29 Fred Leason – Painting the Bridges 1966

“I was a painter for Hull Corporation for about six years or so, in the sixties. I painted anything. Parks was a good job, swings and roundabouts, the boats in East Park. I painted the girders in the roof of the indoor market. And the five storey flats on Porter Street with two long wooden ladders lashed together, when you got to the top, the ladder was almost straight up. There had to be a second man on the ground for that. Was I afraid of heights? Well the Painting Director gave you the jobs and you just had to do what you were given.

I worked on Drypool when it was new and they were still working underneath as we were painting. The year the photograph was taken, 1966, we painted all the bridges: Sutton Road, old Ferry Lane Bridge, Wilmington, Sculcoates, Scott Street, North and Drypool. There weren’t as many bridges then. It would take us a couple of days or so each bridge. We had to paint the tops with white lead paint to stop the joints and bolts opening out.

That’s me in the picture, the one on the left, and that’s my mate Baz Kitchen on the right. I’m coming down ‘cause we saw this guy taking the photographs and wanted to know what he was doing, by the time I got down he’d gone, but the foreman gave us the photo a few days later – with the compliments of L R Storry (Transport Dept.) 18.06.1966, written on the back. How did we get up on top of the bridge? We walked! There must’ve been a ladder to get half way, but we just walked up the side, up that slope on the left there with a tin of paint and a brush each.

We painted all the bridges the same way, Sculcoates Bridge was the easiest to paint, you could do that standing on the floor.”

Fred Leason 2025.

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