Okay, my name is Alexander Stobbs. I’m with George Norris. It’s the 21st of February 2025 and we’re at George’s house on Gordon Street in Hull for the project scene but not heard. George let’s start at the beginning and tell me about when and where you were born. So I was born in Linney Street which is the street opposite whole running family. Live there to the age of four. Then we moved to Reppins Street which was old back-to-back houses in West Old H.O. 3. From there they got they got compulsory pair at Shist. One was 11 and we moved into Sefton Street and the week we moved in there Elvis Presley Dad 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 Nancy Nancy but I had it rented out for years so I’ve lived down Sharp Street. I’ve lived in the old sounding Phoenix house. I’ve lived up Beverly 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 Old. So lots of houses and tell me about that first house and Linney Street. So I… Linney Street was a grand house it was like Cotton 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 it was as a kid it was majestic even though we moved to a smaller house not many years after I was born. Reppin Street was seven pleasant terrorists and at the bottom of our guard a bottom of our terrorists was a bomb building from the Second World War. We lived there like I said as long as 11 I was affecting 13 maybe you’re affecting and we moved from there to Sefton Street and it was at 1500 quid for the Alsprey Mount pay 1500 for this house. It wasn’t wet doing on it but they did it up in North time and then eventually I lived there till 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 to once so off. My brothers and sisters had moved out I was the only man at home my dad had moved out so that was good so it was like a hotel really and it was close to my mom so I just used to do me on thing come on and it was later that I got into photography through living there and looking through my mom’s pictures and stuff like that because I come from a family of scrap dealers and traditional recyclers in whole so my dad started to work when he was 13 I started to work when I was 13 to be honest working at Mount Norris Fruit Show checking orders delivery orders to people on Hasselard and I was pocket money for the weekend which was good so yeah it was good learning experience meeting people and and pocket money What kind of place would you say these were when you were growing up what was the area like? Growing up everybody was in the same boat we never thought poverty was always well fed was always well clothed my mom just got a max and Spencer’s got a lot of stuff because the nature of him dad being a round bomb and you think we’ll be getting a lot of stuff off the horse and cat but it never happened that way my mom was real proud and she got a dress well the school’s way and great looking back because you reflect so you get older there was there there was training for factory work really 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 Asquio and my senior school was Riley High School all boys go throughout let’s go that’s 16 not a lot of prospects to be honest I did a wattiest work in an electrical shopping town weekfalls so electrical products for six months it was a cheap scheme it was a government scheme just to get you off the door so I then got a horse and cat off my dad I did that till I was 20 so about 20 after that I did other government type schemes lots of little jobs working in galleries and stuff like that and then I was working on a cemetery schoolcarts lane and my friend was working away at Budgie so he’d worked away this is about it’s right so I did my survival certificate and my mum but it came to the cemetery says you’ve got an interview with this job so I jumped out the chance because I was on the on for not a great deal I’m only working for the council so I went off shore for six years catering and then I had five years off in that time I did a BTEC in performing arts at the Riley Asheville so that’s funny going full circle did a BTEC in lighting sound acting how to put on a show I left there and went to the new theater for a couple of years it was really well-paid but it was seasonal so then I just thought thinking how to get a job that’s gonna pay properly so I went back offshore again went back on the rigs for 15 years maybe longer and that was so on so off three on three off did that for all them years really loved it in the meantime my daughter was born for theodora it 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 a give it up basically took a bit redundancy left and pursued my photography passions full on where’s before it was only part time but now I could really do it full on so the first job after leaving the rigs like I said my dad started to wake up 13 I thought it’d be a good time to document him now in his later years he was 80 at that time and I was getting on towards 60 57 58 so I documented him and his day-to-day business recycling meeting all the people he’d met his friends he was really good bonding experience with both of us and then he retired at 8 to and then since then I’ve luckily I’d funding from the Arts Council and people like that to continue with photography and some good exhibitions and that’s what I’m doing now and what did your mentoring dad did and what did you want to go in? So I’m a mum wets as in there she was trained to be a secretary but most of her work in life was at Smith and F-year was on his road big pharmaceutical company making plasters and Nivious on cream and stuff like that so she did that and then she was bringing us four children up in between that so she had like brother John, sister Joanne and sister Julie, she’d wait for the Guinness Trust had some good jobs my brother wait for Citizen advice bureau he does a lot of welfare work now for ex-fisherman and my lost my sister at 45 she was a housewife with two kids so yeah the vault and I read my family where they’ve really got into the work ethic that’s what was brought up on the entire main craft what was mentioned by the John working with ex-fisherman so my brother John two years younger than me he wept 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 wepts now for a charity called Nautilus, Nautilus basically is a charity for anybody who has been to see the mansion navy fishermen people who’ve been to the faultlands the widows of fishermen so for instance if you’re needed a new bed or if you’re needed to bury somebody or you need it to move home and you need expenses to help you do that my brother if he’s care if he’s a if he’s a if he’s available the funding he locks into their mavenues and he gets monitored people either be like care and I 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 it’s sort of self-employed but it does work for a bigger organization called Nautilus which is a fisherman’s charity and it’s done that for probably ten years now he really likes it’s really rewarding job because you’re seeing the help you can help people with like a safe mobility school the need taxes for doctors appointments the need in your mattress because they’ve got bad bags stuff like that it’s real good work ethic what you mentioned your mom working at Smith and nephews what was that like growing up can you remember your stories yeah yeah actually so Smith and nephews been a real socialist outfit brilliant to work for really cared and looked after the staff every year without fail and some at the bottom bus trips to Scarborough to see people like Mike yaward, Sylla Black and then Lord Charles he was a ventriloquist and we’d go on these outings with all the other families who are ex-ath Smith and nephews and then at Christmas they had a big Christmas party for all the family employees for Smith and nephews so that was one of the highlights of the year really it was two things to look forward to and like I said really looked after the staff and the children as well yeah good people what were those trips to Scarborough like just mad so I was lots of kids full of fizzy pop full of A numbers bouncing about on the bus having fun and then you had to behave yourself because she was with your parents but you got to the Britain spa where the axe were between leaners have her own it and all these 70s type people and like say a Lord Charles because I loved ventriloquist and I had a ventriloquist when I was a kid and didn’t have any minutes so it was fun to watch and Mike yaward it was the big impersonator of the day and he it was it was top of his game while we got to see him so it was all paid for I think the more the families must have put some money into a kitty or something like that but I think it was subsidized by Smith and nephews but yeah happy days growing up yeah a lot of families in Westall that was the big employer round here and it still is I suppose do you remember your mom’s interest outside of work? smoking she likes smoking did Barbara she loved shopping love Max and Spencer’s the newer personally in there because she’d be there every single day in the sales rack she’d come on she chose all but 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’ll 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?” I think God pleased though but yeah like I said she’s well loved in Smith and nephews and they all speak about the staff of our scene 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 she had to have the most goldenest tan ever coming back with a duty-free cigarettes even when she died she had about 2,000 cigarettes behind the grandfather clock and then if she didn’t bring them back she’d ask people what she went with to bring a kiss that’s ordered back in that man but no she wanted to drink her but she did like a clothes she loved getting nice clothes and like I said my sister you’re 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 a nails done she’d have a head done and then she’d just blather herself in some lotion and come back brown as the ace of space blackers your dad he mentioned was a bag and bone man yeah so I come from a generation of scrap dealers so my dad’s got six brothers he’s the last one living on my dad he had horses from the age of 14 before him my grandad had the horses because he was in a fruit trade around hunger streets so that would apply their cats full of fruit my grandad travel up to Wood and see what my grandma self-fruit on the streets then come back to hold replanest of cat and self-fruit that way then as they got older they had second-hand shops on my grandma we got a Gilbert Beersons and Bastol from the auctions rents was real cheap for shops back then so then the brothers came along my grandad didn’t want her sons to go to sea because of the dangers so the old sort of fell into having horse and cats and collecting scrap it was just after the war my dad was born in 1940 it was married in 1958 some of my mom Barbara Norris and so that’s all we’ve known a lot growing up years been around horses and all the stuff that people throughout 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 and it was only two years ago he had forts he also is on a little bit common and he’s had to sell them because he got physically done his physical job so at the moment there’s 12 horses on a little bit common but the double answer my dad but it’s always been a grafter and his passions horses always loved his horses it breed horses that’s why he accumulated forts because I think he had eight mayors well he can imagine if they have fall every year don’t tell them before you’ve got 40 man some falls but yeah everybody knows my dad in the city 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 me like they do not mean or the Ragman’s here and then he’s a likable person and as has got older this is what’s the problem with me dad at the moment he’s done seen as many people as he did back then do you know I mean so he’s lost his purpose and he’s way a bit really but but yeah talk to anybody who has a road but the Norris is in the well known what do you remember I’ve been telling you about his starting so I started my dad off so you can imagine it’s just after the war it was born in 1940 so he was after the war he got to 13 and the six boys in the house so what been a lot of money so I started collecting cardboard and it sell that on on the way and they managed to save up enough money to buy his first horse and cat and then since then he’s had hundreds of horses lots of cats lots of harness and then as time went on he got a transit it passed his driving test and then he used to go in a transit van he always had lots of different people working for him just on daily wages and stuff and what I like about my dad is he didn’t know what he was gonna wear on that day some way he won’t make anything but then it was all on his own abilities have been out there every day shouting asking and grafting and winter months out fun to be shouting right off I don’t know winter’s morning and still got families to feed so I must have had a lot of hardships we never saw it like because we never went without food or clothing and stuff it was all well fed we’ve been lucky that way tonight where there’s a lot of people that grew up with that that’s just got to see and there was always money coming in because if they’re even if they’re the bad trip they still have money coming in but what a lot of work in also I suppose in being a recycling and his brothers having second-hand shops and recycling it was the days before vintage and charity shops really and so they’ve all been resilient my grandpa was resilient and it was before all this internet and the media and stuff like that I think people communicated more about that didn’t I’m not going on a nostalgia trip I’m just thinking it was different towns won’t it you have what do you remember of those horses so I had a couple two or three I’d rags I had Bella I’d valet some was broken good some was broken 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 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 your old towns because you could some 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 still kind of forever and because you all 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 am was man and probably then you could earn a hundred pound a week when I think you have his ways you know it was probably about 50 quid and you didn’t have to work all week for that but then you did have you down weeks where you were struggling to to my kids mate so you’d have to save a bit for them weeks when you did have a Paul week but I did like it especially in the summer the blood of job better really do you remember what your dad’s interests were outside of horses drinking and with that interest drinking having a deal with other people if you had a deal what I mean by that is advice at a varnish and if you could make a profit if you bought a cat it could make profit if you bought a horse it could make profit or if you’ve got something well up calling collecting scrap you might get antiques it might get all 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 day or week it makes his week and other interests it won’t really want for cinema it won’t bother about sport it likes to dress well I think it is a people’s passing so as much as it was in the pub a lot a lot of his dealings were done in the pub and it was before 24 hour drinking so there would be certain pubs like the Gillard Street club where you could go at 12 o’clock till 4 o’clock then he’d go on for his tea and if you wanted to go back out at 7 there’s plenty of places but I never saw him drunk even though he could drink ten pans I think he just he just drank and he never got drunk really and but it was a culture a man the man’s culture but then was about drinking it was a drinking culture whereas when we’ve grown up our culture was gonna see bands at the Wallach Club it was gonna roll me on under eight scenes it was Wallach’s it was Giggs it was and then the ecstasy and the ease and the raves came later which I wasn’t a part of that was a younger generation from me I always like gonna see bands I followed bands for years every time I came home I’d try and get to see a band from the rigs but we’re done now it didn’t really have a lot of interest like I said it come from a generation when he was 20 I suppose in the early 60s he was to go rock and roll dancing and stuff like that there was a couple of places there was love the looks which sounds amazing as a name of a club and he used to go L degree was one of the drinking horns Vox or the Alexander pub on his road Gillett Street Club later and then towards the end of it and drank for 12 or 14 years now he was to go in the rugby tavern which I think the call it Tigers lineup on the Amabarote he used to like going in there just to see friends really he’s a sociable guy so I like being around people he used to sing in the pub he was a regular singer in the pub he had a good voice for singing late do you remember seeing him sing yeah a few times so we’d go to Appleby I’d go to the crossbar every year and they would sing in the pubs it’s sing really all songs what is probably a jump there and sang to be a barre by was one of them my grandma used to sing in the pub and a big number was there oh what was it called that comes to me my Yiddish mammer something like that really all some my granddad used to sing a bit you wear 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 want a lot of money about get a critter veil go back to somebody else sit around the fire put them here was singing and they met their own entertainment before TV really came into force really like it is now but yeah my dad was ma where wandering star things like that the events it’s anyone’s 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 I was a bit of a showman yeah and mentioned grandma and grandpa tell us so already not my grandma and granddad really they had fruit shops like I said I lost my granddad when I was 13 my grandma left so she was got a William Bulldogs which every Thursday the ocean so I’ve a jumbled sale let’s call it a jumbled sale cuz it was a jumbled sale and all the claws from the neighborhood that people didn’t want would be sold on that Thursday and she’d buy a fair court she’d buy granddad shares she’d buy the flares so she bought loads of soaps and people should have a mum all over the house and people come all go and he knows he’s an idiot no so so they’re going up in the front room down Williams and Street try the soaps on even if they didn’t fit she’d make sure they walked out with a soda I mean she pinched the back say oh yes a tight fit that Sunday at Silkshire she was a character like I always remember the auction Terry’s there was always channel drink out your cup of tea and stuff and she had a table next to her and it was just piled up like New York tablets what she’d been given for ailments and anybody popped the red in the dirt oh I’ve got something for that she was like a drug dealer she’d be giving them all the Paris Paris seat emels or whatever you know I mean me granddad was quiet he used to he never spoke about the wall like a lot of that generation he 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 my grandma it’s right put on Annie Norris’s tab and she’d take it away my dad was resentful because it would be bringing mattresses back full of feathers but those people for feathers then the recycled feathers before this disposing throw away society that we’re living now and so my granddad quite got really the second-hand shops he always had a bed outside the front way as a canary or a budgie singing away he liked the beds and I think he’d got that from his grand parents really because I think they always had beds animals my grandma and granddad used to travel to Woodcock and said earlier with a catload of fruit and sell it either on the knock out knocking on people’s doors and asking if they want to sell fruit or they’re standing in a prominent position in the town center and people would go to them and bother fruit one of her sons called Frank he was out of the donkey’s at Woodcock’s every year every year that used to just stay there for the season he was one of the elder brothers but a good person to ask would be my dad about that really but I don’t ask him because I’m fascinated but I’ll remember about the second-hand shops and one of the things I don’t remember about in the second-hand shops so Donnie Osman Tom Jones and people like that where we’re out of flavor but on David Cassidy but there that hold the posters and all the friend pictures nobody wanted them but my grandma had have ended up with him out of bed since probably do not mean I’ll give him some of his Naurie Shields second my way that was one of me because we’d sit there in the sun with him outside the shop so they sort of memories out you remember your brothers and sisters and trying to sort of say a bit about them growing up what was it like so we’re more from Lily Street so Redman Street and he’s on his small house so my brother Johnny he lived in the attic me and one of my sisters lived in a black bedroom my parents in the front bedroom and my sister Joanne was a lot younger than I she lived in a car for a first you know whatever long that is and then the house was deemed unfit for a pure habitation which it was it was fit just down the bathroom I had an outside toilet so we had to get washed in the sink and that was embarrassing when people came around he coming out not little like I’m in the bath I’m in the sink or whatever so I think it might have been 11 we’re moved to Seppen Street and that’s when we had our first bath and so Jody had a my younger sister Joanne at their own bedroom and I’d share with my brother John with a record player and that’s all single beds got on each other’s nerves condensation running down the the walls 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 all ever since so she’s lived all over but she’s now in Eastbourne she would have lived in London for a few years which was great because I was the visitor there and see the city then Johnny moved out when he was 16 and it wasn’t long after that my sister Joanne she moved out so it was on him at home so we’re going all right I’m really close to my brother and sister now we would have any squabbles really we always had cousins I was this because Mount Ross she had like eight kids so we got a visit then and like Mount Nora it’s funny that because growing up my grandma and grandad so brought my sister Joleo my aunt Nora always married to my uncle Jim my grandma’s brother they had not kids cut off kids so before me those my uncle Sam took the brought him up then there was my cousin Wendy the 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 my brother John there was Francis and Jelly Fox Francis was my grandad’s sister she then actually John had 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 are there but I think that was as it was in the north I don’t know if it was everywhere you see stuff on CV about extended families but we did double this network of an extended family so if me and my dad weren’t getting on I was arguing we’d be at answers our uncles and we’d be farmed off somewhere to let the cells out do not know yeah it’s good you learn a lot yeah from all the 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 how do you believe anywhere else I’ve been home anywhere else other than whole no what was lived in whole apart from living on the rigs so now I love whole I’m like a sticker rock I’m whole throat 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 I like the people here the people are warm friendly you’ll always get a smile hi I was the family and I think that’s all we all want in it it’s good I met some good friendships in I’ve got loads of acquaintances like everybody but I really like it here I’ve got I’ve done 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 get older so school what was school like so Jilton Street that was sort of old by your school sort of remember it a little bit assembly singing religious songs then that was close to us and then Francis asked you I’d walk to Francis ask you every morning with Frank Everich’s over the flyover we did that for quite a few years the teacher won’t great to be honest and it was just school won’t it I don’t know I suppose Riley you sort of learn a bit more about the wild so I loved history I like my history lessons I like my art lessons I want an academic adult professor but the RE teacher was good Dr. Martin that was his nickname he’d be telling you all about stone engine droids and stuff like that so I was fascinated with all that and I think for me school was when I left school it was under 18s Wallace which was Wally Mares he had the the Wallace under 18s club in town opposite Wallace which is not Prince Regent Paul but after that it was a roller disco then we got a Romeo’s under 18s I’d got to win casino even though I wasn’t to be in there but we’d go every weekend that was great I needed a few times really but met some good people so you’d be dancing from midnight till six in the morning seven in the morning met a few lifelong friends then after that supposed like everybody oh like alternative music it was spiders and it was silhouette nightclub so spiders anything happened there you met great people like 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 let 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 the there was a seat where you wouldn’t sit if you were if he was gay you’d sit on it I think to call 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 there was Molly on the door she’d frighten you to death she was scary looking character but if you got the arcade he was in and he was under 18 he was in and like I said the older generation those are like bits of dandies those characters like Twaddles and Rowell was nicknamed slack and those Wendy always to work on the fairies it was a painist so you didn’t really get to know that well because downstairs where the music was and if he was looking for love that’s where on the dance floor so there was there’s pig Wilson I called him Pete Bocher because actually worked on the rigs with him and he went out with the owner of the Club Re and Peter was you see they always talk about London and the Blitz Club and places like that and Helen I suppose that was all Blitz Club because I lived school in 1980 so I was told all for punk even though my friends was into punk I was born to the total on stuff I was into the specials it was black and white your night there’s and it was it was there was a lot of political stuff going on which we never let that school well let more about politics through the music that was listening to so the clash was math my band so I say I was too off for punk but the clash was around a lot longer than the pistols and the clash sports to me this is life this is politics I love just romance so the play always create music downstairs in the silhouette and spatters but silhouette was the gay club everybody knew it is the gay club there was Romeo’s and Joliet’s there was for like the trendies and that was like boy meets girl sort of venues but the silhouette was the gay club polar bear was another gay venue as was Fox saw back in the day on his road to pub nobody bothered you so he felt safe and Henry’s was a rough old place that was an elaborate I always felt safe in there but if you wasn’t from around there you would you 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 could stop the person was causing the ball that would get thrown out as soon as that person was thrown out the music could come back on as if nothing had happened it was mental but I never saw any fights in silhouette the only time I would say any trouble that silhouette it’s when the trendies would believe in Romeo’s or LAs and bump into somebody else that’s like are you a faggot you’re a gay you’re this that the other so you might get the odd scamish then but I never really saw it when did you start going to silhouette yes silhouette as bad as 16 I was told you know to get both Daniels for I suppose Daniel that really well a club there was a bit more stricter but I managed to get in there to see all the punk band like the second generation of punk the UK subs the members the revealers specials was played I think monochrome set bowels never played even though they were supposed to play this is where I played here so dumb and then those ding walls that was another good venue that was down George Street that was a good venue it bad down spontaneously come bust however you want to call it I think it was an insurance job that was a good venue your Olympics played lots of some difficult people like that played there really good venue also has been good for bands really thinking back it won’t always about London a lot of people think it was all London centric but we it was all happening you know as well I was talking to my mate Matt Wicken and he studied a whole universe a whole university fan and it’s gone on to do designs for dot-man boats and he had his music in my club culture and stuff like that but when we had this conversation it says when I came to Hull to study it says you had about eight what was it at least 16 clubs to God so 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 Vicki coffee club you could go to cameo club you could go to Pacific club and that was an head of and he says Manchester was okay but it was the asienda or it was some sort of place where Ben had managed play so Manchester didn’t have that much going for it really hold always had lots of entertainment going on loads of it for young people and old people maybe with being a doc you know I live a poll and I reckon Liverpool have had the same sort of numbers but I know was never sure of anywhere to go if you wanted to drink or that anyway you went to the one great club’s dog in my own Vicki was a rough old joint the cell bores under the counter cameo club was rough full of prostitute’s but that’s where people did the 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 you well he shut quite early sparders was probably one 30 out the door back so silhouette I think that was okay because it was it was like a members club as well so they could just lock the door but I don’t 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 that’s a provide fold 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 the saw a reason to open and aware making money but yeah I remembered that chicken in the basket it’s everybody wasn’t there for the staff and basically and a bit of a downside I drink it I mean where was silhouette silhouette was on spring bank and there’s a record shop next door on spring bank now so is you went up the stairs 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 want him so he’d go in and you’re going the top level and then you go downstairs to the dance soul the dance or the dance place and the bar at the back so probably all about I can’t quite say probably hundred people but people might say different but with their fire the fire laws I don’t think that it won’t really gade up if you had a fire in there it would have been troubled you know man but other people but it wasn’t busy every night because it was open every night there was another club before the silhouette but I won’t prove it so I think there was one called Pink Flamingo that was an old one down that down spring bank well it could have been silhouette but for changes I’m not really sure about HU three what where did you go out there it’s your three so there was a club off it what’s a street called there was our a club I remember that you could get in there under eight scene that was off one of the sad streets I think it was down Harris Street that’s how I got the name I rest rate did I’m a club so go there Ren is 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 wonky bar nice seating and stuff dairy courts was more my dad’s pub halfway with my dad’s pubs I didn’t spend much time drinking on either of us to be honest we had a pub around the corner from why we live down Reben Street called a lion pub my parents used to go in there because it was literally a stone throw from where we live and Nick Miller’s dad had that Pete Miller’s you’d get people like by a rut of the actor in there and Tom Courtney now and again but I was more for town I was cheese bass house where else would I say later on the room which was a good venue the blow lamp was a good venue down Norfolk Street guy all lived in this house Mick crazy was the run it the Alex was me grandparents pub so we’d go in there but on it if the grandparents was in there so already for me it was town I was more of a Tony Romeo’s under 18s L is silhouette as bad as well they always is one bar that was a regular place down post and get still there the photography studio next to a way could develop your own photographs and stuff well the all white hat pub lights in town down the passage there blowbell all traditional working men’s pubs really yeah those all right we would definitely be white hat every Saturday night growing up before I started whacking off sure and stuff but even when I came on we’d go in there because it was familiarity why don’t 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 youngings use the old town like we use the old town rather than the cheeses and the basses and places like that staring gato was another busy pub in the town the film’s on in there I saw gato watch the exorcist in there and he collapsed and he was six foot odd and he says oh it’s hot in here and it I thought here we go you know I mean but it was a horrible film what was the entertainment like in the pubs that you entered in town? I suppose we’re mad all right it was just it was a more of a meeting up place rather than to say if you wanted entertainment you go to a club in the pubs it was just meeting up with old friends and stuff the pubs that my dad used to go into like the Inca men and places like that they’d be singing well that was the old traditional pub’s what our parents chose in our main younger generation didn’t go in for all that New York was another popular venue opposite the Tower Night Club I got demolished quite a few years ago so the unpunks would go in there for a dance and stuff so rolling gift performing there a few times at the end of the background going back to clubs so like silhouette and what would you say was what were they like? the whole lamp was brilliant, Chez Man I was in the rats which became spash from Mars and he was to run the blow lamp and he’d have acts on most nights and it was real good and then it became the room was it no the room was somewhere else. the lamp it was really good it was mid-8s so it was before the rev culture kicked in so I’d have old blows bands and American bands and it was always cheap to get in that the pull tail was at the back silhouette was just familiar I suppose there was nobody’s trying to outdo each other and stuff like that it wasn’t full of fashion victims you just you were rough and ready there’s a few people did get dressed up like say Pete Wilson, Pete Butcher and Colin, Paul Weems I think you might be talking to at some point they also 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 had camped it up and get dressed up as beach babes of Miss Winter Wonderland the big fairies for Christmas and the man’s a abra or whatever music it was so Peter used to be the ringleader for all that and there is films off that which kids could be aware of when she speaks to Paul he recorded stuff like that he’s got it on a cine camera so that’s going to be great for the actor no 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 a lot but whereas Henry’s you just had to look at somebody wrong and you’d be in a fight because it was very trouble you know from round here where is that come on down you know 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 the nose is that you do not mean Bulldog it was the glass collector everybody knew him and I think after time he was speeding off his head so I’d be drinking all the drinks and what people left behind put a dial up a couple of years back where he was a character I’ve taken a picture a few years ago as well because I recognized him people didn’t realize he was still alive that was his nickname or a nickname to be calling somebody Bulldog and I thought he was gay I don’t know if he was bisexual or what but what Swaddles was a big gallery so like I said earlier I went with him briefly I brought you a space he passed away a few years back he was on a couple of Russell’s pictures but he was camped and camp yeah and then there’s Wendy who played the piano on the ferry he was always immaculate really it was it was on the peacocks wall out there was a gallery he always was pristine white so he brought a book anywhere I don’t know what the name of the book is but we’re checking out because the store is a silhouette in there I would have thought Wendy Gibson I think his name was Roy, Roy, Israel, and Roy Gibson yeah and everybody called him Wendy but him and Bat and Candida Barry are Bobby Mandrel 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 that was all into a path that I came back that was all getting dressed up as women and stuff like that didn’t mean that it went for it and so they all got on really well together but I think I think Ray might have it might be Ray rather than Roy or told me that story when I was a Russell in his house out there and you mentioned drag what were your what are your memories of drag in a hole? Well I hadn’t seen a lot of it to be honest I’ve seen Bobby Mandrel who is the number one and then I’ve seen a lot of stuff at whole proud and now it’s gone up a gear when I first started seeing Bobby Mandrel he was the first person bar in Dick Emery and people like that on TV he was the first guy straight, first gear guy I saw dressing up and I just thought his axe was absolutely amazing so it starts off doing all these big shorts am numbers, Dusty Springfield, Shirley Bassey, people like that and going through an array of costumes he must go for about 12 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 this is a bit different on a Sunday afternoon but at the end of the show I was in tears because this man he took all the glamour away, he took all his clothes away and he rubbed all the makeup off his face he took his wig off and he got dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white shirt and he sang his song throughout this unveiling of himself as a man as Charles Asnevo I am a man that’s what I am and I’ve said different cover versions of it Mark Ammons sings a great cover version of it and it’s so apt and speaking to Rekop but last year he says I tried it a few times and it won’t work and then he says I was in the bath and he had this epiphany and he knew I was just singing it properly and he knew what was going wrong and then he did it and he has it and every time he does his act now he does that song and you just think wow yeah what’s that and he is I’ve got a lot of respect for really so anybody who gets the chance to sing should definitely see him and when I first saw him his outfits were good but now he’s gone to another level because he spends a fortune I saw his wardrobe last Christmas were Russell and he reckons his coffee I thought it’s 150 or 250,000 pounds worth of costumes it’s just the back room is just a walking wardrobe he’s got shoes he’s got wigs he’s got heads of mannequins with wigs and all these amazing array of costumes he said the first time he did the pregnant nun it was a she off of the one of the tables in the off the ship and it made it into a nun’s habit but now it’s like chubby brown but it’s not as blow he is cheeky with his younger he’s not racist and I just think he’s amazing we can stand there for so hours and don’t why he does because it’s a lot of bottle in it you mentioned Mela’s Pope yeah that’s something where’s that the flyover on his road that used to be really really popular now it’s not as popular I only go there now because the other horse fare there once a year and I’ve got there for that sort of gypsies and travelling people they’re going there when the fairs on so the buying solo horses they’ll put forward on the other the megafall afternoon of it you know but it’s not where it was to where it ran as it’s probably the busiest pub on as a road now rather club is a proper club they have a and that’s the other 55th’s club on a Wednesday which is busy and then a Sunday they’ll hacks on I don’t see any drag acts in there though but yeah it’s popular you know man and you mentioned in Mela’s Pope seeing Bobby I’m Joe that was the first time I’ve seen him yeah so I’m not Russell had seen him in the judge because he lived next to us at the judge when he was in hold of studying fan art and photography can you just tell us who Russell is Russell Boyce is a friend of man of 45 years inspired me to get into photography and become really good friends he left all after doing his fan art degree sports photography he then ended up working for writers international and he’s in semi retirement at the moment we just did a big exhibition at the straight gallery last year which was phenomenal 15,000 people throw the door and we speak every week about different things so last year he did a film about Ray and I went along for the interview and stuff and Ray really opened up it raised had a couple of cancer scares he had a lot of chemo but I think he was really warm and generous and told us everything we wanted to know I thought it was lots of great questions one of the questions that sticks with me was when he was doing this do you think you was championing the LJBT cause it’s his no I wasn’t anything to do with any of that I never thought of it like that even though people from that community don’t think highly over it but I thought yeah it was honest so just restore is just phenomenal it went away for 30 odd years on the fairies and it was bad acting daft he got into this drag getting dressed up and dragging stuff and now he’s made a living but he’s made a lot of people laugh and Ray says if I can make one person laugh my job’s done I’ve done what I needed to do you know what I mean yeah it’s good so that’s all Russell was anywhere and so earlier earlier you mentioned us polar bear as a bear as being a gay club some people if you’re listening might remember it and now it’s more of a music venue tell us about polar bear so polar bear it was down on its heels for years it’s only in recent years that it’s become a student bear fully I think I chose tonight they have a real late night on the show was different students but for years it was looking like it could close at any point like a lot of pubs the recession 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 famines from the polar bear so it was a mixed it went all gay it was a mixture like fox or it’s not all gays and then there was Dally’s arms which is now it was middle child’s place but now they’re moved on somewhere else they’re drama group so there’s always little places where gay people could go and I think we’re talking about cameo club orchan eleven and they’ll agree a lot of the gay community would go there as well because there was out out cast out outside as do you know I mean the one you conventional people the so I suppose you’re stuck together really and felt safe in these places where the old went so polar bear you go in there and the big one corner would just be full of gay people didn’t bother anybody just got on with it and then you’d have the gas plane dominoes, darts, smocking when smoking with a load of pups so it’s down on its heels for a good 10-15 years and the younger generation would go to the blue lamp and then later the room I was to walther I went to the room a few times but it wasn’t for me and then you’re in relationships and other things changed art, you don’t go clubbing as much as you also talk as you’ve got the priorities aren’t you and you found all you want to be with any way so you got the cinema you go away or do something like that so I think it’s an edge thing in it clubbing and not so much bands but clubbing I think you’ve probably from 18 to 24 25 then after that it sort of tilts off a bit because you’ve either met somebody or you want to spend your money on something maybe you rent housing or whatever you want 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 treats and album a real treat can you see a gig out of town, a train fare so I think it’s 18 to 24 25 and then it doesn’t stop overnight but you just play all the size of your money on different things don’t you? what are your thoughts on holes, a hole as a city, I mentioned earlier that you love it and you wouldn’t be loved but I love it in equal measure I love it and I hate it the eternal optimist I think holds on the up I think we’ve got a lot of problems with bridges and roads and all that but it’s not going to last forever the Queen’s Garden’s getting sorted the Maritams getting sorted we’ve got the Wind Farm here now which I’ll work at Siemens that’s expanding that’s going to be worked at least another 10 years the guards 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 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 have a closest to it and there’s a lot of brown field sites all over whole which will need which need redevelopment and I think people will get fed up with 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 the door built more houses affordable houses but I really don’t believe that that new road down Castle Street which should have been built 25 years ago will be a 10 point in the whole history and I think it’s it has taken 25 years but I’m optimistic it’s going to be a major change for the city because I think people will really get it and we have got a young workforce they’ll need to work and it’s not just a thousand people are like at Siemens it’s all the other little addons it’s all the cafes it’s all the well thinking it like this there’s a thousand people and they’re all in in 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 get home it’s three times your wages so you can you can get a property away 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 you’re still a cheap place to live when I was their age I had to go a work away to try and earn that certainly to get a roof above me and stuff like that because otherwise I’d have been renting luckily I don’t have to earn a mortgage free and I can afford to work part time but yeah I think it’s only up and even in the times of the 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 are city culture now it’s one of the most desirable places to live so just don’t leave everything you’re in and how would you say Hull has changed the end born here all the way to the thin here now massive changes for me so since Stevens wasn’t there the the where I’m working Siemens now was a silted up dock wasteland there’s still a lot of room for improvement of the Lordland area needs to be reimagined we need to do some with that because that is a blighted area now someone’s going to get killed there that will happen maybe not a mile later but listening to this recording in 200 years time there’ll be more changes massive changes but the people are the same my generation happy go lucky friendly smile on the face how’s the family got off your problems talk about it on as a road over bag of chips the people that 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 and I’m looking because I get out of full and I see what goes on in other museums and galleries I think we don’t need some new people at the top at the fairings it might come out it might not but I could do some great stuff in there but it won’t happen but that’s me on a wishlist but I think the Maritam Museum that’s going to be finished next year Queen’s Garden’s going to be finished next year the attic corsairs moving okay these are only so professional things but it will bring people to the city and see cuz Hall 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 trade in city we’re neighbours we’re Europe we can get to Europe quicker than we can get to London so all these brownfield sites will eventually get redeveloped we’ve got problems like drugs and all that but what city hasn’t you know what I mean what would you say is unique about Hall as a city? Good question I live on Elsorod so Elsorod 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 you can get anywhere in Hull within 15 minutes you can stand at a bus stop for five minutes and you’ll have friends for life if you want people are generous with a time and if I have been everywhere you can ask directions in another city and I’m sorry I’m a foreigner in myself or a tourist where in Hull even if they don’t know where it is they’ll try and help you or direct you to somebody who can help you I think it’s just the attitude of the people I think Northern cities are like that and your castles 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 out there I think 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 maybe a dreamer but I like to think it is a welcoming city it has been for me anywhere and I’m born and bred here 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 how do you think the city is viewed by the rest of the country? I think people who diss it haven’t been so a lot of people don’t even know where it is people who put a hole on the map like Lucy Bormont and Roman gift beautiful self so when people everything but the girl so when he’s talking about bands people relate bands like a waste of from Manchester or the Beatles are from Liverpool if you mention bands to people what bands are from old people like the bands that come out of the city I don’t know I just ask all the people that I’m not sure and I know it got crap 10 city for years but I obviously say well I’ve never been and it shows the poor journalism that says it’s crap and sort of been and seen it I think it’s just poor journalism isn’t it? Thank you George and what do you hear about a lot? Do you want to answer that? Yeah so what I hear about a lot is they’re not they’re 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 10 years to develop that area the Lordland area and in the city that’s got a waterfront even beaming him up that as canals Liverpool celebrate their waterfront London celebrate their waterfront what do we do we just let it rock and there’s a massive area in Westhall 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 the seller’s not money there but if they invest the money people will come or tell us their accommodation there whatever it takes people will come and yes it might take 10 years because that’s one of the good things about all things don’t happen so I’m going to go to Birmingham it’s full of our ice flats London high-rise flats other big cities Manchester high-rise flats where slowly getting rid of all our high-rise flats so after the war and 90% of hope was decimated in some shape or form we didn’t just go building loads and loads of blocks of flats but in one way we’ve got big skies and that’s one of the key things about whole 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 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 out of it we just need to spend a bit more on some of the other areas that have been blighted and investing youth clubs and stuff like that because that’s a knife cram we know it’s a bad one but we never had knife crammer who’s growing up and asked myself why didn’t we have them because we had places we could go from being 16 to 18 or something like that and we could have a lot of stuff like that from being 16 to 18 under 18 clubs and there was no need for the knife crams and didn’t I mean it’s all the stuff I see on the internet in 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 don’t happen very often but it does happen it’s traumatic and it ain’t that man thank you George very appreciate your time. Well, I’ll just say it’s a minute, oh, it’s about to be. I’m gonna stop recording now.
Part 2
Okay so we’re recording now I’m here with George Norris and this is George’s second interview on the 25th of June 2025. In the first part of the in the first part of George you were talking with Alex about you kind of life story origin story if you like but today I wanted to talk a little bit about you taking photos and your photography and so I was thinking for the first question I don’t think it came up in the in your previous conversation how did you actually start with photography where did that come from? So I was working off show in the North Sea and I needed something to do with me Sam off and because of the cultural history background with my family scrap dealers and everything I was looking through but my mum dad basically my mum dad and I was looking through Fanny photos and I was such a treasure trove of great pictures and then I stumbled across Russell Boush’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 I started taking pictures the architecture people and places bit of street art and that and that was with the Olympus 10 camera which had a 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 than I upgraded my camera like I say Russell took pictures of me as a boy Nancy 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 photographers are like and I’ve been doing it for 15, 16, 17 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 fan there’s always gonna be another one so today was the first day I hadn’t taken the camera out because I had things to do but usually I’ve got a camera on my back gonna work on the streets and there’s always them moments where you 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 so it armed two weeks off and now people expect to see me with my camera because I was in rain is on Saturday night there was a guy called Bobby Dam and the black Elvis I documented the full evening an 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 I haven’t got the talent they still need to be witnessed I think yeah that’s that’s interesting I’m interested in that that being away that this kind of coming and going going off to work on the rigs and then coming back and and that that showing a kind of change of changes that we wouldn’t notice if we were just there all the time yes the little things like shop fronts shops change the type fonts change the fashions change people generally the same throughout the world but and fashion change shops change street sounds change there’s always change buildings get renovated some buildings going to dereliction then other people come along and turn them around the tournaments or something new and I think one of my heroes is Chris Killip and he 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 I come to hold 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 and I’m accepted where some people won’t be accepted to think oh 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 the people and they like it and I like it and I get some great stories I’ve been other to the cemetery this week and talk some great pictures of the travelers that come from Bana Castle so I’ll earn things about Bana Castle which I want to know and I’ll be on your castle and we’ve got a real friendship now so I’m going back to Chris Killip it was always about long-term engagement so if I’ve got other 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 being 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 as a road predominantly H03 I do go to London on a regular basis because I’m obsessed with street art and the politics of street art and how it changes and every time I go to my happy place which is Shodish and Bricklin I see a lot of changes around there so I try and get the pictures of the street art and the pair stops because that might not mean anything to anybody at the moment but give them 10 or 15 years those changes it’ll be a different political landscape like at the moment we’ll go and throw all this Palestinian stuff and governments change all governments changed it’s in statute of adoris we’ve had liberals now we’ve got labor so it’s a reflection of what goes on and going back to my books lots of people all like what’s the name Levitt she took stuff like that there was a little guy or Tom not Tony Red Jones if you get the other guy he did so it’ll come to me and he took pictures of back then it wasn’t paced up some street art it was chalk drawings on the streets uh Roger men he took lots of pictures of that as the Shelley Baker so I get informed by them and what they’re taking pictures off and bring it up to date because you can only take pictures of what’s in front of you and I don’t like like say a lot like illustrator I’ve got massive art chemistry and how did you land on those subject areas you’ve talked a bit about the travel community street art and I think it’s I’m fascinated with culture 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 were like like Peter Blake the pop artist and I think all this street art that we’ve got now all this decker powers and stuff like that I think it all stems from the 60s and it’s just it’s the new it’s the new stuff so my reading is photography and I watch a lot of BBC 4 I watch a lot of Sky Arts I watch 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 have gone a tangent about last night’s conversations but I’ll walk because that’s not for this but I had a really good discussion with somebody about John Barry the the guy does the music for Jerry’s Bond well walk on to that one but we can talk about it if you want to let her yeah so we maybe should talk a little bit about the scene but not heard project where we’re looking at photographs of drag culture LGBTQ+ in the sort of late 80s early 90s 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 yeah so we’ve got in front of us pictures of Bobby Mandrel also known previously as Candida Barry and he’s always been on my peripheral vision as Candida 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 30 plus years and he’s dedicated to his craft he’s 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 he’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 and it’s 17 I want to know he’s been doing it since he’s probably mid 20s it and he tells me the story that he was working on the fairies as a steward and he get dressed up in the mess hall and it was just more of a laugh but then people were asking to put on a bit of a show so he’s a showman no doubt about that and he’s been to Falklands he’s done a lot of traveling and he’s toured with Chubby Brown and people like that and he’s just a really nice human being the gay culture I used to go to Silhouette which was a club on Spring Bank there was never ever 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 the whole such a tolerant city for this the gay culture it was very lucky years ago I mean Bobby I’ll tell you a different story but I remember it was polar bear it was Dali’s arms even voxel it was underground but people knew it was there so the turn up there they knew what to expect and these guys like to have a party the likes of fun so I bring up to future days we’ve got whole pride now which is massive and Bob is being the star actor I feel these shows and I think again the city is tolerant and so what’s kind of let’s get into kind of the situations where you’re taking these photographs what’s what’s going through your mind is is there is there something that you’re waiting for something that you’re looking for specifically to be honest it’s very organic if I see something it resonates from me I just take the picture I am a magpie I’ll take pictures of anything and I’ve got a massive hour I’ve 80,000 pictures but I just see life and I just try and capture it the best way I can and I might take on an evening like this I might take 100 pictures but it’s all about the editing at the end I might only show up five of those pictures but I’ve really I’ve got the full show on my camera and 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 learned that as I’ve got older and got better at my craft and it’s all about what you want to reveal 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 and some of these venues isn’t flattering it’s very difficult to get a good shot so generally I don’t like taking pictures on a night sound because I’m learning still I suppose but I’m learning to use the flash more now which was something I never liked because most of some one of yours 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 photography in that way because when you’re out on the street you can manipulate the light a bit inside the camera 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 that they might have in people in them but they’re very much you you talked about taking photos of architecture and things like that this is a very different kind of style I suppose well I’ve learned a lot good enough rainers in places like that and ticking gigs but like rainers 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 neighborhood the old normie and the the 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 reals together and I put pictures of people in the show enjoying the show so I’m always manful 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 the merry minute and job alice and 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 gig I think the band was called discharge or maybe exploited but it won’t bother 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 my man thinking yeah spin around now see what’s happening and I’ve got some great pictures I did one of Jeremy Corbyn came to hold for a rally and it was talking to the people in Queen’s Gardens and I knew instinctively there was there was something going on behind me I just knew that the picture was there so I spun around and everybody was looking at Jeremy and there was all I forget what this it was like we’ll be and you it was solidarity and there was all punching the air and I got the picture but you’ve also got to remember you’ve got to be out these places to set these pictures there’s no point in sat on you’ve just got to put yourself in these places where these pictures are taken and I did that on Saturday night I came back from WEC I want in the mode really to go see Elvis Bobby Diamond but I stuck at it till nine o’clock it was like a day’s WEC again going out but that’s what I do that’s what that’s what motivates me because I know in what we’re coming to runners again in the near future so if I capture it well is it in my territory let’s call it old map my backyard I’ve got to do it and the archive when I’ve gone will end up at the Easter Center so there’ll be a vast record of this neighborhood because it’s not me doing it in this way there’s people taking pictures on the mobile phones but like I say I’m out every day and capturing what I can well I can well I’m sure enough to be able to do it 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 drug performers are they kind of people who follow Bobby and Jell around are they are they are they people who are they regular people do you see the same faces or are they new audiences every time well I think his Bob has been on the scene in Hull for a such a long time he’s just wear the mouth everybody knows is is brilliant and you know you’re in for a great night not just any night even when the guys he’s had cancer scares and stuff like that but he he puts his hand so 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 I mean I see all those smiling faces his job’s done as he says and I’ve done a good job in fact if one person can go on and have a smile on the face he knows he’s done a great thing yeah now that’s it’s it’s interesting to sort of see these these 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 while you’re behind the camera yeah yeah well at new year he played rainers and he was new easy it was a miserable night it was wet and I won’t do anything that night so it’s a rainers and there’s probably I’d say 30 people 40 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 I’ve been rammed people getting drunk etc but it was it was a proper professional it just he went on that stage it could have been played to one person but was put into 40 of us and he put his hat and saw into it and I felt very looking to be in the audience that night because it was my meals for the night and I just had him all night to myself just taking pictures and it was great great for me it was and it was a learning care for me because I was on the floor I was on chairs and nobody was interested what was doing they just knew I was taking pictures and then you had me sharing them but and it wasn’t phased by it he’s been around people cameras before but yeah I learnt a lot that night I think new easy it chucks it down rain and then midnight came everybody did all exams everybody tossed it the night thanks chucking down my rain and then rear left about half past 12 but amazing amazing guy 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 HU three area I’ve seen uh I don’t want to pronounce this right funny nice insight and he does a double act sometimes we’re there and I’ve seen him in the town and there’s a double act brilliant because the buff got the their own strengths and I saw them in the town last year we were russel and Russell got some great pictures I didn’t want to step on Russell’s tours but out of the field Russell took a lot because he was making a film about Bobby at the time and that was the reason for him to come to revisit what I did as a student is now 16 so I think Russell’s 63 and so Russell made a really good film I went around there when there was recording the interview because I know where I read from more than Russell because he’s a whole kid and Russell lives down in London and so I was feeding some questions and it was so honest with his with his replies talking about his life story so I feel like I know him pretty intimately now does that help when you’re photographing him yeah because he he he trusts that I’m gonna not be in his way and there’s a big trust element there when he’s taking pictures of people because he could be spoiling the show for people who sat behind you or maybe not as able as you or they might be disabled and all that sort of and I’ve got to be manful of that as well and so I am manful of that so nice it’s been good like I said it was a meal was at New Year’s Eve and he always calls out oh George is in the audience so you know ripped the back out of me for a couple of seconds but everybody just laughs and I think that’s the nature of it he has got comedy bones if that’s what you call it he’s a natural comic and it doesn’t have it ever shown in nerves and I’m sure he is but he doesn’t show it it’s definitely I should say that recently I saw the dream girls perform at Oak Falls in in in the sort of wincomly 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 at stage but I can’t imagine how much solo well he did a little perform works it he did one part of the show and it was on his 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 will raise bold as you know so he’s got 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 and there’s dusty spring field like say Shirley and they’re not just straight songs he’s added his own little elements in some sort they might be like we were stuck breaking them what many years ago whether it was to mix different tracks and he does that as well it is is your name it really is your name I can’t say anything better than that really because is it one off holds look it’s on him and also when I did go to see the dream girls 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 I did see there was an interesting kind of thing going on between the performers and the audience it says about Shelby Brown because he’s told with Shelby Brown and his manager wasn’t very happy with part of Rais Act but the audience was more more more more I think Shelby Brown was ill that that night and he kept going back for I think he said he went back for three or four on because and he had this dress which was the only jack which is the finale at the end where well it’s not the actual final finale because the the final finale it takes off the makeup it takes off the costumes and it sings a song by Chaz Aznava 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 for a result of a laugh but then sad but not melancholy he’s just like yeah he’s giving us an hour of his life and he’s taken away all the masks and the makeup and it becomes rare so and he tells his story that he tried doing that part of the performance and it wasn’t working and he didn’t know why it went working and then one day it was in the bath and it was all about sinking the song with how he was thinking and he got it he says he was just like one of them apathyne is apathyne and he did it and it’s a big part of his well it it’s in his acts all the time now that’s a Nancy percent of the time that that just brings the house down do not I mean and he always gets plenty of applause but yeah and just to go back a few a few bits you were talking about Russell Boyce and your friendship with him and just what’s it like when there’s other photographers kind of all 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 what’s what’s that community of photographers like to be working within 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 nothing like that it must be difficult if you had to make a living out of it and you was in that that field of photography but fortunately I’m not and when we did that night me and Russell I just gave him free rent 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 projects really because I’ve got access to Bobby all the time he actually came all the way from London to do this but I don’t know it’s going to be like on the 9th of August because there’s going to be a mock camera men and film men and I think it might get a bit heated not with me because I probably watch that many pieces that night but if there’s a film crew there as well is that going to phase probably what phase Bobby it might phase the other couple of acts but then you’ve also got what was talking about earlier it got to be manfelt for there for that audience it’s not all about yes this body where it needs to be done but you’ve also got to be manfelt for the people or not paying to see the show but the one I see the show don’t they? It’s having that awareness of what everyone’s kind of project is and what within their role within that project I suppose yeah that thing 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 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? I think Russell’s covered the man the man well this acts this Bobby Mandrel is not covered the other couple of acts that are there in such a thorough way but Russell knows this guy from the 80s it was one of his projects in that college so he’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 and I suppose hopefully 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 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 on this subject not really but I’ve learned since when my tip says and I’m taking pictures of the 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 safe guards now and I understand that but I didn’t understand that till somebody pointed out to me he says I was on a on a park and there’s some street out there I thought oh that’s good I’ll take the street I’ll take the pictures and 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 my Calick guilt in the 80s second pictures of the snorting arse kids on Essel Road but you can’t do that now because you don’t know if you’ve come from broken arms there’s divorces if you 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 there could be mothers in prison and the same depictions of their kids and it could be triggering stuff in people so I think it’s a different well now for doing children definitely I’m always manifold but and that’s a tricky one because you’ve lost you’ve lost the moment by having to ask a parent kind of like a bit for each other so but the traveling community know what I’m about I’m not there to exploit them all their children I want to show them they’re that they’re right light I hope that I show them in that light and not exploiting them and and if they say take that because you don’t not go straight away and I apologize stuff but I learned that lesson a couple of months ago walking around the park which drew a couple of these football and I hear this voice “hey you can’t do that” so I questioned it “why can’t I do that?” and the safeguard initial came to my thought “oh yeah” I thanked sess as well I’m just thank you for that because I was not aware of that so anybody getting into photography now there needs to be to be aware of that because yeah you can’t just take pictures any way you want yeah I suppose it comes what you mentioned earlier on this this trust and building building relationships is so important with it isn’t it I kind of yeah I mean I don’t really have much more to ask you specifically about these photos that you’ve been taking of of drag performers is there anything that you want it’s anything else that you want it to cover? Well the new year and the other gigs I’ve been to to see him I feel like I’ve got Bobby I’ve got him now I’ve got the Bobby the the the black Elvis Bobby Diamond and when I’ve got 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 aren’t got a second chance same with the gypsies when they’re 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 hanging washing out maybe washing the pots and pans it’s the moments that we don’t really get the chance to see and I have like I’ve got this massive archive and I can put my hands on most of this stuff I just love doing it it makes me think about the backstage these you know is there is there something to I’ve taken pictures I’ve taken pictures backstage putting the makeup on putting the wigs on putting the dresses on I could do more of that but I think it’s been done now not by I’ve done my little bit Russell did it in depth and he’s got on that night we’re now he’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 but because you’ve got that many stills which I did at Christmas in New Year so New Year I could make a film with all them stills and I have done I did a reel and on these reels you’re only allowed to put 50 pictures up but this other big hero man is second Lisa continent from Finland but set her stall out in Baiket 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 she she basically she was taking pictures of the beaches around Newcastle and South Shales 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 the put the the the put not music the put the oral stuff down or the laughter the donkeys the kids screaming the splashing splashing in the water and the zoning in on a picture then the coming 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 sad gallery and that closed down but now the reopening is gonna sell it again but unfortunately 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 the drinks and all that little conversations going on and you could make a really nice half an hour but another gonna film it it’s two different things you’ve got the geek you can have 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 fangs the people maybe that’s what I’m gonna do on that night I may be going to stick 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 the arms because I think that’ll be better for me because I’ve been documenting ridders for a long time now and that might be the night because it’s gonna be full of people having a good time on a Saturday night it’s early on in the month so it’s paid there for a lot of people to be working themselves up for going it’s been a facade as well yeah that’s just been a good thing actually listening to myself there yeah let’s do that I’ll just talk about the people works itself out as you as you talk about it sometimes because then I’ve got these bitches then we could add the people yeah well it just reminded me as well about how how important is it to you to have your work printed as opposed to just remaining in a digital archive yeah I think exhibitions been friends says there’s no money in it it’s not about the money with me it’s about showing the way there’s no point in doing the work if you’re not gonna show the works and the community that you’re from and I’ve lent that through but through Alec Gill I’ve lent that through Circum mostly and Russell’s still doing it I’m gonna go an exhibition of his in August he’s been doing the High Street where he lives and he’s got a bit of funding to do that I mean I want to do another book I don’t want to do my love letter to hold and all these characters will be in them books and it’s just raising a bit of money not a lot of money and it’ll happen because I think I’ve done my gypsies enough now I can continue with for that for the 10 years and I probably will um because the kids are growing up they’re getting married they’re having kids so that’s again Chris Killup long-term engagement I can do that all day long and I’ve got the access but other things I can say I’m holding my camera on Sam and and sometimes I think I ain’t got anything today but then I look back on the week and I think he did that last week he did that last week it’s because I’m curious he’s all about curiosity and keeping that curiosity going and I’ve got my bike and I’ll be lost without it and get everywhere I could just take pictures so I’ll let that one there that’s that I got access to the Tower nightclub on the roof what Bob is playing in that put out the plus kind of did with his military so he probably is back did a stack of it yeah is it just as you were talking there I think about the determination to keep on collecting and keep on taking these photographs that’s also an interesting part of your work 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 knowing that once I’ve gone there will be an archive for people maybe in 200 years time to look back on like this all listed that we’re doing now people will be able if they want so listen to all our voices and think yeah things people have haven’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 human and we all want to have a good sound while we’re here and people like Bobbie and well there’s a lot of Bobbie’s in a lot the moment there’s Bobbie down and there’s Bobbie Mandrel so we’ve got a lot of Bobbie’s girls in the town and 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 him as a child that was always old so there and I’ve got a couple of my grandparents when the way young I’m very fortunate but a lot of people haven’t got them pictures but now there’s a billion plus pictures uploading every day were saturated with images but that’s how we are we’re visually alert to everything and this only happened in the last 15 years like this I mean hundreds of thousands of years ago it was starting glassing a church and now it’s digital images and we all can show them these images how many pictures do we see in a day if it’s a billboard it’s advertising and it’s people’s pieces on Instagram or whatever we’re just saturating and saturated so sometimes when I don’t have 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 poorly blackout the selector and still pulls a reggae band which I followed since I was 16, 17 don’t let me in with my camera I was really miffed but everybody was filming on the mobiles but I just sat back and I watched it and maybe that’s what the artists are going to do in the future they’re going to stop people taking cameras into the venues and just like let’s look at this for it is without having to document it because I hear people saying I hate when people take cameras to gigs because I’m looking at the back of somebody’s screen why not just enjoy the moment and maybe some sounds will miss that moment because we’re looking at our mobile phones brilliant yeah so maybe we can switch off the recorder there maybe is there any final things that you wanted to add to if anybody gets into photography you’ve got to document your community because the clash was one of my favorite bands and Benny Rhodes was the manager and Josh Drummer said to Benny Rhodes but what do I write songs about it says right about where you’re from not about Route 66 you don’t live on Route 66 you live in Ladbroke Grove right 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 pointing going to all these other great exotic places as great as they are but it’s only a 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 10 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 Caleb just said a 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 away if you continue down that path of just reaching out to people and letting them get to trust you and it’s the future. Great thanks so much George thank you
