The former Housemartin once took a group of German tourists to Hull – and ended up staying there for 20 years. He praises a city full of artists, dry humour and beautiful light ... and wonders if he’ll ever get his name on a bus
I never planned to live in Hull. A mate and I were showing some German people around the north, I stopped off, bought a copy of the Hull Daily Mail, had a look for property and just set up house with my mates. I ended up staying for 20 years. A lot of people do that. Philip Larkin – from Coventry – liked the fact that Hull was out of the way, right out on the coast, with that huge, overbearing bridge. When you arrive, there’s nothing after it, which gives it an outsiderliness. The people are the same. There’s none of that, “Oh, everyone talks to you at the bus stop,” you get elsewhere in Yorkshire. People mind their own business in Hull and are suspicious of anyone who is over-friendly. They’ll get to know you when they get to know you, which is very different.
For the first couple of years, I felt like an outsider, too, but once you’re there you can’t be bothered going anywhere else, and you sort of become a bit “Hull” yourself. We called the Housemartins’ first album London 0 Hull 4 because we were sick of people asking where we were from and going [adopts posh voice]: “Where? Oh! We’ve got friends in Manchester, you know. It’s very happening.” So what? We wanted to put the city on the map, and people were very proud of us when we had success. But Hull doesn’t make a song and dance about it. In Brighton, Norman [Cook, ex-Housemartins bassist, AKA Fatboy Slim] and Chris Eubank have got their names on buses, but they don’t do things like that in Hull unless you’re dead.
Continue reading...from Music | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2A2x9Wt
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