A River Full Of Stories

Memories of the River Hull

Book – Films – website – exhibition

The idea for A River Full Of Stories came about when many of the 2000 visitors to the Open Bridges exhibition inside Scale Lane Bridge told us fascinating stories and memories of their lives working on and around the River Hull in its heyday. We wanted to capture these memories and stories and preserve them for future generations. So we embarked upon a follow up project – A River Full of Stories.

We put a call out for people to join us, and thoroughly enjoyed the series of memory sharing sessions at Hull Maritime Museum, and on board vessels The MV Syntan, Humber Sloops Amy Howson and Spider T. The conversation flowed and we collected and recorded many wonderful, funny, sad and all enthralling memories of the River Hull, its bridges and the vessels which have used it for work and play over the years. These fascinating conversations culminated in a series of films, photographs, exhibitions, website features, and a book which is available in UK libraries.

Watch the River Full of Stories film here:

Do you know where the River Hull starts?

On the first day of the heatwave we set out to explore the sources of the River Hull for A River Full of Stories. Watch the video, our marriage of music, video, pictures and words telling of our meander along the headwaters of the river, visiting it’s sources in the Yorkshire Wolds.

A River Full of Stories follows Open Bridges which made history when for the first time all 13 of the bridges over the River Hull in the UK’s City of Culture 2017 raised, swung or closed simultaneously splitting the city of Hull in two at 20:17 hours on 22nd September 2017. Historic vessels sailed down the river, met by 21st century tugs, to the sound of a new musique concrète work by composer John Stead.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our ‘Open Bridges: A River Full Of Stories’ project. The book is available from all libraries and museums in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, and from all UK libraries by inter library loan. Our plans to produce a version of the book for sale were put on hold due to the pandemic, but we are planning to start preparations again in the future.