A ROAD THAT’S FOREVER HOME
Emotional day as Sir Tom takes trip down memory lane
AS AN actor who has achieved fame and fortune, Sir Tom Courtenay could have done anything or gone anywhere for his 80th birthday.
But he chose to watch Hull City play, drive down Hessle Road, where he grew up, and then have a party at his sister’s home in Kirk Ella, near Hull.
At 80, Sir Tom is as passionate as ever about the city he left when he was 18 years old – and he was moved to tears when he became an Honorary Freeman yesterday.
Surrounded by councillors at the city’s Guildhall, Sir Tom, who was part of the winning bid which led to Hull gaining the title City of Culture, recalled his early years on Hessle Road – then home to the largest deep-sea fishing fleet in the world.
The actor said his wife Isabel would be cross with him for crying – but quickly gave way to emotion, admitting afterwards: “I got so emotional I couldn’t speak at times.”
Sir Tom, whose father was a boat painter, said he was and always would be the son of a “Hull fish dock worker”.
He spoke movingly about his mother: “My mother was a net braider – it was a tough job for a delicate and sensitive young woman. But she would take netting in, which a lot of fish dock wives would do.”
Much of old Hessle Road and the characters that inhabited it are gone now, and Sir Tom said he realised how fortunate he was to have grown up there: “There was the most extraordinary sense of community which I have never encountered since; people mourned together when a trawler went down, we rejoiced together like at the end of the Second World War.
“People were very direct, warm-hearted and it is something that will stay in my heart always.
“Everyone was born together by the fish dock and it has gone now.”
His sister, Ann Braimbridge, who accompanied him, said: “It is very moving to see him get this award and remember how we were in that little house.
“I couldn’t help feeling sorry that Mum and Dad couldn’t have seen (what happened today).
“I think back to Mum and Dad and the sacrifices they made for him – I can remember the three of us sending him half a crown each when he was abroad and sending him a list so he didn’t buy the wrong things.
“You can never leave Hessle Road – it is absolutely who you are.”
Sir Tom has been nominated for Oscars and won a Golden Globe and three Baftas. In 2015 he won a Silver Bear for the film 45 Years.
Asked how being presented with the Honorary Freedom of the City compared, he said: “It’s nicer.”
However, he refused to be proud because “pride comes before a fall”.
He went to West Dock Avenue Boys’ School, which was just across the road –and which is no longer there. After grammar school, he went to RADA in London.
He made his professional debut in Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Old Vic in 1960, before taking over from Albert Finney in the role of the whimsical workingclass hero Billy Liar at the Cambridge Theatre.
He shot to fame on the back of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which earned him a Bafta for best newcomer, and in the 1963 film of Billy Liar. He appeared in a string of major films, including Operation Crossbow, The Night Of the Generals and David Lean’s 1965 classic Doctor Zhivago, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.
People were very direct, warm-hearted and it will stay in my heart. Sir Tom Courtenay on the people of Hull’s Hessle Road.