Made In Hull By Maurice Fairfield Part One - Arundel Street Days (1/2)

(1/2), (2/2). Part One - Arundel Street Days Part Two - Our Terrace Part Three - The Calm before, (The Storm) Part Four - Schooldays Part Five - The War 1 Part Six - The War 2

My story begins in Arundel Street and wanders away to the shallow end of Holderness Road next door to the tram sheds and opposite the old Astoria Cinema, which was at that time the New Astoria Cinema. Then to Hedon for a time, then back to Arundel a couple of years before the outbreak of the war. (Second World that is.)

There was a brief spell in Brigg in Lincolnshire but I was very small at that time and remember little of it. Mainly I recall drinking a whole bottle of something called Parrishes Chemical Food - sold to gullible mothers as a tonic for their infants. It seemed like good idea at the time (story of my life oddly enough) since it tasted lovely doled out by the spoonful. I'll never forget how I felt shortly afterwards as I looked, as one does, for my mother and finding her threw up a crimson flood in her lap.

I remember being in my father's car as it rolled into a dark garage and the bullseyes thrown on the wall by the plain glass headlamps shrank from enormous to insignificant as I asked in vain for an explanation of this magical effect.

I can recall an alarming uproar in whatever place we lived in then but not what caused it. It seems that I had a rocking horse and one day my father was painting it. Working his way to its hindquarters he lifted its tail: "don't paint its arse" I lisped. This wouldn't raise an eyebrow nowadays but its aftermath still comes back to me sometimes. I must have been about two at that time.

What you remember from your earliest days mingles and blends with what you are told by others. Later my parents told me that I could not possibly remember my sister Beryl who lived only a short time. But I recall clearly walking home from some unknown place. Perhaps because for the first time, I walked while someone else was carried.

Feeling the cold from the icy pavement penetrating the soles of my shoes. The stone flags glittered with the same tiny ice-crystals which decorated the houses and the iron railings; the lampposts and the gas lights at their tops, haloed by the freezing mist. This time stands out with an uncanny sharpness and clarity. Sometimes I wonder if her small life was shortened by this icy excursion which I have never forgotten: that perhaps this is why my parents didn't remember it and I do.

Back to Arundel. That's what we called it. Once we had a student teacher. A bright lively girl with a faint line of moustache on her smiling upper lip. She told us about a place in the unimaginable South of England where a river called the Arun ran clear between green banks through a dell, and that it was pronounced Arun dell, accent on the dell pronounced like shell. She was a great girl.

A total change from our grim purposeful male teachers- or rather - schoolmasters and we loved her but we knew where we lived - In a rundle to rhyme with bundle.

Going down Holderness Road from Town pass Craven Street on your right to and you pass under a bridge which at that time carried the Hull and Barnsley Railway. Some bridges leap gracefully over rivers or valleys supported by shapely arches. Flat, black iron girders six feet high spanned the road at this point doing their job by sheer brute strength.

On their side they carried the simple statement Bass. Ah Bass!. Bass's Bitter or Bass's Best squirted foaming like an amber sandstorm into the pint glass to settle swirling into a less than crystal clear potion which worked quickly and gave you a sore head even in careful doses. Not that I knew about that then.

Turn immediately right past Moisha's Bargains and you are in Arundel Street where I was born. I was a fifteen pound baby and I suspect that my mother never forgave me.

It's said that in the thirties more people lived here than in Withernsea. Looking towards Newbridge Road at the far end the street tapered away into the dim distance lined with flat-fronted houses whose doors opened directly onto the pavement. Terraces opened at regular intervals. About ten houses deep. These houses had bay windows in tiny front rooms that looked onto the tarmac space where the children played and the washing fluttered on Mondays.

Continued on www.thisisull.com...... Next Page (2/2).

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