University of Hull to host popular exhibition, The Hessle Roaders, this winter

This winter the University of Hull’s Brynmor Jones Library will be the home of a popular photography exhibition by photographer and historian Dr. Alec Gill MBE. The Hessle Roaders, captures life in Hull’s former Fishing Community during the 1970s and 1980s.

The exhibition was a highlight of Hull’s year as UK City of Culture when three showings of the images broke audience attendance records. At Hull History Centre, for example, it attracted over 8,000 visitors. 

Dr. Gill began the work whilst studying his Psychology degree at the University between 1974 and 1977. People have always been central to the study and Alec, who sometimes describes himself as “a psychologist with a camera” aiming to capture everyday life,took over 6,500 negatives that capture the pre-digital world when children played street games, corner shops abounded, and the port had a powerful deep-sea trawling fleet. 

Dr Gill said: “This exhibition bridges the ‘town-gown divide’ and has universal appeal. Fishing communities exist along dangerous coastlines upon every ocean. Hull’s Hessle Road provides a unique insight into people in peril who worked in the world’s most dangerous job. The Hessle Roaders had a zest for life because they lived so close to death.”

The Brynmor Jones Library is a highly appropriate venue for this exhibition. Professor James Booth (2018) of the English Department draws a direct comparison between Alec Gill’s photography and Philip Larkin’s poetry.

The exhibition will be open to the public between 16 November 2018 and 6 January 2019 in the Brynmor Jones Library. Entry to the exhibition is free of charge. It is open seven days a week from 10:00-17:00 every day except Tuesday when the exhibition closes at 19:00.