Alexander Stubbs: Okay, erm, my name is Alexander Stubbs, erm, I’m with George Norris, it’s the 21st of February, 2025, and we’re at George’s house on Gordon Street in Hull, erm, for the project Scene But Not Heard. Erm, George, let’s start at the beginning, erm, tell me about when and where you were born.
George Norris: So I was born in Linnaeus Street, which is the street opposite Hull Royal Infirmary. Lived there to the age of four, then we moved to Redbourne Street, which was all back-to-back houses in West ‘Ull, HU3. From there, they got they got compulsory purchased when I was eleven, and we moved into Sefton Street, and the week we moved in there, Elvis Presley died, so that was memorable, and it was the first time we had an indoor bath. Since then I’ve lived… Gordon Street I bought this house what we’re in now in 1990, but I had it rented out for years, so I’ve lived down Sharp Street, I’ve lived in the Old Town in Phoenix House, I’ve lived up Beverley Road, I’ve lived on Victoria Avenue, and I moved back to this house five years ago, so I’ve gone full circle but predominantly West ‘Ull.
01:26 AS: So, lots of houses, erm, tell me about that first house on Linnaeus Street. 01:32GN: Linnaeus Street was a grand ‘ouse, it was like Coltman Street, big Victorian houses. Today, they wouldn’t have demolished it, because they just needed bathrooms, but I was born in 1964, and it was big six bedroomed house, and it was… as a kid, it was majestic, even though we moved to a smaller house not many years after I was born. Er, Redbourne Street was seven pleasant terraces, and at the bottom of our terrace was a bombed building from the Second World War. We lived there, like I said, as long as eleven. Or was it thirteen? Thirteen, maybe, yeah, thirteen, and we moved from there to Sefton Street and it was at 1500 quid for the ‘ouse, me mam paid 1500 for this house. It wanted work doing on it, but they did it up in no time, and then eventually I lived there ’til I was 27. Sounds old for moving out of your own home, but I worked away on the gas rigs and the oil rigs, so I went away for periods of time – two on two off. My brothers and sisters had moved out, I was the only man at home, me dad had moved out, so that was good, so it was like a hotel, really, and it was close to me mam, so I just used to do me own thing. I’d come home, and it was later that I got into photography, er, through living there and looking through me mam’s pictures and stuff like that, because I come from a family of scrap dealers and, er, traditional recyclers in Hull, so my dad started work when he was thirteen. I started work when I was thirteen, to be honest, working at me Aunt Nora’s fruit shop, taking orders to, delivery orders to people on Hessle Road, and that was pocket money for the weekend, which was good, er, so yeah, it was good learning experience, meeting people, and earning pocket money.
03:43 AS: Erm, what kind of, erm, place would you say these were when you were growing up? What kind of… What was the area like?
03:52 GN: Growing up, everybody was in the same boat. We never thought poverty or… We was always well fed, we was always well clothed, mam used to go in Marks and Spencer’s, get all our stuff, because the nature of me dad being a rag-and-bone-man, and you think we’ll be getting all our stuff off the horse and cart, but it never happened that way. Me mam was real proud, and she always got us dressed well. The schools weren’t great, looking back, because you reflect so you get older. They was there, they was training you for factory work, really, erm, even though I went to technical schools, I think there’d been technical schools well before I attended. So I went to Chilton Street School -primary, my junior school was Francis Askew, and my senior school was Riley High School – all boys’ schools throughout. Left school at sixteen, not a lot of prospects, to be honest. I, uh, did a YTS work in an electrical shop in town, Weekfall’s 04:48 selling electrical products for six months, it was a cheap scheme, it was a government scheme, just to get you off the dole, so I then got a horse and cart off my dad, and I did that till I was twenty, say, about twenty. After that, I did other government type schemes, loads of little jobs working in garages and stuff like that, and then [clears throat] I was working on a cemetery, Sculcoates Lane, and my friend was working away at Budgie 05:18, so he’d worked away at… This is why they try it, so I did my survival certificate, and my mum came to the cemetery says, “You’ve got an interview with this job,” so I jumped at the chance because I was only on for not a great deal, I’m only working for the council, so I went offshore for six years, catering, and then I had five years off. In that time, I did a BTEC in Performing Arts at the Riley High School, so that’s funny, going full circle. Did a BTEC in Lighting, Sound, Acting – how to put on a show. Er, I left there and went to the New Theatre for a couple of years, it was really well paid, but it was seasonal, so then I just started thinking how to get a job that’s gonna pay properly, so I went back offshore again, went back on the rigs for fifteen years, erm, maybe longer, and that was two on two off, three on three off, did that for all them years, really loved, er, it in the meantime, my daughter was born, Theodora, I was now 28, and then, at the end of all this, I’d had enough. The job was killing me, so I decided to give it up, basically, uh, took a bit redundancy, left, and pursued my photography passions full on, whereas before it was only part time, but now I could really do it full on [coughs]. So the first job after leaving the rigs, like I said my dad started work at thirteen, I thought it’d be a good time to document him now, in his later years, he was eighty at that time, and I was getting on towards sixty, ’bout 57, 58. So I documented him and his day-to-day business, recycling, meeting all the people he’d met, his friends, it was a really good bonding experience for both of us, and then he retired at 82, and then, since then I’ve, luckily I’ve had funding from the Arts Council and people like that to continue with me photography and had some good exhibitions, and that’s what I’m doing now.
07:43 AS: Um, what did your… You mentioned what your dad did, and what did your mum do? When you were growing up?
07:48 GN: So me mum worked as… In, uh, she was trained to be a secretary, but most of her workin’ life was at Smith and Nephew’s on Hessle Road, big pharmaceutical company, making plasters and Nivea sun cream and stuff like that, so she did that, and then she was bringing us four children up in between that so she had, I’ve got, like I said, brother John, sister Joanne, and sister Julie, they, uh… Julie lives down in Eastbourne.
She’d worked for the Guinness Trust, had some good jobs. My brother worked for Citizen Advice Bureau, he does a lot of welfare work now for ex-fisherman, and we lost me sister at 45, she was a housewife with two kids, so yeah, they’ve all done alright, my family, really, they’ve really got into the work ethic, that’s what was brought up on you, you know what I mean? Graft.
08:48 AS: What was, erm, you mentioned a brother John, erm, working with ex-fisherman, erm, can you tell us a little bit about that?
08:54 GN: So my brother John, two years younger than me, ‘e worked for Citizen Advice Bureau voluntarily for years, then he got a full-time job, and then that job came to an end, and then he works now for a charity called Nautilus. Nautilus, basically, is a charity for anybody who has been to sea, the merchant navy, fishermen, people who’ve been to the Falklands, the widows of fishermen, so, for instance, if you needed a new bed, or if you needed to bury somebody, or you needed to move home, and you need expenses to help you do that, my brother, if he’s … if it’s available the funding, he looks into them avenues, and he gets money to help people either be relocate, or to help people who’ve got disability problems, so his experience working for Citizen Advice Bureau and welfare has really helped him in this new job, so he’s sort of self-employed, but ‘e does work for a bigger organization called Nautilus, which is a fisherman’s charity.
10:06 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
10:07 GN: And he’s done that for probably ten years now, and he really likes it, it’s really rewarding job, because you’re seeing the help that you can help people, so, like I said if they need mobility scooters, they need taxis for doctors appointments, they need a new mattress because they’ve got bad backs, stuff like that. It’s real good work, I think.
10:28 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Erm, what, uh… You mentioned your mum, erm, working at Smith and Nephew’s, what was that like growing up? What… Can you remember any stories?
10:40 GN: Er, yeah, I can, actually. So Smith and Nephew’s [clears throat] been a real socialist, er, outfit, brilliant to work for, really cared and looked after the staff. Every year, without fail, and summer, they’d put on bus trips to Scarborough to see people like Mike Yarwood, Cilla Black, erm, and then Lord Charles, he was a ventriloquist, and we’d go on these outings with all the other families who worked at Smith and Nephew’s, and then at Christmas, they had a big Christmas party for all the family, um, employees for Smith and Nephew’s, so that was one of the highlights of the year, really, it was two things to look forward to, and like I said, they really looked after their staff and the children as well, yeah, good people.
11:33 AS: What were those, erm, trips to Scarborough like?
11:37 GN: Just mad. So it was loads of kids full of fizzy pop, full of A numbers, bouncing about on the bus, ‘aving fun, erm, and then you had to behave yourself because you was with your parents, but you got to the Bridlington Spa, where the acts were. 11:53 We’d seen 11:53 have her own it and all these ’70s type people, and like I said, Lord Charles, because I loved ventriloquism, and I had a ventriloquist when I was a kid, and, uh, didn’t have any mates, so ‘e was fun to watch, and Mike Yarwood, ‘e was the big impersonator of the day, and he was top of his game when we got to see him, so, and it was all paid for. I think the… The families must have put some money into a kitty or something like that, but I think it was subsidized by Smith and Nephew’s.
12:23 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
12:25 GN: But yeah, happy days growing up, yeah. A lot of families in West ‘Ull, that was the big employer round ‘ere, and it still is, I suppose.
12:39 AS: Do you remember, erm, your mum’s interests outside of work?
12:44 GN: Smokin’. She liked smokin’, did Barbara. She loved shopping, loved Marks and Spencer’s, they knew ‘er personally in there, because she’d be there every single day in the sales rack, she’d come home, she’d show us all what she was wearing, “What you think of this?” and if we just had any faces that didn’t approve, she’d take it back the next day and she’d change it for something else, and she’d embarrass you if you went shopping with her. You’d be at one end of the shop and she’d be at the other end of the shop and she’d shout, “Are you there George?” and I’d think, “God, please, don’t,” uh, but yeah, like I said, she was well loved in Smith and Nephew’s, and they all speak about, the staff who I see now, they’re still talking about… She loved holiday, she loved holiday, she did a lot of holiday making with my sister Julie. Loves being, er, she had to have the most goldenest tan ever coming back with ‘er duty-free cigarettes, even when she died, she had about 2,000 cigarettes behind the grandfather clock, and then if she didn’t bring ’em back, she’d ask people who she worked with to bring a case of 200 back, you know what I mean? But no, she wa’n’t a drinker, but she did like her clothes, she loved getting nice clothes, and like I said, my sister… My sister didn’t have any kids, she’d sent my mother where every year to Spain, or Barcelona, or wherever, so that was her treat. She’d have her nails done, she’d have her hair done, and then she’d just blather herself in sun lotion and come back brown as the ace of spades, or black as. [he chuckles]
14:18 AS: Erm, your dad,, you mentioned, erm, was a rag-and-bone-man?
14:25 GN: Yeah.
14:25 AS: And tell me, what was that like?
14:26 GN: So, I come from a generation of scrap dealers. So my dad’s got six brothers, he’s the last one living now, my dad, uh, he had horses from the age of fourteen. Before him, my grandad had the horses, because he was in the fruit trade round Humber Street, so they would plie their carts full of fruit, my grandad, travel up to Withernsea with my grandma, sell fruit on the streets then come back to Hull, replenish the cart, and sell fruit that way. Then, as they got older, they had second-hand shops, so my grandma, we got a Gilbert Bateson’s and Barstol from the auctions, rents was real cheap for shops back then, so then the brothers came along, my grandma didn’t want her sons to go to sea because of the dangers, so they all sort of fell into having horse and carts and collecting scrap, it was just after the war. My dad was born in 1940, ‘e was married in 1958 to my mum, Barbara Norris, erm, so that’s all we’d known all our growing up years, bein’ around horses, and all the stuff that people threw out, so I have a passion for antiques, and love of vintage, and I think that’s where it stems from. And like I said, my dad’s 84 now, erm, it was only two years ago he had forty ‘orses on Anlaby Common, and he’s had to sell them because he can’t physically do it, it’s physical, job so at the moment there’s 12 horses on Anlaby Common, but they don’t belong to me dad, er, but, he’s always been a grafter, and his passion’s horses, always loved his horses. He’d breed ‘orses, that’s why he accumulated forty, because I think he had eight mares, well you can imagine, if they have a foal every year don’t take long before you’ve got forty, uh, mares and foals, but yeah, everybody knows me dad in the city, er, well loved by everybody that way, because I suppose if somebody’s shouting down your street every day for best part of 65 years, they get to know ‘im, don’t they, you know what I mean? Oh, the rag-man’s here, and then he’s a likable person, and, er, as he’s got older, this is what’s the problem with me dad at the moment he’s not seeing as many people as he did back then, do you know what I mean? So he’s lost his purpose and his way a bit, really, but, erm, but yeah, talk to anybody on Hessle Road about the Norrises and they’re well known.
17:05 AS: What, erm, what do you remember, erm, of him telling you about his starting a rag-and-bone 17:12?
17:12 GN: So what started my dad off, so you can imagine, it’s just after the war, ‘e was born in 1940, so it was two years… No it wasn’t… I can’t… Whatever, after the war, he got to thirteen, and there’s six boys in the house, so there wouldn’t have been a lot of money, so ‘e started collecting cardboard, and ‘e’d sell that on, on the way, and ‘e managed to save up enough money to buy his first horse and cart, and then since then he’s had ‘undreds of horses, lots of carts, lots of harness, erm, and then, as time went on he got a transit, ‘e passed his driving test, and then he used to go in a transit van. He always had lots of different people working for him, erm, just on daily wages and stuff, and what I like about me dad is he didn’t know what he was gonna earn that day. Some weeks he wouldn’t make anything, but then it was all on his own abilities of bein’ out there every day, shoutin’, askin’, and graftin’, and winter months aren’t fun to be shoutin’ your ‘ead off on a winter’s morning, and still got a family to feed, so he must have had a lot of hardships. We never saw it, like, because we never went without food or clothing and stuff, we was all well fed. Oh, we’ve been lucky that way, do you know what I mean? Whereas a lot of people that I grew up, their dads used to go to sea, and there was always money coming in because, if they had, even if they had a bad trip, they still had money comin’ in. But not a lot of work in Hull, so I suppose, ‘im being a recycler, and his brothers having second-hand shops and recycling, it was the days before vintage and charity shops, really, erm, so they’ve all been resilient, me grandparents was resilient, erm, and it was before all this internet and the media and stuff like that, and I think people communicated more back then, do you know what I mean?
19:19 AS: Yeah.
19:19 GN: I’m not going on a nostalgia trip, but I’m just thinking, it was different times, wa’n’t it?
19:24 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You, erm, what do you remember of those horses?
19:31 GN: So I had a couple, two or three, I had Rags, I had Bella, I had Violet, some was broke in good, some was broke in not so good. So what I mean by that is horses are very temperamental, so if there’s a big noise, or a big wagon, or if there’s even a cast-iron sink in the middle of the road, they can shy away from them, and it can be quite scary, so you have to have your wits about ya at all times, because you could soon have an accident; but I really loved the freedom of that, even though it was only for a few years, I can see the… Why my dad’s stuck at it forever, erm, because you, well, it’s just you and the elements, and you was out there in the fresh air seeing people, and like say, I really enjoyed it, and I was lucky, I was living at home, whatever I earnt was mine, and probably then you could earn ‘undred pound a week, when I think the average wage in Hull was probably about 50 quid, and you did have to work all week for that, but then you did have your down weeks, where you were struggling to make ends meet, so you’d have to save a bit for them weeks when you did have a poor week, but I did like it, especially in the summer, there weren’t a job better, really.
20:43 AS: Do you remember what your dad’s interests were outside of-?
20:45 GN: ‘orses? Drinking. Er, me dad’s interests… drinking, ‘avin’ a deal – with other people. If you had a deal, what I mean by that is ‘e’d buy a set of harness, and if you could make a profit, if you bought a cart, it could make profit, if you bought a horse, it could make profit, or if you’ve got something while out calling, collecting scrap, you might get antiques, you might get old furniture, if he could have a deal he was happy, and he’s still like it now, if he can have a deal a day, or a deal a week, it makes his week. Erm, other interests, ‘e wa’n’t really one for cinema, ‘e wa’n’t bothered about sport, erm, he likes to dress well. I think it… He’s a people’s person, so, as much as ‘e was in the pub a lot, a lot of his dealings were done in the pub, uh, and it was before 24-hour drinking, so there would be certain pubs like the 21:41 Gillet Street Club, where you could go at 12 o’clock till 4 o’clock, then he’d go home for his tea, and if you wanted to go back out at 7, there’s, there was plenty of places, but I never saw him drunk, even though he could drink ten pints, I think he just… He just drank and he never got drunk, really, erm, but it was a culture, the man’s culture back then was about drinking, it was a drinking culture, whereas when we growin’ up, our culture was goin’ ta see bands at the Welly Club, it was gonna 22:14 Romeos under-18s, it was 22:17 Wally’s, it was gigs, it was…. and then the ecstasy, and the Es, and the raves came later, which I wasn’t a part of, that was a younger generation from me. I always like goin’ ta see bands, I followed bands for years, every time I came ‘ome I’d try and get to see a band, from the rigs, er, but me dad now, ‘e didn’t really have a lot of interests, like I said, ‘e come from a generation, when he was twenty, I suppose, in the early ’60s, he used to go rock and roll dancing and stuff like that. There was a couple of places, there was Love Deluxe, which sounds amazing as a name of a club, and he used to go Earl de Grey was one of the drinking haunts, Vauxhall, the Alexandra pub on Hessle Road, Gillett Street Club later, and then towards the end of… ‘e hasn’t drank for twelve or fourteen years now, he used to go in the rugby tavern, which I think they call it Tiger’s Lane now, on the, on Anlaby Road there, he used to like going in there just to see friends, really. He’s a sociable guy, so he liked bein’ around people. He used to sing in the pub, he was a regular singer in the pub, he had a good voice for singin’, like.
23:38 AS: Do you remember, um, seeing him sing?
23:42 GN: Yeah, a few times. So, we’d go to Appleby ‘orse Fair every year, and ‘e would sing in the pubs, he’d sing really old songs what his, probably his grandparents sang. To Be a Barrow Boy was one of ’em. My grandma used to sing in the pub, and ‘er big number was, um, oh, what was it called? It’ll come to me. My Yiddish Mama or something like that, really old song, and my granddad used to sing a bit, erm, well, you ‘ear these stories about people set around pianos and singing after pubs and clubs, and I think it was that generation was like that. They’d gone through the war years, wa’n’t a lot of money about, get a crate of ale, go back to somebody’s ‘ouse, sit around the fire, put the… singing on, and they make their own entertainment. It was before TV really came into force really, like it is now, but yeah, me dad was My Way, Wandering Star, things like that. ‘e’d entertain, ‘e was a bit of a showman, like, me dad. I think that’s just how he is. Not all the brothers was like that, but my dad was like that, ‘e was a bit of a showman, yeah.
24:59 AS: Erm, you mentioned, uh, grandma and your grandpa, erm tell us about them.
25:06 GN: So, all I really know about my grandma and granddad, really, they had fruit shops like I said. I lost me granddad when I was thirteen, my grandma later, so, she used to go to William Boathouse, which every Thursday they used to ‘ave a jumble sale, let’s call it a jumbled sale, ’cause it was a jumble sale, and all the clothes from the neighbourhood that people didn’t want would be sold on that Thursday, and she’d buy fur coats, she’d buy granddad shirts, she’d buy the flares, suits, she’d bought loads of suits, and people, she’d have them hung all over the ‘ouse, and people come, “oh, go down the Norris’ if you need a new suit,” so they’d go in, in the front room down Williamson Street, try the suits on, even if they didn’t fit, she’d make sure they walked out with a suit, do you know what I mean? She’d pinch their back and say, “oh yeah, it’s a tight fit, that, son, yeah, it suits ya.” She was a character, like, uh, I always remember the auction terriers, they was always tryin’ to drink out your cups of tea and stuff, and, uh, she had a table next to her, and it was just piled up like New York with tablets what she’d been given for ailments, and anybody popped their ‘ead in the door, “oh I’ve got something for that,” she was like a drug dealer, she’d be giving them all the Paracetemols or whatever, you know what I mean? Er, me granddad was quiet, he used to… He never spoke about the war, like a lot of that generation, ‘e used to do all the cooking and baking and butchering, because he was a chef in the army, so he had a second-hand shop on Glasgow Street, and later on Woodcock Street. My grandma would go to the auctions, bid for stuff, and if you didn’t sell…. If stuff didn’t sell at Bateson’s, Mr. Bateson would sign it over to me grandma, he’d say, “right put on Annie Norris’ tab,” and she’d take it away, and me dad was resentful, because ‘e’d be bringing mattresses back full of feathers, but there was people for feathers then, they’d recycle feathers, before this disposing, throw away society that we live in now. Erm, so, me granddad quiet guy, really, ‘e ‘ad ‘is second-hand shops, ‘e always had a bird outside the front way, either a canary or a budgie, singin’ away. ‘e liked them birds, and I think he’d got that from his grandparents, really, because I think they always had birds, animals. Me grandma and granddad used to travel to Withernsea, like I said earlier, with a cartload of fruit and sell it, either on the knocker, knocking on people’s doors and asking ’em if they wanted to buy fruit, or they’d stand in a prominent position in the town centre, and people would go to ’em and buy their fruit. One of her sons, called Frank, ‘e used to ‘ave the donkeys at Withernsea every year, er, every year they used to just stay there for the season. He was one of the elder brothers. But, uh, good person to ask would be me dad about that, really, bur, um, I do ask him, because I’m fascinated, but, erm… I’ll remember about the second-hand shops, and one of the things I do remember about in the second-hand shops, so Donnie Osman, Tom Jones, and people like that were out of flavour, but, and David Cassidy, but they’d have all the posters, and all the framed pictures. Nobody wanted ’em, but me grandma’d’ve ended up with ’em out of Bateson’s, probably, do you know what I mean? “Oh, give ’em to Mrs. Norris, she’ll take ’em away,” that was one of me early… Because we’d sit there in the summer with him, outside the shop, so they’re sort of more memories that you remember.
28:48 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Your brothers and sisters, erm, do you want to sort of say a bit about them? Growing up, what was it like?
28:58 GN: So, we moved from Linnaeus Street to Redbourne Street, and it was only a small ‘ouse, so my brother Johnny, he lived in the attic, me and one of my sisters lived in a back bedroom, my parents in the front bedroom, and my sister Joanne was a lot younger than us, she lived in a cot for ‘er first, well, you know, ‘owever long that is; and then the house was deemed unfit for human habitation, which, it was fit, just didn’t ‘ave a bathroom, it had an outside toilet, so we had to get washed in the sink, and that was embarrassing when people came round, “are you coming out?” “no, does it look like it? I’m in the bath, I’m in the sink,” or whatever, so when I was, I think it might have been eleven, we moved to Sefton Street, and that’s when we had our first bath, and, uh, so Julie had a… My younger sister and Joanne, had their own bedroom, and I’d share with me brother, John. We had a record player in there, two single beds, got on each other’s nerves, condensation runnin’ down the the walls, er, and then like I said, my sister, she went to university in Portsmouth, so she was the first to leave, and she’s always lived away from Hull ever since, so she’s lived all over, but she’s now in Eastbourne, she had lived in London for a few years, which was great ’cause I used to visit ‘er there and see the city. Then Johnny moved out when he was 16, and it wa’n’t long after that my sister, Joanne, she’d moved out, so it was only me at home, so… We got on all right, I’m really close to my brother and sister now, we wouldn’t have any squabbles, really. We was always at cousins’ houses, because me Aunt Rose, she had like eight kids, so we’d go visit them, erm, and like me Aunt Nora… It’s funny that, because growing up, my grandma and grandad sort of brought my sister Julie up, my Aunt Nora, who was married to my Uncle Jim, my grandma’s brother, they had no kids, couldn’t have kids, so before me there was my Uncle Sam, they brought ‘im up, then there was my cousin Wendy, they brought her up, then I came along, and I was like their son for five years, and then as I grew older, my sister would fit that place among, but with my brother John, there was Francis and Charlie Fox. Francis was my grandad’s sister, she… Then, actually, Johnny come in, brought him up, like I said, my sister Joanne went with Nora Barnes, and it was that extended family thing back then, which I suppose it still goes on, because a lot of single parents out there, but I think that was as it was in the North, I don’t know if it was everywhere. You see stuff on TV about extended families, but we did have this network of an extended family, so if me and my dad weren’t getting on and was arguing, we’d be at Auntie’s or Uncle’s and we’d be farmed off somewhere ’til they sorted themselves out, do you know what I mean?But yeah, it was good. You learn a lot, don’t ya? From older gen… That’s why I’m, like I like older people, they’ve got so much wisdom to teach you and to pick up on.
32:17 AS: Have you ever lived anywhere else other than Hull?
32:18 GN: Any what?
32:19 AS: Have you lived anywhere else other than Hull?
32:21 GN: No, I’ve always lived in Hull, apart from living on the rigs [he chuckles], so no, I love Hull, I’m like a stick a rock, I’m Hull through, I’m proud of this city, I love it in equal measures, I love it some days, I hate it some days, but it’s been good for me, erm, I like the people ‘ere, the people are warm, friendly, you’ll always get a smile, “Hi, how’s the family?” and I think that’s all we all want, innit? It’s good. I made some good friendships in… I’ve got loads of acquaintances, like everybody, but I really like it here. I’ve … I do go to other cities a lot, London and places, and I get me fix that way. I don’t want to live in anywhere else. Maybe, when I ger older.
[cough]
33:12 AS: So, school. What was school like for you?
33:15GN: So Chilton Street, that was sort of all boys’ school, sort of remember it a little bit, assembly, singin’, er, religious songs, then that was close to us, and then Francis Askew, I’d walk to Francis Askew every morning with Frank Everiches, over the flyover, we did that for quite a few years. The teacher wa’n’t great, to be honest, erm, it was just school, wa’n’t it? I don’t know. I suppose Riley, you sort of learn a bit more about the world. So I loved history, I liked me history lessons, I liked me art lessons, I wa’n’t an academic, I don’t profess to be, but the RE teacher was good. Dr. Martin, that was his nickname, he’d be telling you all about Stonehenge and druids and stuff like that, so I was fascinated with all that. Erm, I think for me, school was… When I left school, it was under-18s, uh, Wally’s, which was Wally May’s, he had the Wally’s under 18s club in town opposite Wally’s which is now Prince Regent pub, but after that it was a roller disco, then we got a Romeo’s under-18s, I’d go to Win Casino, even though I wa’n’t old enough to be in there, but we’d go every weekend, that was great, only did it a few times, really, but met some good people, so you’d be dancing from midnight ’til six in the morning, seven in the morning, met a few lifelong friends, then after that, I suppose, like everybody who like alternative music it was Spiders, and it was Silhouette nightclub. So Spiders, anything happened there, you met great people, had a few romances. Silhouette was the gay club, which everybody felt safe in there, upstairs was like… Let’s think. It was a living room, basically. It was a Georgian house, or late Victorian house, the basement of the house was the bar and the dance floor, the upstairs was a living room and people would, the older generation, older than us, would sit up there, and there was one, and what did they call it? There was a seat where you wouldn’t sit if you weren’t… If you was gay you’d sit on it. I think they called it the meat rack, you’d go sit on the meat rack if you was looking for a date upstairs in the Silhouette, and it was like somebody’s living room. Uh, there was Molly on the door, she’d frighten you to death, she was a scary looking character, but if you got the okay, you was in, and you was under 18, you was in, and like I said, the older generation, there was all like bits of dandies, those characters like Twaddles, Andrew Allen, who was nicknamed Slack, erm, there was Wendy who used to work on the ferries, ‘e was a pianist, so you didn’t really get to know ’em that well because downstairs where the music was, and if you was looking for love that’s where, on the dance floor, so there was, there’s Pete Wilson I called him Pete 36:29 Boatshed, because actually worked on the rigs with ‘im, and he went out with the owner of the Club, Ray, erm and Peter was… You… They always talk about London, and the Blitz Club, and places like that and Hell, and I suppose that was all Blitz Club, because I left school in 1980, so I was too old for punk, even though all me friends was into punk, I was more to the two-tone stuff, I was into the Specials, it was black and white you a night, there’s… and it was, there was a lot of political stuff going on, which we never learnt at school. We learnt more about politics through the music that we was listening to, so the Clash was my band, so I say I was too old for punk, but the Clash was around a lot longer than the Pistols, and the Clash spoke to me, this is life, this is politics. I love Joe Strummer, so they’d play all this great music downstairs in the Silhouette and Spiders, but Silhouette was the gay club, everybody knew it as the gay club. There was Romeo’s and Juliet’s, there was for like the trendies, erm, that was like boy meets girl sort of venues, but the Silhouette was the gay club, Polar Bear was another gay venue, as was Vauxhall saw back in the day on Hessle Road, the pub. Nobody bothered ya, erm, so ya felt safe, and ‘enry’s was a rough old place, that was on Anlaby Road. I always felt safe in there, but if you wasn’t from around there you would, you’d stick out like a sore thumb, and if there’s ever any trouble in there, it was like the scene from Star Wars, there was a fight breaks out the music’d stop, the person who was causing the bother would get thrown out, as soon as that person was thrown out, the music’d come back on as if nothing ‘ad ‘appened, it was mental. But I never saw any fights in Silhouette, the only time I would see any trouble at Silhouette is when the trendies would believe in Romeo’s or LA’s and bump into somebody outside Silhouette, “oh, you’re a faggot, you’re a gay, you’re this, that, and the other,” so you might get the odd skirmish then, but I never really saw it.
38:49 AS: Erm, when did you start going to-?
38:52 GN: Silhouette?
38:54 AS: Yeah, Silhouette.
38:54 GN: Silhouette, as bad as 16. I was too young to get in both venues, bur, erm, I suppose they knew that, really. I… Welly Club there was a bit more stricter, but I managed to get in there to see all the punk bands, the second generation of punk – the UK Subs, the Members, the Revellers, er, Specials… Who else played what I can think? Monochrome Set… Bauhaus never played, even though they were supposed to play, they said, “we aren’t playin’ here, it’s a dump,” and then there was Dingwall’s, that was another good venue, that was down George Street, that was a good venue. It burnt down, spontaneously combust, however you want to call it I, think it was an insurance job, er, that was a good venue. Eurythmics played there, er, Sudden Death Cult, people like that played there, really good venue. ‘Ull’s always been good for bands, really, thinking back, it wa’n’t always about London. A lot of people think it was all London centric, but we, it was all happening in ‘Ull as well. I was talking to me mate Matt Wiggen and, um, he studied at Hull University, fine art, and ‘e’s gone on to do designs for Doc Marten boots, and he had his Museum of Club Culture and stuff like that, but when we had this conversation, ‘e says, “when I came to Hull to study,” ‘e says, “you had about eight, what was it, at least 16 clubs to go to, you had double that in the amount of bars, you had… So you could go drinking all day, then you could go to a club, and after that club left you could go to Vicky Coffee Club, you could go to Cameo Club, you could go to Pacific Club, and that was unheard of,” and he says, “Manchester was okay, but it was the ‘acienda, or it was some sort of place where Bernie Manny’d play,” so Manchester didn’t have that much going for it, really, Hull always had lots of entertainment going on, loads of it, do you know what I mean? For young people and old people. Maybe with being a dock, you know, like Liverpool and that. I reckon Liverpool’d have had the same sort of numbers, but I know we was never sure of anywhere to go, if you wanted to drink late, anyway, you went to… They wa’n’t great clubs, don’t get me wrong, Vicky was a rough old joint, the sell booze under the counter, Cameo Club was rough, full of prostitutes, but that’s where people did their business, and you had a late night, but when you 16, 17 you’ve got bags of energy, so you just want to stay up all night, don’t ya? Er, Welly shut quite early, Spiders was probably 1:30, out the door by 2, Silhouette, I think there was okay, because it was like a members club as well, so they could just lock the door, but I do remember Silhouette, they had a license, you could eat, you could go there on a Sunday, where a lot of places were shut, but Silhouette would open on a Sunday, but they ‘ad to provide food, that was one of the rules, so it was a chicken in a basket job, you know I mean, and I think some of the other clubs took it on later, because there was… They saw a reason to open and a way of making money, but yeah, I remember that chicken in the basket, so everybody went there if they were starving, basically, and a bit of a dancer or drinker, you know I mean?
42:21 AS: Where was Silhouette?
42:22 GN: Silhouette was on Spring Bank, and there’s a record shop next door on Spring Bank now, so it was you went up the stairs to the… So it’s at the very beginning of Spring Bank, you’d walk up the stairs, and that’s where you pass the door with Molly, if she’d give you the nod you was in, if she didn’t like you, you wa’n’t in, so you’d go in, and you’d be on the top level, and then you go downstairs to the dance hall… The dance hall, the dance place, and the bar at the back, so it’d probably ‘old about… I can’t, I couldn’t quite say, probably a ‘undred people, but people might say different, but with the fire laws, I don’t think that… It wa’n’t really geared up, if you had a fire in there, it would have been trouble, do you know what I mean? But ‘undred people, but it wa’n’t busy every night, ’cause it was open every night. There was other clubs before the Silhouette but I wa’n’t, er, privy to, I think there was one called Pink Flamingo, that was another one down, uh, down Spring Bank, or it could have been Silhouette before it changed its name, I’m not really sure.
43:31 AS: Er, what about HU3, what, where did you go out there?
43:35 GN: HU3, so, there was a club off… it, uh, what’s the street called? There was 43:44 ‘arry Club, I remember, that you could get in there under 18, that was off one of the side streets, I think it was down Harris Street, that’s how I got the name, ‘arris Street, do you know what I mean? ‘arry Club. So we’d go there, Rayner’s was always a dump growing up, really, it was like a sawdust on the floor job. It’s only in recent years it’s had the makeover with a nice swanky bar, nice seating, and stuff. Er, Dairycoates was more me dad’s pub, Halfway were me dad’s pubs. I didn’t spend much time drinking on ‘essle Road, to be honest, we had a pub round the corner from where we lived down Redbourne Street called the Lion pub, me parents used to go in there because it was literally a stone throw from where we lived, and Nick Miller’s dad had, that Pete Miller’s. You’d get people like Barry Rutti, the actor, in there and Tom Courtney now and again, er, but I was more for town, I was Cheese, Bass ‘ouse, erm, where else would I say? Later on the Room, which was a good venue, the Blue Lamp was a good venue down Norfolk Street, guy who lived in this house Mick Greeves ‘e used to run it, the Alex, was me grandparents’ pub, so we’d go in there, but only if the grandparents was in there, so, really, for me, it was town, I was more of a townie. Er, Romeo’s under-18s, LA’s, Silhouette, Spiders, Welly, Oasis Wine Bar, that was a regular place down Posterngate, still there, they ‘ad a photography studio next door where you could develop your own photographs and stuff. Erm, where else? Oh, the old White Hart pub I liked in town, down the passage there, Bluebell, erm, all traditional working men’s pubs, really, yeah, they was alright. We’d definitely be in White Hart every Saturday night growing up, before I started working offshore and stuff, but even when I came ‘ome we’d go in there, because it was familiarity, wa’n’t it? You go to know the people in there and people who used to go in there, but the town’s totally changed now. I think a lot of the young ‘uns use the Old Town like we used the Old Town, rather than the Cheeses and the Basses and places like that. Star and Garter was another busy pub in the town, [clears throat] they’d put films on in there, I saw a guy watch the Exorcist in there and he collapsed, and he was six foot odd, and he says, “oh, it’s hot in here, innit? Oh, yeah.” I thought, “here we go,” you know what I mean? But it was a horrible film.
46:25 AS: What was the entertainment like in the pubs that you went to in town? Or clubs.
46:28 GN: Erm… I suppose we made our own… It was just… It was a more of a meeting up place, rather than entertainment, if you wanted entertainment, you’d go to a club. In the pubs it was just meeting up with old friends and stuff, erm, the pubs that me dad used to go into like the Anchormen and places like that, they’d be singing, [Alex sneezes] there’d be singing going down. Erm, but that was the old traditional pubs what our parents used, do you know what I mean? [clears throat] The younger generation didn’t go in for all that. New York was another popular venue, opposite the Tower Night Club, that got demolished quite a few years ago, so the young punks would go in there for a dance and stuff, saw Roland Gift perform in there a few times, they ‘ad a back room, and they used to have acts on. [coughs] Go for it.
47:28 AS: Yeah. [blows nose] Erm, coming back to, erm, clubs, so like Silhouette, erm, and the Blue Lamp and all those, erm, what would you say was, um, what were they like? You know, you spoke a lot about-
47:47 GN: The Blue Lamp was brilliant, Cheeseman, who was in the Rats, which became Spiders from Mars, ‘e used to run the Blue Lamp, and ‘e’d have acts on most nights [clears throat], and it was real good, and then it became the Room, was it? No, the Room was somewhere else. Blue Lamp, it was really good, it was mid ’80s, so it was before the rave culture kicked in, so ‘e’d have old blues bands and American bands, and it was always cheap to get in, they’d ‘ave the pool tables out the back. Silhouette was just familiar, I suppose, it was… There was, nobody’s trying to outdo each other or stuff like that, it wa’n’t, er, it wa’n’t full of fashion victims, you just you were rough and ready. There was a few people did get dressed up, like say Pete Wilson, Pete Boatshed I’d call ‘im, Paul Weems, I think you might be talking to at some point, erm, they used to have these fun nights where it was Miss Hollywood, which was fun, and then there was Miss Beach Ball or something like that, so all the gay guys’d camp it up and get dressed up as, uh, beach babes or Miss Winter Wonderland, they’d be fairies for Christmas, do you know what I mean? And they’d mime to ABBA or whatever music it was, so, Peter used to be the ringleader for all that, and there is films off that, which Kate’s gonna be aware of when she speaks to Paul, he recorded stuff like that, he’s got it on cine camera, so that’s going to be great for the archive. Erm, no, it was real, it was a gentle place, if that’s the right word. It was… You didn’t feel any sense of any danger, you just didn’t step out of line, but whereas Henry’s, you just had to look at somebody wrong and you’d be in a fight, because it was very tribal, you’re not from round here, whereas there, come on down, do you know what I mean? You don’t think that at the time, but now we’re talking about it like this, there was no… Nobody’s looking down their noses at you, do you know what I mean? There was Bulldog, ‘e was the glass collector, everybody knew ‘im, and I think ‘alf the time he was speeding off his head, so ‘e’d be drinking all the dregs, and, erm, what people’d left behind, but ‘e died a couple of years back, bur he was a character. I’ve took his picture a few years ago as well, because I recognized him, people didn’t realize he was still alive. That was his nickname, whar a nickname to be calling somebody, Bulldog! [clears throat] And I don’t even know if he was gay, I don’t know if he was bisexual or what but… But Twaddles was a big character, like I said earlier, I worked with him briefly at British Aerospace, he passed away a few years back, he was on a couple of Russell’s pictures, bur he was camper than camp, yeah, and then there’s Wendy, who played the piano on the ferry, ‘e was always immaculate, really, ‘e was it was on the Peacock’s Wall at the ‘umber Street Gallery, he always looked, was pristine, white suit, he brought a book anyway. I don’t know what the name of the book is, but it’d be worth checking out, because there’d be stories of Silhouette in there, I would have thought. Wendy Gibson, that was his, I think his name was Roy, Roy, ‘is real name’s Roy Gibson, yeah, and everybody called him Wendy. But he would… Him and Barry, and Kandy Lee Barry, or Bobby Mandrell, I might have this wrong, but I know for sure that Roy, Wendy Gibson definitely went to the Falklands, and there was all a bit, “gay guy on the ship going off to the Falklands to fight a war,” but by the time they came back, I think Ray was on it, and they was all into it by the time they came back, they was all getting dressed up as women and stuff like that, do you know what I mean, they really went for it, and so they all got on really well together, but I think I think Ray might have… It might’ve been Ray rather than Roy who told me that story when I was with Russell in his house that day.
52:06 AS: So you mentioned, erm, drag.
52:08 GN: Drag.
52:09 AS: What were your, what are your memories of, erm, drag in, uh, Hull?
52:15 GN: Well, I ‘adn’t seen a lot of it, to be honest. I’ve seen Bobby Mandrell, who is the number one, and then I’ve seen a lot of stuff at Hull Pride, and now it’s gone up a gear. I think when I first started seeing Bobby Mandrell, he was the first person, barring Dick Emery and people like that on TV, he was the first guy straight, first gay guy I saw dressin’ up, and I just thought his act was absolutely amazing, so ‘e starts off doing all these big showtime numbers, Dusty Springfield, Shirley Bassey, uh, people like that, and going through an array of costumes, he must go through about twelve costume changes, but then at the very end… When I first saw him it was at Miller’s Pub, and I saw him, and it was a real small pub, and I didn’t know what to expect, so I thought, “oh, this is a bit different on a Sunday afternoon,” but at the end of the show I was in tears, because this man, ‘e took all the glamour away, he took all his clothes away, and ‘e got his makeup, and ‘e rubbed all the makeup off his face, ‘e took his wig off, and he got dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white shirt and he started singing, he sang his song throughout this unveiling of himself as a man, as Charles Asnavour ‘I am a man that’s what I am,’ and I’ve ‘eard different cover versions of it, Mark ‘armon sings a great cover version of it, and it’s so apt, and speaking to Ray a couple of, well, last year, he says, “I tried it a few times and it wa’n’t working,” and then he says, “I was in the bath,” and he had this epiphany, and ‘e knew how to sing it properly, and ‘e knew where ‘e was going wrong, and then he did it and it, he has it I’d say every time he does his act now, he does that song, and you just think, “Wow, yeah what a star,” and he is, I’ve got a lot of respect for Ray, like, erm, so anybody who gets the chance to see ‘im should definitely see ‘im, and when I first saw him, ‘is outfits were good, but now he’s gone to another level, because he spends a fortune. I saw his wardrobe last Christmas with Russell, and he reckons he’s gotta have, I dunno if it’s 150 or 250,000 pounds worth of costumes, it’s just the back room is just a walk-in wardrobe, he’s got shoes, he’s got wigs, he’s got heads of mannequins with wigs, and all these amazing array of costumes, er, he said the first time he did the pregnant nun, it was a sheet off the… One of the tables in the, off the ship, and ‘e made it into a nun’s habit, [clears throat] but now, ‘e’s just, ‘e’s like Chubby Brown, but ‘e’s not as blue, he is cheeky with his humour, he’s not racist, and I just think he’s amazing. How ‘e can stand there for two hours and do what he does, because it’s a lot of bottle, dunnit?
55:28 AS: You mentioned Miller’s Pub.
55:30 GN: Yeah, that’s up near-
55:31 AS: Where’s that?
55:31 GN: -near the flyover on ‘essle Road, that used to be really, really popular, now it’s not as popular, but I only go there now because they have a horse fair there once a year, and I’d got there for that, so all the Gypsies and Travelling people, they’re going there when the fair’s on, so they buy and sell ‘orses, they put food on, they make a full afternoon of it, do you know what I mean?
55:56 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
55:57 GN: Bur it’s not whar it was to where… Rayner’s is probably the busiest pub on ‘essle Road now, uh, Ryder Club is a proper club, they have, uh, an act, they have the over-55s club on a Wednesday, which is busy, and then on a Sunday they have acts on, er, I ain’t seen any drag acts in there though, but yeah, it’s popular, you know what I mean?
56:23 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and you mentioned in Miller’s Pub seeing Bobby Mandrell perform-
56:28 GN: That was the first time I’ve seen him, yeah. So I know Russell had seen him in the George, because he lived next door to the George when he was in Hull studying fine art and photography.
56:36 AS: Can you just tell us who Russell is?
56:38 GN: Russell Boyce is a friend of mine of 45 years.
56:42 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
56:42 GN: Inspired me to get into photography, erm, and we’ve become really good friends. He’d left Hull after doing his fine art degree, did sports photography, he then ended up working for Reuters International, and he’s in semi-retirement at the moment. We just did a big exhibition at ‘umber Street Gallery last year, which was phenomenal, 15,000 people through the door, and, uh, we speak every week about different things. So last year, ‘e did a film about Ray, and I went along for the interview and stuff, and Ray really opened up, ‘e, Ray’s had a couple of cancer scares, he had a lot of chemo, but I think he was really warm and generous and he told us everything we wanted to know. I thought Russell asked some great questions, one of the questions that sticks with me was, “when you was doing this, do you think you was championing the LGBT cause?” ‘e says, “no I wasn’t anything to do with any of that, er, I never thought of it like that,” even though people from that community do think highly of Ray, erm, but I thought, “yeah, it was honest,” and so, just Ray’s story is just phenomenal, he’d worked away for thirty odd years on the ferries, and it was bad, acting daft, he got into this drag, getting dressed up and drag and stuff, and now he’s made a… I wouldn’t say a living, but ‘e’s made a lot, a lot of people laugh, and Ray says, “if I can make one person laugh, me job’s done. I’ve done what I needed to do,” you know what I mean?
58:24 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
58:25 GN: Yeah, it’s good. So that’s who Russell was, anyway.
58:29 AS: And so, earlier [clears throat] earlier, you mentioned, uh, Polar Bear-
58:36 GN: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
58:36 AS: -as, uh, as being a gay club? Erm, some people, if you’re listening, might remember it, uh, now as more of a music venue, erm, tell us about-
58:45 GN: Yeah.
58:46 AS: -Polar Bear.
58:47 GN: So Polar Bear was, it was down on its heels for years. It’s only in recent years that it’s become a student bar, fully, I think on a Tuesday night they have a real late night on a Tuesday for the students, but for years it was looking like it could close at any point. Like a lot of pubs, the recession ‘it it bad, and it’s such a big bar, you only need ten people in there, and it still looks empty, so the gay community took over that, and I suppose it was on the way, on Spring Bank, it was towards that area… You could walk from the Polar Bear to the Silhouette, five minutes from the Polar Bear. So it was a mixed, it wa’n’t all gay, it was a mixture, like Vauxhall, it’s not all gays, and then there was Dolly’s Arms, which is now, it was Middle Child’s place, but now they’re moved on somewhere else, the drama group, so there was always little places where gay people could go, and I think we was talkin’ about Cameo Club, Ocean Eleven, and Earl de Grey, a lot of the gay community would go there as well, because they was out… not outcast, outsiders, do you know what I mean? They wa’n’t your conventional people, they, uh, so I suppose they all stuck together really, and felt safe in these places where they all went. So Polar Bear, yeah, you’d go in there, and there’d be one corner would just be full of gay people, didn’t bother anybody, just got on with it, and then you’d have the guys playin’ dominoes, darts, smoking when smoking was allowed in pubs, so it was down on its heels for a good ten, fifteen years, and the younger generation would go to the Blue Lamp and then later the Room. I was too old for… I went to the Room a few times, bur it wa’n’t for me, and then you’re in relationships and other things change, don’t they, do you know what I mean, you don’t go clubbing as much as you used to ’cause you’ve got other priorities, ain’t ya?
1:00:47 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
1:00:48 GN: And you found who you want to be with anyway, so you go to the cinema, or, uh, you’d go away, or do something like that, so I think it’s an age thing, innit, clubbing, and not so much bands, but clubbing, I think you’re… Probably from eighteen to 24, 25, then after that it sort of tails off a bit, because you’ve either met somebody, or you want to spend your money on something, maybe your rent, housing, or whatever, do you know what I mean? I think your money, when you’re younger, you’ve got a lot more free money, you can afford them shirts, them shoes, as you get older, you need food, you need your property, a treat’s an album, er, or gonna, a real treat is going to see a gig out of town, a train fare, so I think just it’s eighteen to 24, 25, and then it doesn’t stop overnight, but you just prioritize your money on different things don’t you?
1:01:43 AS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). What are your thoughts on Hull’s, erm, uh, kind of, Hull as a city? You mentioned earlier that you love it, and you wouldn’t move anywhere else, but-
1:01:55 GN: Yeah, I love it in equal measure. I love it and I hate it. I’m the eternal optimist. I think Hull’s on the up, I think we’ve got a lot of problems with bridges and roads and all that, but it’s not gonna last forever, the Queen’s Gardens is getting sorted, the Maritime’s getting sorted, we’ve got the wind farm ‘ere now, which I work at, Siemens, that’s expanding, that’s going to be work there for at least another ten years, the guys are on good wages, that’s going to be a lot of money when you’ve got a thousand people working there averaging 33,000 pound a year wages, that’s going to be a lot of money going into the economy. [clears throat] Er, we’ve got the workforce for this place. If we could get another factory like that, brilliant, and I think it will come, because I’m the eternal optimist. I think once that road is finished, I think we can get stuff in and out of the city, into Europe, we’re not in Europe now, but we are the closest to it, and there’s a lot of brownfield sites all over Hull which will need, which need redevelopin’, and I think people will get fed up of London and the price of everything down there, and I think once all this comes together in the next five years, it’s going to be really tricky for young people to put, to get a house and stuff like that because… I hope it doesn’t happen that way, I hope they do build more houses, affordable houses, but I really do believe that that new road down Castle Street, which should have been built 25 years ago, will be a turning point in Hull’s history, and I think it’s, it has taken 25 years, but I’m optimistic it’s gonna be a major change for the city, because I think people would relocate here, and we have got a young workforce that’ll need to work, and it’s not just a thousand people who work at Siemens, it’s all the other little add-ons, it’s all the cafes, it’s all the, well, think of it like, this there’s a thousand people, and they’re all earnin’ 33,000 pound a year, so if they’re living at home, brilliant. They’re out in the pubs, the clubs, the restaurants, they’re going to be spending that money. When they a home, it’s three times your wages, so you can you can get a property worth 130,000 on their wages, so that’s doable, if they’ve got a partner it’s well doable, so they’re still going to be able to have a quality of life living in Hull, because it’s still a cheap place to live. Erm, when I was their age, I had to go and work away to try and earn that sort of money to get a roof above me ‘ead and stuff like that, because otherwise I’d’ve been renting. Luckily I’ve done what I’ve done, and I’m mortgage free, and I can afford to work part time, erm, but yeah, I think it’s on the up, and even in the Times the other week, there was a big article that it’s one of the top ten places to live. Well 15 years ago, it was crap time. We had City of Culture, and now it’s one of the most desirable places to live, so just don’t believe everything you read, innit?
1:05:06 AS: And how would you say Hull has changed? From being born here, all the way to the living here now?
1:05:14 GN: Massive changes, for me, erm, so St. Stephen’s wasn’t there. The… Where I’m working, Siemens, now was a silted up dock wasteland. There’s still room, a lot of room for improvement, oh the Lordline area needs to be reimagined, we need to do somehing with that, because that is a blighted area now, someone’s going to get killed there, that will happen, maybe in my lifetime, but listening to this recording in 200 years time, there’ll be even more changes, massive changes, erm, but the people are the same. Me dad’s generation, happy-go-lucky, friendly, smile on their face, “how’s the family?” Got a few problems, talk about it on ‘essle Road over bag of chips. The people don’t change. The city infrastructure has changed, the city’s been pedestrianized, the civic buildings are beautiful, we’ve got a wonderful art gallery, we’ve got all three museums, erm, I’m lucky because I get out of Hull and I see what goes on in other museums and galleries. I think we do need some new people at the top at the Ferens, er, it might come, it might not, but… I could do some great stuff in there, but it won’t happen, but, er, that’s me on a wishlist, bur, erm, no, I think the Maritime Museum, that’s gonna be finished next year, Queen’s Gardens gonna be finished next year, the Arctic Corsair’s moving, okay, these are only, er, superficial things, but it will bring people to the city and see… ’cause Hull, to me, was, and is still, it must have been the capital of the North at one point, because we lost so much during the war, and the civic buildings that have survived are really impressive, so we have lost a lot, but there’s so much history because of the trade and all the rest of it, and that’s why I keep going back to this optimism, it’s a tradin’ city, we’re neighbours with Europe, we can get to Europe quicker than we can get to London, so all these brownfield sites will get, eventually get redeveloped. Erm, we’ve got problems like drugs and all that, but what city hasn’t, do you know what I mean?
1:07:27 AS: What would you say is unique about Hull as a city?
1:07:32 GN: Good question. For me, it’s… I live on ‘essle Road, so ‘essle Road to me is a village within the city, it’s a small area. The population of Hull is great, it’s 300,000 I think, erm, you can get anywhere in Hull within fifteen minutes. You can stand at a bus stop for five minutes, and you’ll have friends for life, if you want, erm, people are generous with their time, and if… I have, like I said, I’ve been everywhere, you can ask directions in another city and they’re, “I’m sorry, I’m a foreigner ‘ere meself,” or “I’m a tourist,” where in Hull, even if they don’t know where it is, they’ll try and help you, or they’ll direct you to somebody who can help ya. I think it’s just the attitude of the people, I think Northern cities are like that. Newcastle’s like that. I think the North, because we’ve been forgotten about Westminster forever, forever, we’ve had to learn to adapt, and we’ve just become… a lot of inward thinking, but everybody’s welcome aren’t they, I think, do you know what I mean? I think it is a welcoming city, so I suppose that would be the unique thing for me, or maybe that’s just me bein’ a dreamer, but I like to think it’s a welcoming city, it has been for me, anyway, I know I’m born and bred ‘ere, and I’m sort of known, but I think if you ask anybody a question, if they can help you the will, and it is welcoming, yeah.
1:09:08 AS: How do you think the city is viewed by the rest of the country?
1:09:13 GN: I think people who diss it haven’t been, erm, so a lot of people don’t even know where it is. Er, people have put a Hull on the map like Lucy Beaumont, and Roland Gift, Beautiful South, so when people… Everything but the Girl… So when you talking about bands, people relate bands, like Oasis are from Manchester, or the Beatles are from Liverpool. If you mention bands to people, what bands are from Hull, people like the bands that come out of the city. Erm, I don’t know, you’d have to ask other people that, I’m not sure, erm, I know it got crap ten city for years, but I always used to say, “Well, ‘ave they ever been?” and it’s usually poor journalism that says it’s crap, until they’ve been and seen it, I think, erm, it’s just poor journalism isn’t it?
1:10:11 AS: Well, thank you George.
1:10:13 GN: And what do you hate about a Hull?
1:10:15 AS: [chuckles] Do you want to answer that?
1:10:16 GN: Yeah.
1:10:17 AS: Go ahead.
1:10:17 GN: So what I ‘ate about a Hull is they’re don’t… The joined up thinking’s not there. We’ve got a great city, they always talk about there’s not enough money for this, that, and the other, we’ve got a massive area called St. Andrew’s Dock, William Wright Dock, these things, there is there is something in the pipeline, which is going to take ten years to develop that area, the Lordline area, and any other city that’s got a waterfront, even Birmingham, that has canals. Liverpool celebrate their waterfront. London celebrate their waterfront. What do we do? We just let it rot. And there’s a massive area in West Hull, and it’s a blighted area, and I’d just love to see it get transformed into a marina, and cafes, and places to eat and drink, instead of it just being run down, and they say there’s no money there, but if they invest the money, people will come, hotels there, accommodation there, whatever it takes, people will come, and yes, it might take ten years, because that’s one of the good things about Hull, things do happen slowly, so Birmingham, when I go to Birmingham, it’s full of ‘igh rise flats, London high-rise flats, other big cities, Manchester, high-rise flats. We’re slowly getting rid of all our high-rise flats, so after the war and 90% of Hull was decimated in some shape or form, we didn’t just go building loads and loads of blocks of flats, and so, in one way we’ve got big skies, and that’s one of the key things about Hull, we haven’t got a lot of light pollution and stuff like that. We’ve got a great city, and I think it will change in the next five years even more. City of Culture was all about making the city fit for the next century, and I think they’ve started that, and if they continue that… We’re getting films made here now, we’re getting a lot of film work getting done here, it’s a great place to make films. It’ll come. I love it. We just need to spend a bit more on some of the other areas that have been blighted, and invest in youth clubs and stuff like that, because that’s… And knife crime, we know it’s a bad one, but we never had knife crime when we was growing up, and I asked meself, “why didn’t we have them?” because we had places we could go from being sixteen to eighteen, under-18s clubs, erm, and there was no need for the knife crime then, do you know what I mean? It’s all the stuff I see on the Internet these days, I’m thinking, “it’s scary to even go out there,” but you can’t let the media run your head, because it doe’n’t happen very often, but when it does happen, it’s traumatic, innit, you know what I mean?
1:13:11 AS: Erm, thank you George, I really appreciate your time-
1:13:13 GN: Always positive minded, or trying to be.
1:13:17 AS: I’m gonna stop recording now.
Part 2
00:01 Thomas Robinson: Okay so we’re recording now, I’m here with George Norris, erm, this is George’s second interview, on the 25th of June, 2025. Erm, in the first part of the… In the first part of George you were talking with Alex about your kind of life story, origin story if you like, erm, but today I wanted to talk a little bit about your, um, taking photos, and your photography, erm, so I was thinking, erm, for the first question, I don’t think it came up in the, uh, in your previous conversation, how did you actually start with photography? Where did that come from?
00:42 George Norris: So I was working offshore, in the North Sea, and I needed something to do with me time off, and because of me cultural history background with my were family scrap dealers and everything, I was looking through… Well, me mum died, basically, me mam died, and I was looking through ‘er family photos, and there was such a treasure trove of great pictures, and then I stumbled across Russell Boyce’s work, and I thought, “I need to be documenting my city now,” because every time I used to come home from the rigs, there was things changing in the city, so I thought… It started off, really, as a hobby, and, uh, I started taking pictures of the architecture, people, places, bit of street art and that, and that was with an Olympus 10 camera, which I’d had previous, film style, years ago earlier, just taking family shots, and then I suppose it became more of a passion, and so every time I came up I’d be taking more pictures and more pictures, then I upgraded my camera. Like I said, Russell took pictures of me as a boy, nineteen, young man collecting scrap, so I was taking pictures of all that sort of, the community around me, and getting books and getting informed with photography, what other photographers and seeing what other photographers, are like and I’ve been doing it for fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years now, so I’ve got a massive archive of 80,000 pictures, and I’m out every day, most days, with a camera on my back, and if I don’t get a picture that day, fine, there’s always gonna be another one, so, today was the first day I ‘adn’t taken the camera out, because I had things to do, but usually I’ve got a camera on my back goin’ to work, on the streets, and there’s always them moments where you just think, “Yeah, let’s have a picture, let’s have a conversation with somebody,” and it’s a passport to get to knowing people, really, and through the camera I’ve really got to know my city. I knew it pretty well when I was collecting scrap, but then I was away from my city, working away two weeks on, two weeks off, and now people expect to see me with my camera ’cause… I was in Rayner’s on Saturday night, there was a guy called Bobby Diamond, the Black Elvis, I documented the full evening, and afternoon there was a school reunion, and it’s just a nice thing to do, and it’s… It makes people happy. I think we all need a witness to our lives, and I really believe in that. It’s not a mantra, but I think people don’t get recognized, and there’s a lot of talent in the city, and the people who haven’t got the talent, they still need to be witnessed I think.
03:36 TR: Erm, yeah that’s interesting. I’m interested in that that being a way, that, this kind of coming and going, going off to work on the rigs, and then coming back, and that showing a kind of change of, erm, changes that we wouldn’t notice if we were just there all the time, erm.
03:55 GN: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it’s the little things like shop fronts. Shops change, the type fonts change, the fashions change. People generally the same throughout the world but…
04:08 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
04:08 GN: Erm, fashions change, shops change, street signs change, there’s always change… Buildings get renovated, some buildings go into dereliction, then other people come along and turn ’em around, they turn ’em into something new, and I think… One of my ‘eroes is Chris Killip, and ‘e was always about long-term engagement with subjects, so I feel I’m doing that with the Gypsy community, and I’ve done that for the last eight to ten years, doing the Gypsies that come to Hull, the horse drives, and the people in that community, so I’ve got a massive archive of that, and because I’m sort of in that tribe, erm, I’m accepted where some people wouldn’t be accepted, they’d think, “who is this guy, what’s he about?” but because of my background with my dad and being a horse dealer and trader, it gives me access to these people, and they like it, and I like it, and I get some great stories. I’ve been over to the cemetery this week and took some great pictures of the Travellers that come from Barnard Castle, so I learned things about Barnard Castle which I wouldn’t’ve known, up near Newcastle, and we’ve got a real friendship now, so going back to Chris Killip, ‘e was always about long-term engagement, so if I’ve got another ten years of photography in me, that’s what I intend to do, and it’s not just the Gypsies, it’s the pub culture, it’s… Not, I’m not big on music and bands and stuff, because I think other people are doing that, but it’s just the everyday stuff, the people on the streets, and ‘essle Road, predominantly HU3. Erm, I do go to London on a regular basis, because I’m obsessed with street art, and the politics of street art, and ‘ow it changes, and every time I go to my happy place which is Shoreditch and Bricklane, I see a lot of changes round there, so I try and get the pictures of the street art, and the pay stubs, because that might not mean anything to anybody at the moment, but give them ten or fifteen years, uh, those changes it’ll be a different political, er, landscape. Like at the moment we’re goin’ through all this Palestinian stuff, and governments change, our government’s changed since Thatcher, we’ve ‘ad Tories, we’ve had liberals, now we’ve got Labour, so it’s a reflection of what goes on, and going back to my books, lots of people who I like, like, erm, what’s her name, Levitt, she took stuff like that. There was, uh, little guy, uh, Tone, not Tony Ray Jones, I forget the other guy, he did SoHo and, it’ll come to me, and he took pictures of… Back then, it wasn’t pay stubs and street art, it was chalk drawings on the streets, uh, Roger Mane, he took loads of pictures of that, as did Shelley Baker, so I get informed by them and what they’re taking pictures of, and bring it up to date, because you can always take pictures of what’s in front of ya, and I do like, like I say, I love street art, I’ve got massive archive of street art.
07:07 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and how did you land on those subject areas? You’ve talked a bit about the Traveller community, street art, erm…
07:17 GN: I think it’s… I’m fascinated with culture.
07:19 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
07:19 GN: I’m really, because I had a lot of time on my hands on the rigs, I’d read a lot, and it was the early days of YouTube, it was MTV, actually, when it first came out, and some of the artists that I liked like Peter Blake, the pop artist, and I think, all this street art that we’ve got now, all this decoupage and stuff like that, and I think it all stems from the ’60s and it’s just, it’s the new, it’s the new stuff.
07:48 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
07:48 GN: So my reading is photography, and I watched a lot of BBC 4, I watched a lot of Sky Arts, I watched a lot of YouTube, so I’m like a magpie, I’m just a sponge, and it all comes out in the mix. I could go on a tangent about last night’s conversations, but I’ll won’t, ’cause that’s not for this [Tom chuckles], but, uh, I ‘ad a really good discussion with somebody about John Barry, the guy does the music for James Bond, well I won’t go into that one, but we can talk about it if you want to later.
08:21 TR: [chuckles] Yeah, so we maybe should talk a little bit about the Scene But Not Heard, erm, project, erm, where we’re looking at, erm, uh, photographs of drag culture, erm, LGBTQ+, erm, in the sort of late ’80s, early ’90s, erm, but you’ve been, I think you’ve been taking photos a little bit more recently than that, so did you want to talk a little bit about… We’ve got some of the photos that are printed off here, erm.
08:53 GN: Yeah, so, we’ve got in front of us pictures of Bobby, er, Mandrell also known previously as Kandy Lee Barry and I’ve, he’s always been on my peripheral vision as Kandy Lee Barry. I saw him in the ’80s, Russell took pictures of him in the ’80s, when he was doing his student days in Hull, but I’ve known Bobby thirty plus years, and ‘e’s dedicated to his craft, ‘is art. He spends a lot of money on his art, and his costumes and everything, and he’s just a brilliant showman, so any time that ‘e’s in the city and I get a chance to see him, last time I saw him, I saw him at New Year, and then I saw him on Valentine’s night at the Comedy Club, he’s always great entertainment, erm, and ‘e’s seventy now and ‘e’s still doing it, ‘e’s been doing it since ‘e’s probably mid twenties. Uh, he told me the story that ‘e was working on the ferries as a steward, and ‘e’d get dressed up in the mess hall, and, uh, it was just more of a laugh, but then people would ask ‘im to put on a bit of a show, so he is a showman, no doubt about that, and he’s been to Falklands, he’s done a lot of travelling, and he’s toured with Chubby Brown and people like that, and he’s just a really nice human being. Uh, the gay culture, I used to go to Silhouette, which was a club on Spring Bank. There was never, ever… You never ever saw trouble in there. The trouble started, if there was any trouble to be had, was all the other clubs kicking out, and it was just easy to pick on a gay guy or a gay lady leaving the club, but I think generally speaking, Hull’s such a tolerant city.
10:50 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
10:52 GN: For this, er, the gay culture. It was very low-key years ago, I mean Bobby’ll tell you a different story, but I remember it was Polar Bear, it was Dolly’s Arms, uh, even Vauxhall, it was underground, but people knew it was there, so they’d turn up there, they knew what to expect, and these guys like to have a party, they like to ‘ave fun, erm, so to bring it up to future days, we’ve got Hull Pride now, which is massive, and, uh, Bobby’s been the star act at a few of these shows, and I think, again, the city is tolerant.
11:35 TR: Erm, so what’s kind of… Let’s get into, kind of, the situations where you’re taking these photographs, what’s going through your mind? Is there is there something that you’re waiting for? Erm, something that you’re looking for specifically?
11:52 GN: To be honest, it’s very organic, erm, if I see something it resonates with me, I just take the picture. I am a magpie I’ll take pictures of anything, and I’ve got a massive archive of 80,000 pictures, but I just see life, and, uh, I just try and capture it the best way I can, and I might take, on an evening like this, I might take ‘undred pictures, but it’s all about the editing at the end. I might only show five of those pictures, but I’ve really, I’ve got the full show on my camera.
12:30 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
12:30 GN: And, uh, it’s just what I want to show the world, and I think a lot of photographers are like that, it’s all about the edits, I’ve learnt that as I’ve got older and got better at my craft, and it’s all about what you want to reveal, erm, but I think you learn from your mistakes in photography, everybody makes them, you learn. I always struggle with ISO and stuff like that, and lighting in some of these venues isn’t flatterin’, it’s very difficult to get a good shot, so generally I don’t like takin’ pictures on a nighttime, because I’m learning still, I suppose, erm, but I’m learning to use the flash more now, erm, which was something I never liked, because most of the time when I’ve used flashes, it whitens everything, it just doesn’t flatter people, so I try and do it with natural light, that’s why I’m a street photographer, in that way, because when you’re out on the street, you can manipulate the light a bit inside the camera.
13:33 TR: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, because it’s very different to photograph a person performing to the maybe the other kind of street style photography that you might do, photographs that aren’t necessarily of people as well, uh, they might have in, people in them, but they’re very much, erm, you talked about taking photos of architecture and things like that, it’s, this is a very different kind of, erm, style, I suppose.
14:00 GN: Well I’ve learned a lot goin’a Rayner’s and places like that, and taking gigs, but like Rayner’s, for me, is really good, because I know most of the people in there, and they know what I do, and there’s no hassle, I’m not getting in anybody’s way, I’m not spoiling the show for anybody, again, it’s my neighbourhood, they all know me, and they’re very receptive to what I’m doing, because I share it with my community, and I think you’ve got to share these things. I’m not there just to take somebody’s soul and not show it to the community, so and I get a lot of satisfaction by doing that, I put reels together, and I put pictures of people in the show enjoying the show, so I’m always mindful about what’s going on behind me, it’s not always about the acts in front of me, it’s what’s actually going on in the pub, the merriment and joviality, erm, so, and that’s probably looking at album covers of the Specials and stuff like that, it’s the crowd participation, everybody getting excited. Chris Killep did some club in the Northeast, and it was at a skinheads’, uh, gig. I think the band was called Discharge, or maybe Exploited, but ‘e wa’n’t bothered about the band, he was more interested in the reaction of the band, so it’s little things like that I’ve got in the back of me mind thinking, “Yeah, spin round now, see what’s happening,” and I’ve got some great pictures. I did one of Jeremy Corbyn came to Hull for a rally, and, uh, ‘e was talking to the people in Queen’s Gardens, and I knew instinctively there was something going on behind me I just knew that the picture was there, so I spun round, and everybody was looking at Jeremy, and they was all, I forget what they say, it was like, “we’re behind you,” it was solidarity, and they was all punching the air, and I got the picture, but you’ve also got to remember – you’ve got to be at these places to take these pictures. There’s no point in sat ‘ome, you’ve just got to put yourself in these places where these pictures are taken, erm, and I did that on Saturday night, I came back from work, I wa’n’t in the mood, really, to go see Elvis, erm, Bobby Diamond, but I stuck at it ’til 9 o’clock, it was like a day’s work, again, goin’ out, but that’s what I do that’s what motivates me, ’cause I know ‘e won’t be coming to Rayner’s again in the near future, so if I can capture it while ‘e’s in my territory let’s call it, or my backyard, I’ve gotta do it, and the archive when I’ve gone will end up at the ‘istory Centre, so there’ll be a vast record of this neighbourhood, because it’s not me doing it in this way. There’s people taking pictures on their mobile phones, but like I say, I’m out every day, and, um, capturing what I can while I can, while I’m fit enough to be able to do it.
16:55 TR: Erm, yeah, so you just mentioned there like paying attention to the audience. What what I’ve kind of noticed about audiences, particularly for these these kind of drag performers? Are they, kind of, people who follow Bobby Mandrell around? Are they people who, are they regular people, do you see the same faces, or are they new audiences every time, or?
17:21 GN: Erm, I think as Bobby’s been on the scene in Hull for a such a long time, it’s just word of mouth, everybody knows ‘e’s brilliant, and, uh, you know you’re in for a great night, not just a night, even when the guy’s… He’s had cancer scares and stuff like that, but he puts his heart and soul into it, and he makes sure everybody’s all right, and he’s polite to everybody. He’s a bit naughty, he’s a bit cheeky, but when I look around me and I see all those smiling faces, his job’s done, as he says, “I know I’ve done a good job” if one person can go ‘ome and have a smile on their face, he knows he’s done a great thing.
18:03 TR: Erm, yeah no, that’s, it’s interesting to sort of see these, erm, these situations, the lighting that he’s got for these shows and things like that. Yeah, is there any is there any particular… Are you kind of taking in the show while you’re behind the camera?
18:26 GN: Yeah, yeah. Well, at New Year, ‘e played Rayner’s, and it was New Year’s Eve, it was a miserable night, it was wet, and, uh, I wa’n’t doing anything that night, so I went to Rayner’s, and there’s probably I’d say thirty people, forty people in the audience, which was, for New Year, that’s terrible, I think, when you think of all the other clubs in the city’d been rammed.
18:49 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
18:49 GN: People getting drunk, et cetera, but it was ‘e was a proper professional, ‘e just, he went on that stage, he could have been playing to one person, but ‘e was playin’ to forty of us, and he put his ‘eart and soul into it, and I felt very lucky to be in the audience that night, because ‘e was my muse for the night, and I just ‘ad ‘im all night to myself, just takin’ pictures, and it was great, great for me, and it was a learnin’ curve for me, because I was on the floor, I was on chairs, and nobody was interested in what I was doing, they just knew I was takin’ pictures, and they knew I’d be sharin’ ’em, but, um, ‘e wasn’t phased by it, he’s been around people with cameras before, erm, but yeah, I learnt a lot that night, I think, New Year’s Eve, it chucks it down rainin’, midnight came everybody did all 19:37… Everybody toasted the night, and it was chucking down with rain, and then Ray left about ‘alf past twelve, er, but amazing, amazing guy.
19:51 TR: Erm, so was there any, is there any other point where you’ve maybe come across these kind of performers around this, particularly sort of the HU3 area?
20:02 GN: I’ve seen, uh, I don’t know if I’ll pronounce this right, Fanny Nice ‘n’ Tight, and, um, ‘e does a double act sometimes with Ray, and I’ve seen him in the town, and as a double act, brilliant, because they’ve both got their own strengths, and, erm, I saw them in the town last year with Russell, and Russell got some great pictures, I didn’t want to step on Russell’s toes, but, er, I took a few, Russell took a lot, because he was making a film about Bobby at the time, and, erm, that was the reason for him to come, to revisit what ‘e did as a student, ‘e’s now 62, I think, Russell, 63, and, uh, so Russell’d made a really good film. I went round there when they was recording the interview, because I know where I Ray’s from more than Russell, because ‘e’s a Hull kid, and Russell lives down in London, erm, so I was feeding some questions, and, erm, ‘e was so honest with his with his, er, with his replies, talking about his life story, so I feel like I know him pretty intimately now.
21:12 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Does that help when you’re photographing him?
21:14 GN: Yeah, because he trusts that I’m gonna not be in ‘is way, and there’s a big trust element there when you’re taking pictures of people, because he could be spoiling the show for people who are sat behind ya, who maybe not as able as you, they might be disabled and all the rest of it, and I’ve got to be mindful of that as well, erm, so I am mindful of that. So, no, it’s been good, like I said, ‘e was a muse at New Year’s Eve.
21:40 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
21:40 GN: And ‘e always, ‘e calls out, “Oh, George is in the audience,” so he’ll rip the back out of me for a couple of seconds, but everybody just laughs, and I think that’s the nature of it. ‘e is, ‘e has got comedy bones, if that’s what you call it, he’s a natural comic, and ‘e doesn’t ever, ever show any nerves, and I’m sure he is, but he doesn’t show it.
22:04 TR: He’s definitely… I should say that recently I saw the Dreamgirls perform at the Oak Vaults in the sort of Wincolmlee area, and they’re a double act, and it’s, it seems like double acts work really, really well, because you’ve got chance to kind of change, one of them can change costume while the other one holds the stage, but I can’t imagine how a solo-
22:27 GN: Well, ‘e did-
22:28 TR: -Solo performer works it.
22:29 GN: ‘e did one part of the show, and it was the only time in the show that he was actually a man, and he was Roy Orbison, with the black glasses, the black suit, and the black wig, well, Ray’s bald, as you know, so he’s gor a bonnie face, and he wears all these wigs, and the disguises, and the personas, I mean, he’s a big fan of Shirley Bassey, and the music choices they’re all inspired, and they’re all great. There’s Dusty Springfield, like I say, Shirley, and they’re not just straight songs, ‘e’s added his own little elements into ’em, so they might be like we had Stock Aitken Waterman many years ago, where they used to mix different tracks, and he does that as well.
23:14 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
23:14 GN: ‘e’s unique, ‘e really is unique, I can’t say anything better than that, really, ’cause ‘e’s a one-off, Hull’s lucky to ‘ave ‘im.
23:26 TR: And the.. And also when I did go to see the Dreamgirls, there was that sense of them kind of being… Not quite, not confrontational, but they would sort of like pick on sort of members of the audience, and that was all part of the comedy of the acts, and things like that, and, uh, I did see there was an interesting kind of thing going on between the performers and the audience, erm-
23:49 GN: ‘e says about Chubby Brown because he’s toured with Chubby Brown, and ‘is manager wasn’t very happy with part of Ray’s act but the audience was, “more, more, more, more.” I think Chubby Brown was ill that that night, and ‘e kept going back for, I think he said he went on back for three or four encores, and ‘e had this dress, which was the Union Jack, which is the finale at the end, where, well it’s not the actual final finale, because the the final finale, ‘e takes off the makeup, ‘e takes off the costumes, and ‘e sings a song by Charles Aznavour, ‘I am a man that’s what I am,’ and it’s just, it’s just a beautiful thing to see, because he is acting up for us all to ‘ave a laugh, but then sad, but not melancholy, it’s just like, yeah, he’s givin’ us an hour of ‘is life, and ‘e’s taken away all the masks and the makeup, and ‘e becomes Ray, so, and ‘e tells a story that ‘e tried doing that part of the performance, and it wasn’t working, and ‘e didn’t know why it wa’n’t working, and then one day, ‘e was in the bath, and it was all about synching the song with how he was thinking, and, um, he got it, he says it was just like one of them, uh, epiphanies, and ‘e did it, and it’s a big part of ‘is act, well it, it’s in his acts all the time, now, I’d say ninety percent of the time, that just brings the ‘ouse down, do you know what I mean? And he always gets plenty of applause, but yeah.
25:33 TR: Erm, just to go back a few bits, you were talking about, erm, Russell Boyce, and your friendship with him, erm, just what’s it like when there’s other photographers kind of all, erm, interchangeably working with the same, similar subject matter, because we’re sort of uncovering this body of work that lots of different photographers have done, erm, what’s that community of photographers like to be working within?
26:05 GN: I don’t think there’s any competition from me or Russell, we just do our own thing, but I know bigger events, it can get a bit… I’m not paparazzi, um, nothing like that. It must be difficult if you had to make a living out of it, and you was in that field of photography, but fortunately I’m not, and when we did that night me and Russell, I just gave him free reign, because I didn’t want to… I knew what the end game was with Russell, he wanted to put stills in with the film, and I knew that before I went, so that was his project, really, because I’ve got access to Bobby all the time, he actually came all the way from London to do this, so I didn’t want an issue, but I don’t know it’s gonna be like on the 9th of August, because there’s going to be more camera men and film men, and I think it might get a bit ‘eated, not with me ’cause I probably won’t take that many pictures that night, but if there’s a film crew there as well, is that going to phase… It probably won’t phase Bobby, it might phase the other couple of acts, but then you’ve also got what we talked about earlier I’ve got to be mindful for there, for that audience, it’s not all about… Yes, this body of work needs to be done, but you’ve also gotta be mindful of the people who are… Not paying to see the show, but they wanna see the show don’t they?
27:33 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s having that awareness of what everyone’s, kind of, project is and what within their role within that project, I suppose-
27:41 GN: Yeah
27:42 TR: -is that thing, erm, yeah, no, that’s going to be… It’s going to be interesting isn’t it? Because a lot of this is we’re talking about the nature of documentation, and is there any moments that you kind of having a choice as to whether you’re actually going to document this, or whether there’s certain bits that shouldn’t be documented?
28:06 GN: I think Russell’s covered the man, well this act, this Bobby Mandrell, ‘e’s not covered the other couple of acts that are there, uh, in such a thorough way, erm, but Russell knows this guy from the ’80s, it was one of his projects bein’ at college, so ‘e’s grown up with Ray, and the changing faces of Ray let’s call it, so I’ll take a few pictures on the night, but it’s not… I’m there to to watch the show, really, erm, and I suppose, ‘opefully, the collaboration at the end will be the films made, and there’s some of these stills put into this film, and I think everybody’ll feel like they’ve got something then.
28:58 TR: But what about your… if you’re talking about the way that you would take photos, George, is there is there anything that you wouldn’t take a photo of, or would shy away from pulling the trigger on the-?
29:09 GN: On this subject, not really, but I’ve learned since, erm, when me Gypsies, and I’m taking pictures of their kids, I’ve got the consents of the adults, but in the past, I’ve gone around the city, and I’ve taken pictures of young kids, but since I’ve grown up a bit, you can’t just do that, because there’s all these safeguards now, and I understand that, but I didn’t understand that ’til somebody pointed it out to me, he says, I was on a on a park and there was some street art there, I thought, “oh that’s good, I’ll take the street art, I’ll take the pictures,” and then some kids playing a football, and because of looking at people like Sid Sheldon and all those other greats from the ’60s and the ’70s, there was these mucky face kids in the streets, and anybody had access to, like Alec Gill, in the ’80s, taking pictures of the snotty nosed kids on ‘essle Road, but you can’t do that now, because you don’t know if they come from broken homes, there’s divorces, if you’re sharing on social media it could be an issue, and I’m not out there to upset anybody, but indirectly, it could be, because there could be fathers in prison, and there could be mothers in prison, and they see pictures of their kids and it could be triggering stuff in people, so I think it’s a different well now for doing children, erm, definitely, I’m always mindful, but, and that’s a tricky one, because you’ve lost the moment by having to ask a parent, “can I take a picture of your child?” so, but the traveling community know what I’m about, I’m not there to exploit them or their children, I want to show them in the right light, I hope that I show them in that light, and not exploiting them, erm, and if they say, “take that down,” I do straight away, and I apologize stuff, but I learned that lesson a couple of months ago walking around the park with street art, a couple of kids playing football, and I ‘eard this voice, “hey you can’t do that,” so I questioned it “why can’t I do that?” and the safeguard initial came to mind and I thought, “oh yeah.” I thanked him, I says, “well I’m just, thank you for that, because I was not aware of that,” so anybody getting into photography now, they need to be to be aware of that, because, yeah, you can’t just take pictures anywhere you want.
31:38 TR: Erm, yeah I suppose it comes, what you mentioned earlier on, this trust and building relationships is so important with it, isn’t it?
31:46 GN: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
31:46 TR: Erm, I kind of, yeah, I mean, I don’t really have much more to ask you specifically about, uh, these, uh, photos that you’ve been taking of, uh, drag performers? Is there anything that you wanted… Is there anything else that you wanted to cover, or?
32:03 GN: Well, with the New Year and the other gigs I’ve been to to see him, I feel like I’ve got Bobby.
32:08 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
32:09 GN: I’ve got him. Now I’ve got the Bobby… the Black Elvis, Bobby Diamond, and when I go to do these things, it doesn’t start off as a project, but if I’m fascinated, I want to get every picture I can, because at the end of the day, when you pull away you ‘aven’t got a second chance, same with the Gypsies, when they’re up near where I live, I’ll go over there, and I’ll spend a week with them, and it’s the little moments that I want to capture – them hangin’ washing out, maybe washing the pots and pans, it’s them moments that we don’t really get the chance to see, erm, and I have, like I said, I’ve got this massive archive, and I can put me hands on most of this stuff. I just love doing it.
32:57 TR: It makes me think about the backstage these, you know, is there something to-?
33:02 GN: I’ve taken pictures backstage, putting their makeup on, putting their wigs on putting their dresses on. I could do more of that.
33:10 TR: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
33:10 GN: But I think it’s been done now, erm, not by… I’ve done my little bit. Russell did it in depth, and he’s got, on that night we ‘ad out ‘e’s probably took 300 pictures on that night, and he’s probably used 20, I think there’s maybe three or four in the book we did a couple of years back, erm, but, because you’ve got that many stills, which I did at Christmas and New Year, so New Year, I could make a film with all them stills, and I ‘ave done, I did a reel, and I, on these reels you’re only allowed to put fifty pictures up, but this other big hero of mine is Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen from Finland, but, set her stall out in 33:55 biker when like Alec Gil was taking pictures of that community, and what I’ve just found while I’ve been having a clear out is that she, basically, she was taking pictures of the beaches around Newcastle and South Shields over a 10 year period, and it’s a fascinating film, and she’s talking on this DVD about the making of the film, and she was in the dark room for three months printing 400 pictures of this 10 year project that she had, and they’ve put… not music, they’ve put the oral stuff down, all the laughter, the donkeys, the kids screamin’, the splishin’ and splashin’ in the water, and they’re zonin’ in on a picture then they’re comin’ away from the picture, and it’s 35 minutes long. I was gonna buy it, I misplaced it, and I got in touch with a 34:50 side gallery and they’d closed down but now they’re reopening it and they’re gonna sell it again, but anyway, fortunately I found it, and it’s such a fantastic film, and I think something like that could be made with these pictures. You could have the laughter, you could have the glasses, people ordering their drinks, and all that, little conversations going on, and you could make a really nice ‘alf an hour, but I know they’re gonna film it. It’s two different things, you’ve got the gig, you can ‘ave that, people just sit back, but then you could have this other document showing you what else was going on – all the laughter, and people in and out, having fags. The people! Maybe that’s what I’m gonna do on that night, I’m maybe gonna just take pictures of the people, because Bobby’s gonna be, and the other acts, they’re gonna be documented, so if I can get the people – laughter, and doing stuff on the chairs, swaying their arms – because I think that’ll be better for me, because I’ve been documenting Rayner’s for a long time now, and that might be the night, because it’s gonna be full of people ‘avin’ a good time on a Saturday night, it’s early on in the month, so it’s payday for a lot of people who may be working themselves up for going, it’s been advertised well. Erm, yeah, that’s just been a good thing, actually, listening to meself there, “yeah, let’s do that I’ll just document the people.”
36:08 TR: Sometimes that’s the way that it goes, it works itself out as you talk about it sometimes.
36:11 GN: Because then I’ve got these pictures, then we could add the people.
36:14 TR: Yeah, well… Well, it just reminded me as well about how important is it to you to have your work printed, as opposed to just remaining in a digital archive?
36:24 GN: Yeah, I think exhibitions… I mean, friends say, “that has no money in it,” it’s not about the money with me, it’s about showing the work. There’s no point in doing the work if you’re not gonna show the work to the community that you’re from, and I’ve learnt that through Alec Gill, I’ve learnt that through Sirkka, mostly, and Russell’s still doing it, er, I’m going to an exhibition of his in August, he’s been doing the high street where ‘e lives, and he’s got a bit of funding to do that. I mean, I want to do another book, I do want to do my love letter to Hull, and all these characters will be in them books, and it’s just raising a bit of money, not a lot of money, and, er, it’ll ‘appen, because I think I’ve done me Gypsies enough now, I can continue with for that for another ten years, and I probably will, erm, because the kids are growing up, they’re getting married, they’re having kids, so that’s, again, Chris Killip, long-term engagement, I can do that all day long, and I’ve got the access, but other things, I can say I’m out with me camera all the time, and sometimes I think, “oh, I ain’t got anything today,” but then I look back on the week, and I think, “you did that last week, you did that last week.” It’s because I’m curious, it’s all about curiosity and keeping that curiosity going, and I’ve got me bike, and I’ll be lost without it, I can get everywhere, and I can just take pictures. So like that one there, that’s, I got access to the Tower Nightclub on the roof, but Bobby’s played in there, but yeah, that was a postcard I did with Isabel Tracey a couple of years back, did a stack of ’em. But yeah.
37:59 TR: Is it… Just as you were talking there, I was thinking about the determination to keep on collecting and keep on taking these photographs, that’s also an interesting part of your work.
38:11 GN: I think that probably, as well, stems from collecting scrap as a person, as a younger person, looking for stuff all the time, looking for a day’s wages. There’s no day’s wages in this, but it’s enriching in other ways, it’s not about the monetary value of these pictures, it’s just knowin’ that once I’ve gone there will be an archive for people maybe in 200 years time to look back on, like this oral ‘istory that we’re doing now, people will be able, if they want to, listen to all our voices, and think, “yeah, things, people ‘aven’t changed much, it’s just that the streets have changed, the fashions have changed, the politicians have changed, but at the end of the day, we’re all ‘uman, and we all want to have a good time while we’re ‘ere,” and people like Bobby, and, well there’s a lot of, Bobby’s in a lot of them, mind, there’s Bobby Diamond, there’s Bobby Mandrell, so we’ve got a lot of Bobbys, girls, in the town, and, uh, it’s just, it’s… Because when you think of you going back in your family tree, there’s not very many pictures of your grandparents as young people, or when you remember ’em as a child, they was always old, so there i’n’t… I’ve got a couple of my grandparents when they were young, I’m very fortunate, but a lot of people haven’t got them pictures, but now there’s a billion plus pictures uploaded every day, we’re saturated with images, but that’s how we are, we’re visually alert to everything, erm, and this only happened in the last 15 years like this, I mean, ‘undreds of thousands of years ago, it was stained glass in a church, and now it’s digital images, and we all consume these images. ‘ow many pictures do we see in a day? If it’s a billboard, it’s advertising, erm, it’s people’s pizzas on the Instagram or whatever, we’re just saturated and saturated, so sometimes when I do ‘ave a week off to rest my brain from the photography and just processing what you’ve done, and then that’s when you think, “oh yeah that was a great time, that was a great time,” and I went to a gig the other week it was Pauly Blackout of the Selector and Steel Pulse, a reggae band, which I followed since I was sixteen, seventeen, they wouldn’t let me in with me camera. I was really miffed, but everybody was filming on their mobiles, but I just sat back and I watched it, and, er, maybe that’s what the artists are gonna do in the future, they’re gonna stop people taking cameras into the venues, and just like, let’s look at this for it is without ‘aving to document it, because I ‘ear people saying, “I ‘ate when people take cameras to gigs, because I’m lookin’ at the back of somebody’s screen, why not just enjoy the moment?” and maybe sometimes will miss that moment because we’re looking at our mobile phones.
41:02 TR: Brilliant, erm, yeah, so maybe we can switch off the recorder there, maybe. Is there any final things that you wanted to add to what was said?
41:13 GN: If anybody gets into photography, you’ve gotta document your community, because I, the Clash was one of my, is one of my favourite bands, and Bernie Rhodes was the manager, and Joe Strummer said to Bernie Rhodes, “but what do I write songs about?” ‘e says, “write about where you’re from, not about Route 66, you don’t live on Route 66, you live in Ladbroke Grove, write about that,” and I’ve taken that to mean that with photography as well, document from where you are, because outside this door, ten yards outside this door, there’s stuff going on, and there’s not point in goin’ to all these other great exotic places, as great as they are, bur it’s all on your doorstep, if you’re willing to be curious and look and engage with people, and it’s all about long-term engagement. I’ve got another ten years of this, and I’m up, and I’ve got longer, but while I’m still active and able, I want to just continue doing it, and Chris Killip does said long-term engagement, and I will repeat that, because it is about spending time, and building, bonding, and sharing, and talking, and learning about people, and you’re gonna find you’re gonna get a great body of work if you continue down that path of just reaching out to people and letting them get to trust you, and it’s the future.
42:42 TR: Great thanks so much, George, thank you.
