Hull Hull - A Letter to Jon Snow Channel 4 By Maurice Fairfield Another program knocking Hull?

I have lived in Australia for twenty years but I was born in Hull in 1928 and have lived with patronising contempt for the place ringing in my ears all my life. Perhaps less the town and its people in general but the working-class people who have lived with the contempt of the middle-class who lived off them and who I remember as themselves contemptible. The structural unemployment which has depressed Hull has manufactured an underclass with little capacity in its members for the profitable or life-enhancing use of enforced leisure but the foundations were laid a long time ago.

Hull's population has been stratified over the 80 years of my experience by (in part) the re-housing of Hull's population; the destruction of old-established communities and the skimming off of people, well able to cope, into what were at the time modern, desirable Council Houses; the shunting of the disorganised, less able members into run-down, pre-war estates; the birth of ghetto schools and neighbourhoods made up of the most chronically unemployed and the least able to be helped by self-help neighbourhood improvement schemes.

The thing for the outsider to grasp about Hull is that everything is squared; the lumpenness of the lumpen, the smugness of those who have made it to the dizzy heights of a semi on a mortgage in an outlying area; including those working class who have climbed aboard and pulled up the ladder. The ones left behind are worse off than they have ever been. Old habits are hard to break and some are impossible. If you use a position of slightly greater education and prosperity to teach people that they are shit, for several generations, they are not going to reverse their thinking overnight. They need only look around and see where they find themselves.

Hull was liveable when most of its people were employed. Jobs cure all ills and in recent times, jobs are exported for the profit of those with capital. The knocking, the damning with faint praise, the sneering at Hull is not an attack on the City but on its most vulnerable citizens by outsiders, including University students and others who have spent some time there before retiring to the pampered South. For Christ' sake leave the place alone!

Incidentally, do you know what we say in Hull - the real Hull? How do they separate the men from the boys in the South? With a crowbar.

Opinions - Hull By By Ted Oliver (Manager of the Spring Bank Community Centre, Hull )

I moved to Hull with my parents in 1993 when I was just 13 years old, from a little village called Hunmanby, just near the popular holiday resort Primrose Valley. I must admit that my first impressions of Hull were not good, but over the last 12 years I've really come to love living and working here. Hull is a very multi-cultural city and always has been - ever since the docks first opened over 500 years ago. Read more...

Opinions - Hull By Lee Cassanell

	Hull is a town of apathy and idiots brimming with all kinds of degenerate scumbags that should be beaten to a bloody pulp and sterilised at birth. Most of the citizens have next to no communication skills, they are backstabbing ego maniacs who think just because they mumbled their way through a Look North interview or have been in the Hull Daily Mail Read more...

Opinions - Hull By Jeni Edge

I have been told by Channel 4 that I should not take the programme The Best and Worst Places to Live seriously, it is intended to be light-hearted and just a joke. But it is irresponsible of the media to claim that they have no impact, and if there is a joke the laughter is at the expense of the poor. To blight an entire city and excuse yourself because it was not meant seriously is no more acceptable Read more...

Opinions - Hull By Ted Robinson

	I have lived in Hull since 1996. I have had my car broken into seven times, I have also been violently robbed in the street and most of the people I know here have been burgled. So YES, Hull deserves to be at the bottom of the pile (and in all cases, the police proved to be useless)!

Opinions - It's Your Money, Why Are You Not Seeing Any Of It? By Anonymous

	Regeneration, Community Development, all those 'community' workers that litter the city, preaching change and empowerment for the people of the city. Ever wondered where they have come from, how they are paid, and what the funding they get to play with is spent on? Funding, wherever it comes from be it Government or the Lottery for example Read more...

Opinions - Living in Hull By Marphy Jones

	I am a foreigner living in Hull. My opinion is that Hull is really a worst place - full of naughty kids, impolite people, and a dirty environment. I think what you can do is to improve these images instead of constantly explaining that Hull is not a worst city. Commit to the facts and then make some improvements to show them! I have some suggestions: Read more...

Opinions - Hull By Paul Thompson

	I am planning to study at Hull. The city centre seemed OK when I looked round although it could do with some more regeneration. I have seen much worse in my opinion - areas like Coventry. There appears to be little gun crime, good nightlife, cheap houses friendly people, a very good university and I like the shopping centre. The area around the university is nice and green too. Read more...

Opinions - Channel 4's Best and Worst By Mark Pollard

	Last night's (Tuesday 9th August 2005) Channel 4 aired a programme which listed the ten best and ten worst places to live in the UK. It was one of the most ill-researched, unbalanced and downright irresponsible pieces of television that I have seen for many years. I used to regard Channel 4 as being a bit like BBC2 with adverts; unfortunately, they seem to be moving Read more...

Opinions - Bomb By Margaret Ryan
	For three fraught hours I believed my girlfriend was dead. Hearing snatched rumours of a bomb in rush-hour London I desperately rang her mobile again and again. At that time of 10:54am on 7/7 this, for me, had started. In those hours a quiet despair filled me. My only response was to scour the newspapers and news blogs. Read more...

Opinions - The Bitch Hikers Guide to The Fashionista Dance Troupe! By Mr. B. Quiet
	Yep, it's finally arrived! Hull's finally caught up with England's dream of alternative culture! Everyone buys their LP's by the nations favourite drug users from popular chain store supermarkets and spends £85 quid on a pair of designer jeans that have been ripped at the knees (Bros anyone?), before running off to Read more...

Opinions - Mother's Day By Andrea Longstaff
	Rain! Rain! Rain! Is this Mother Nature's symbolism? The bursting of the amniotic sack? Well it's not big and it's not clever! It's like some select club that I'm not a member of, and at my age (weirdo)! I'm made to feel like an outcast! I'm mocked by the little ones cos I've Read more...

Opinions - Comment on Fear And Loathing In Hull By Nicholas Boldock and In Reply To - Fear And Loathing In Hull By Anonymous By Anna
	In my first contribution on this website I referred to the nice experience I had in Hull as a foreign student. When I read the articles on Hull's racism, I thought I can share my view since I have had some experiences from both sides. Albanian immigrants residing Read more...

Opinions - Metal on the Rise in Hull By Steve B
	You're doing it again! I once complained that you (thisisUll.com) focus far too much on certain bands and blatantly miss half the real talent that there is in hull... and you're doing it again! Last time I said this, Read more...

Opinions - How Karoo Could Double Their Trade Over Night By Paul Bawden
	If you live in Hull and want a telephone line you are very lucky as you don't have to call on BT or any of the other companies who claim to be cheap. Kingston Communications are cheaper that any other phone provider in England. Read more...

Opinions - Start a New Career in IT - Average starting Salaries £26k - Don't Get Sucked In! By Paul Bawden
	I have lived in Hull all of my life. I'm just coming up to my 31st birthday. I have over 15 years experience and am very much respected within the ITC industry, with more qualifications than you can shake a stick at. So what do Read more...

Opinions - Take The Highground - or why we shouldn't read The Daily Mail By Andy Dykes
	Oh The Daily Mail: bastion of British journalism, voice of the British people, key to the formulation of a balanced opinion and veritable textbook of reporting and the written word. It was within a day or two of the catastrophic Read more...