Just an Ordinary Guy

“We haven’t much money, but we do see life!”

My mother used to say that a lot. Only the first part was right, but one contradicted her at ones’ peril!

I was born in a two-bedroom terraced house in Hull, some 61 years and 11 months ago, in July of 1958. Kingston-upon-Hull, for the 99% of you who’ve never heard of it, is a large town, or small city, on the northern bank of the River Humber, straddling the confluence of the River Hull with the larger estuary, roughly 200 miles north and a little east of London. At that time, its’ ‘metro area’ was home to some 365 000 souls — a figure which has since declined by around 40 000.(https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22856/kingston-upon-hull/population)

At that time, the city was accounted a major trading port and perhaps the foremost fishing port in the country, but was already in decline -though it was not truly noticeable until many years later. Certainly the docks and trawlers were major sources of employment, along with the chemical works, the typewriter factory and a few other light manufacturing companies (many providing unskilled part-time work for the wives of trawlermen, who might be gone for months, and who didn’t get paid until they brought their catch home.)

The house I was born in was in the middle of a working-class district. Not that my parents regarded themselves as working class, but the house was available, cheap and — most importantly — just down the street from my mothers’ parents.