Some would more readily claim it’s the colour of chocolate, but our cub reporter Angus Young is rather more prosaic than poetic.

In my early days as a cub reporter (last week, then? ed) in East Yorkshire I would go out on assignments with a veteran Scottish photographer called Rab McKenzie. One day as we drove through the countryside, Rab gestured at the surrounding landscape. “See all that?” he said with a flourish. “It’s all glacial shit!”

The sediment created by North Sea tides crashing into the cliffs washes down the coast, sweeps around Spurn Point and ends up in the Humber to create what we can see today – an expanse of gravy-coloured muddy water sat on a bed of sticky clay rather than Barbados-style blue.

Despite their appearance at low tide, the mudbanks of the Humber – and the River Hull for that matter – are constantly changing. Each tide carries over 1,500 tonnes of sediment with it. Overall, it’s estimated that up to 1.2 million tonnes of sediment may be present in the estuary at any one time. Today, they provide rich feeding grounds for birds with the Humber now supports an internationally important number of breeding bittern, marsh harrier, avocet and little tern. 

Historically, this readily accessible supply of clay also helped establish brick-making as one of the region’s earliest industries. Approximately  five million bricks were used to build Hull’s town walls which were said to be the largest brick-built construction in the country in medieval times. Similarly, Hull Minister lays claim to being one of the earliest examples of a largely brick-built church in England and was originally constructed on a raft of oak logs because of Hull’s notoriously sponge-like ground conditions.

Rab’s rather fruity description of Ice Age debris would have probably been appreciated by  the founder members of the Hull Geological Society who quickly formed their own Boulder Committee. Between 1894 and 1905, committee members embarked on regular field trips to record the locations of thousands of so-called “erratic” glacial boulders left scattered across East Yorkshire by melting glaciers. Reports were made to meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and other regional boulder committees set up by nearby societies. In each case, the type and age of each rock was identified in an attempt to retrace the paths of the glaciers as they changed the landscape around them.

Hull has no natural outcrops of rock. Instead, the nearest solid exposed rock is chalk which is best seen on the Yorkshire Wolds and, in particular, at Flamborough Head. The clear water in the Gypsey Race, Europe’s most northerly chalk stream running from Wharram-le-Street to Bridlington, provides a striking contrast to the brown stuff flowing further south.

Angus Young

Florence of HU7 asks a perfectly reasonable question, here. But the answer is slightly more complicated than you may have thought.

Chronicler of Hull for many years, Dr. Alec Gill, shows us one of his beautiful photos of decades past and discusses what is different now. This is Boulevard in 1978.

Teacher and writer Chris Speck picks a prince and adds an old granny’s tale just for the fun of it.

The second part of our exclusive chat with the legend Paul Jackson sees him in an even more uncompromising mode. He tell Burnsy about his struggles with the Adelphi Club, the tough times and the triumphs and reveals how he recently discovered that half of a major pop act had played the club before they became famous.

Thrones on the throne? Bog standard question, so Hull Tour Guide Paul Schofield is at your convenience and privy to the answer.

In which Burnsy returns to Central Library so Librarian Matt can show him how he can make all of his Christmas presents this year. He has such a lucky family.

A tale of marine misfortune from our cub reporter Angus Young.

Widely regarded as being one of the world’s most dangerous jobs, it’s little wonder that superstition was rife in Hull’s deep-sea fishing community. From wives refusing to wave farewell to trawlers leaving St Andrew’s Dock to fishermen who avoided the colour of green at all costs, lucky omens good or bad were passed down through the generations. Even seemingly innocuous acts such as sneezing could carry a message. Turning your head to the left while sneezing was regarded by some as back luck on the next trip. In some homes, wives would even burn new brooms to produce a favourable breeze to bring their loved ones home safely.

Hull author and historian Alec Gill charts many of these tales in his book Superstition: Folk Magic in Hull’s Fishing Community but one can only wonder what Hessle Roaders made of Hull’s unluckiest address back then.

Today Liverpool Street is occupied by industrial units but during the heyday of the fishing industry it was lined with terraced housing and was just a short walk away from the dock itself. Even with all that had been written about the loss of life at sea during those years, it’s still difficult to comprehend a series of human losses experienced by those living at Number 24. For in the space of just 39 years, five men who called the house their home died in separate tragedies at sea.

Four years later George’s elder brother Frederick, 30, was lost on another steam trawler, the Commander Boyle. Out on only its second fishing trip, it was sunk by a mine. Two other crew members died in the incident.

The next tragedy struck the family in 1925 when mate Daniel Smith was lost with the rest of the 14-man crew of the steam trawler Axinite. She was last heard of fishing off the Icelandic coast. Back at 24 Liverpool Street, his mother was now mourning another son lost at sea. “My son Daniel has spent all his working life at sea. I’m afraid I have little hope of good news now,” she said. Remarkably, the three deaths followed the earlier loss of a fourth son when the family lived elsewhere in Hull.

By 1934 the Shears family were living at Number 24 when the Hull trawler Loch Ard was lost with all hands while fishing off Iceland. Skipper Bill Shears had been at the helm. Seven members of the crew had been married and the trawler’s loss left 22 children fatherless. Skipper Shears’ widow Beatrice continued living at the house and she later re-married but fate would soon leave her mourning once again. In 1940 her new fisherman husband John Thompson was killed when the Aberdeen-based trawler Sansonnet was sunk by enemy aircraft off the Shetland Islands with the loss of all hands.

The sad chain of events connected to Number 24  has been pieced together by Jerry Thompson, chairman of the Hull Bullnose Heritage Group which runs the Hull Fishing Heritage Centre in Hessle Road. A former trawlerman himself, his mother’s father was also lost on the Loch Ard. Jerry said: “This all came about when I put the lost trawlemens’ surnames into the streets they were lost from to create a new database. It took me about two years and I am still finding new lost trawlermen in our research who are not on the original city lists. My mother’s father was lost in 1934 on the Loch Ard when she was 13-years-old.  As a young lad, she  would always talk to me about her father.”

Overall, an estimated 6,000 trawlermen who sailed from Hull lost their lives at sea.

Angus Young

Trust Dean. Not for him the fancy structures in the heart of the city, his choice was always going to be slightly off-centre. And so it is.

Noir author, Get Carter expert and co-organiser of Hull Noir Nick Triplow knows more than a little about dark crime books. These are his favourites.