director of the forthcoming Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony, Mark Murphy, and outdoor arts company Walk the Plank – that would form part of Hull’s 2017 Freedom Festival. The event will incorporate ground-breaking design, breathtaking aerial choreography, an evocative live music score and jaw-dropping fireworks to tell the world Hull’s story – all framed by the city’s iconic tidal barrier. The theme of the event aims to honour one of Hull’s most famous alumni – Larkin – and embody one of his immortal lines: ‘What will survive of us is love’.
* An environmental legacy. Artist-designed gateways and pictorial meadows will form a major feature of Hull’s green agenda for 2017 with thousands of trees planted to form sustainable gateways to the city.
* Sonic Lumiere – a stadium event featuring Durham Marenghi, Hull’s award-winning lighting designer, working with 500 dancers in a digital sound and light concert on the theme of illusion and fairs.
Funnily enough, the city’s name isn’t really Hull, or as the locals pronounce it ’ull, it’s Kingston upon Hull, as celebrated on its 700th anniversary as a king’s town in 1999 with a royal visit from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh.
The Editor of this newspaper was privileged to show Prince Philip around the local newspaper office The Hull Daily Mail when he held the position of the title’s community & campaigns editor.
One former editor failed miserably to convince the city it should be proud to call itself Kingston upon Hull and insisted on using the full name in reports or reduced to KuH which caused outrage amongst readers and members of his staff and was short-lived, thankfully.
Hull it is and Hull it remains, standing on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber Estuary, 40km inland from the North Sea.
It is estimated that being the UK City of Culture 2017 will deliver a massive financial boost to the local economy in 2017 alone. The title is also anticipated to leave a lasting legacy creating a more vibrant, sustainable cultural sector; improved quality of life for local people and increased access to tourism and cultural sector jobs.
Hull’s 2017 programme will follow a number of themes to celebrate the city including Roots and Routes, Made in Hull, Freedom and Quirky.
The proposed programme will include 15 national and international commissions, 12 artists’ residencies; 25 festivals; eight major community participation projects; a programme of conferences and major broadcasting events; plus programming activity across 365 days with an estimated 1,500 special events.
Lord Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister, who once complained about the food on a formal visit to China saying it tasted better at Mr Chu’s restaurant on the side of the Humber, tweeted: ‘It’s Happy Hour!’ in honour of the 1980s hit by the Housemartins, a local band.
Current British Prime Minister also got in on the act. David Cameron told MPs: “We will be able to celebrate the birthplace of (slave trade abolitionist WIlliam) Wilberforce and the fact that Andrew Motion lectured there and Philip Larkin was the librarian.”
Social media played a part in promoting Hull’s cause over its shortlisted rivals with a determined vocal #HullYes Twitter campaign.
Charlie Spencer, chief executive of the Spencer Group, a Hull-based engineering business, said there was not a dry eye in the house when news of the success was broken to 300 people at the Hull Truck theatre.
“It was a fantastic moment for everybody,” said Mr Spencer. “Hull’s a wonderful place.”
The city has struggled for decades. During the Second World War huge parts were destroyed by German bombers and its survivors felt that it didn’t receive the acknowledgement or sympathy of the rest of the nation, compared to some other places, because its strategic location meant details were kept secret by the authorities at the time.
Ironically, Hull is now a gateway to Europe and an important sea port for passengers and trade, but the feeling of neglect still irks locals to this day.
The once thriving deep sea fishing industry, which spawned thousands of jobs for the city’s young men, collapsed as a result of the Cod Wars. There were a series of confrontations in the 1950s and 1970s between the UK and Iceland regarding fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
The conflict ended in 1976, when the UK accepted a 200 nautical-mile Icelandic exclusive fishery zone.
Overnight, a traditional career for generations of Hull families disappeared, never to be fully replaced.
Again, ironically, all that remains are museums, an old trawler visitor attraction and The Deep, a stunning looking aquarium and soon to be home of a family of penguins, and probably the country’s most successful Millennium-funded tourism project.
The culture bid’s lighting aspect may also feel a touch ironic to those who campaigned to light the iconic Humber Bridge, which links Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and remains one of the largest single span structures on the planet, in a bid to attract more visitors. It was thwarted by a bunch of twitchers (bird lovers) who thought their feathered friends might be dazzled by the bright nighttime beams.
Nowadays, most people in Bahrain will know the city’s name thanks to its football team playing in the English Premiership, with games broadcast live.
My son, St Christopher’s School pupil Stan, 11, was recently invited to run on the pitch at the KC Stadium, named after the city-based telecom company, once owned by the local authority and renowned for its white telephone kiosks, as mentioned earlier.
As the fans bayed ‘City till I die!’ in reference to Hull City’s Egyptian-born chairman Assem Allam’s bid to officially change the club’s name to Hull Tigers, Stan met Rory the mascot and some of the star players and helped to inspire the side to a sensational 6-0 victory over relegation-threatened Fulham.
The club’s nickname is the Tigers but some fans don’t want the official name – Hull City AFC – to be changed. Allam says the move would help market the club globally.
Little Stan’s mum Kathryn, my good lady wife, was born in Hull, and her brother runs a fish and chip shop in neighbouring Beverley, which has been a long-time family business.
The chips are very good with gravy. But it has yet to be seen whether The Tigers can stay up, under any name, or whether Hull will be able to attract an influx of visitors from the Gulf States.
* For further details on Hull’s UK City of Culture programme visit www.hullcc.gov.uk/2017Hull , follow via Twitter @2017Hull or like the Hull City of Culture Facebook page.
