George Street gems
Heading eastwards down George Street towards Easington in March 1970 is Connor & Graham's Leyland PD2/12/East Lancs of 1956 vintage, which had recently been acquired from Southdown and repainted from the latter's apple green and cream livery into something akin Brighton Hove & District red and cream. Its identity is not clear but is possibly RUF189, 190, 192 or 193. The Easington service of Connor & Graham was the only stage service into Hull run by an independent operator. C&G did not have access to the joint KHCT/EYMS bus station but terminated some distance away in Baker Street, adjacent to Hull Central Library. Connor & Graham enjoyed a long 70-years' life as an independent, being finally taken over by East Yorkshire Motor Services in January 1993.
Let's take a closer look at the architectural backdrop: at the far left behind the bus is the handsome facade of Carmichael's, the most upmarket of Hull's department stores. My mother rated it highly, specifically for the coffee served in its cafeteria, better than Hammond's she reckoned - Mama was a connoisseur of these things. The late actor Ian Carmichael (1920-2010) was a scion of the family. The store closed some years ago but the building survives, used latterly as a nightclub.
But the eye is surely drawn to the art nouveau exhuberance of the Criterion cinema, flanked by its lions. These alas are all that survive today, in a Hornsea park. The Criterion opened as the Majestic in 1915, being renamed in 1935. It had closed forever its doors to patrons just before I grabbed my pic. Demolition followed soon afterwards, and the site is today occupied by the blandest of office developments.
I was fortunate enough to see one film before the Criterion's demise, and this may or may not have changed my life. As an impressionable 17-year old eager to make his mark in life, I viewed "Blow-Up" (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and the exotic model, Verushka. The film depicts a shallow - and darker - side to the 1960s Swinging London scene. The David Hemmings fashion photographer character (allegedly inspired by David Bailey) is weary and increasingly less involved with the frenetic world around him, but his life is jolted after he may - or may not - have been witness to a murder, with La Redgrave as a true femme fatale - or maybe not. But what the heck! This was definitely going to be the life for me: I was just taking the most tentative juvenile steps in photography, armed with my Kodak Bantam, but my future was marked out in lights. Just like David Hemmings, before too long I too would be having women hurl their bodies at me. Er, yes, well...fast forward 45 years. What happened exactly? I carried on photographing buses and trains, even endeavoured to become a Photographer With A Social Conscience as I explored the by-ways of Hull. But very few Vanessa Redgraves and Verushkas so far...
George Street gems
Heading eastwards down George Street towards Easington in March 1970 is Connor & Graham's Leyland PD2/12/East Lancs of 1956 vintage, which had recently been acquired from Southdown and repainted from the latter's apple green and cream livery into something akin Brighton Hove & District red and cream. Its identity is not clear but is possibly RUF189, 190, 192 or 193. The Easington service of Connor & Graham was the only stage service into Hull run by an independent operator. C&G did not have access to the joint KHCT/EYMS bus station but terminated some distance away in Baker Street, adjacent to Hull Central Library. Connor & Graham enjoyed a long 70-years' life as an independent, being finally taken over by East Yorkshire Motor Services in January 1993.
Let's take a closer look at the architectural backdrop: at the far left behind the bus is the handsome facade of Carmichael's, the most upmarket of Hull's department stores. My mother rated it highly, specifically for the coffee served in its cafeteria, better than Hammond's she reckoned - Mama was a connoisseur of these things. The late actor Ian Carmichael (1920-2010) was a scion of the family. The store closed some years ago but the building survives, used latterly as a nightclub.
But the eye is surely drawn to the art nouveau exhuberance of the Criterion cinema, flanked by its lions. These alas are all that survive today, in a Hornsea park. The Criterion opened as the Majestic in 1915, being renamed in 1935. It had closed forever its doors to patrons just before I grabbed my pic. Demolition followed soon afterwards, and the site is today occupied by the blandest of office developments.
I was fortunate enough to see one film before the Criterion's demise, and this may or may not have changed my life. As an impressionable 17-year old eager to make his mark in life, I viewed "Blow-Up" (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and the exotic model, Verushka. The film depicts a shallow - and darker - side to the 1960s Swinging London scene. The David Hemmings fashion photographer character (allegedly inspired by David Bailey) is weary and increasingly less involved with the frenetic world around him, but his life is jolted after he may - or may not - have been witness to a murder, with La Redgrave as a true femme fatale - or maybe not. But what the heck! This was definitely going to be the life for me: I was just taking the most tentative juvenile steps in photography, armed with my Kodak Bantam, but my future was marked out in lights. Just like David Hemmings, before too long I too would be having women hurl their bodies at me. Er, yes, well...fast forward 45 years. What happened exactly? I carried on photographing buses and trains, even endeavoured to become a Photographer With A Social Conscience as I explored the by-ways of Hull. But very few Vanessa Redgraves and Verushkas so far...