Caught on camera tatting for a living
A relationship between two men spanning 40 years is encompassed in a unique exhibition in Hull. Daniel Dylan Wray reports. Main picture by Jonathan Gawthorpe.
IF you lived in Hull in the early 1980s, you may well have heard the roar of “battery, boiler, bike frame, lumber, rag and bone” echoing through the streets. Shouting this was a teenager, George Norris, who was working in the family business, along with his dad and cousins, as a rag and bone man. Unusually for the job, which involved collecting scrap from various neighbourhoods in the city – known locally as tatting – Norris had a photographer in tow.
Russell Boyce was an art school student interested in shooting the local community and spent the summer with Norris and his family in 1983 as they travelled the streets via horse and cart, hurling their finds – from mopeds to furniture – onto the back.
“What George used to cry out when he was on his horse and cart stayed fixed in my head forever,” says Boyce, who left Hull soon after the project and went on to work for Reuters in London. However, in 2012, a phone call out of the blue reconnected him with that unmistakable voice, when Norris called the office looking for him. In the years in between Norris had been working on the oil rigs but had also become a photographer himself, documenting his local community in Hull whenever he was back.
After Norris’s mum died, he decided to track Boyce down to see if he had some photos he had taken of her and the family back in 1983. He did, and sent them along, and soon a friendship was reignited. Now, more than 40 years since that summer scouring the streets of Hull, the pair have a joint exhibition of their photography at the Humber Street Gallery, You and Me in HU3.
“I really don’t think Hull has ever been shown like this before,” says Norris. “So much has changed in the city over the last 40 years and it’s beautiful to have that history documented. A lot of people who don't go to galleries will actually come into this space because they'll see themselves and they'll see their grandparents. To get them engaged and see themselves on a wall, and be witnessed, it makes them feel special. And that makes me feel special that I can do that.”
‘My 81-year-old dad is an original rebel. To accept it’s been a bad day or week but to still get up and stay motivated, that requires real resilience.’
The exhibition is a vast one, comprising hundreds of images, as well as a film commissioned especially for it, along with a 240-page book of some of the photographs. The exhibition not only consists of Boyce’s early 1980s Hull photographs, along with Norris’ own photos which act as a love letter to the city he still calls home, but the pair even collaborated on a new series of images linked to the ones taken back in 1983.
In 2022, after years working on the North
Sea rigs, Norris, in his late 50s, returned to the family business to help his 81-year-old father with his rounds as a rag and bone man again. Boyce once again followed them with his camera.
“I wanted to bring the past forward,” says Boyce of the photos. “The plan wasn't to try to recreate what I did in 1983, I just wanted to shoot the story again as it was today. I played with the idea of doing combinations of photos where the movements, shapes and backgrounds are the same. I just wanted to reimagine the story and I think the two things work well together.”
The black and white photos of 1980s Hull sit in sharp contrast to the colour ones of today, with everything from fashion to modes of transportation vastly different.
But there are also many similarities – such as the welcoming chit-chats the men receive from residents on the same streets – with the photographs simultaneously capturing huge changes and how some things never change.
“It was strange at first because I was thinking, have I got the confidence to go and shout my head off down the street?” says Norris of returning to his teenage job. “I'm a grown bloke now and you can do that when you're a cheeky young ’un.”
But it allowed Norris, who was also photographing this experience for his own work, to see the city in a different way.
“When I started going back out and meeting the people that my dad deals with on a weekly basis it was great because I was seeing it through his eyes,” he says. “And because we’re in a van now, I was learning new parts of the city that I'd never reached on a horse and cart before. I was learning stuff and seeing it almost like a tourist.
“The city has changed a lot but the people are still warm and generous. The working class people of Hull will give you anything.”
It also allowed Norris to spend some quality time with his ageing father and reflect on his life and role in the community.
“My dad is an original rebel,” he says. “To go out on a day-to-day basis not knowing what he's going to earn, and to accept it's been a bad day or week but to still get up and stay motivated, that requires real resilience. My grandma never wanted her boys to go and work at sea because of the dangers, so six lads left school not very well educated but they've made a living doing this.”
Another part of the exhibition is entitled Gypsy Childhood and is a set of Norris’s images born out of his long-standing generational relationship with one of Hull’s horse-trading gypsy communities. The overall result is a far-reaching exhibition that spans multiple decades, neighbourhoods, communities and people.
“Our work complements one another,” says
Boyce. “I have more of a storytelling narrative style, whereas George has got a Vivian Maiertype style where he picks out moments in his community. But because he's so embedded in that community, he gets different images to what I get. Because of his family history, he can work with the Gypsy community in a way that I never could – I'd just be some bloke from London parachuting in.”
It’s also seen the pair form not only a fruitful and symbiotic creative partnership but a deep-rooted friendship. “This exhibition is a real milestone as it also marks 40 years of our friendship,” says Boyce. “When we reconnected, it was just like there hadn't been any gap, so for me it’s very magical.” The other thing that bonds the two photographers and friends is the city that brought them together. “Each time I go to Hull I just can't help myself,” says Boyce. “I keep wanting to shoot pictures there. I think it’s a fascinating city and the people are so warm and friendly and they respond very nicely to what we're doing.”
Norris has so much personal history in the city, that he can even link the gallery to his family. “My aunt Nora had a fruit shop on Hessle Road and I used to go down to Humber Street when it was the fruit market,” he recalls. “So it's really gone full circle for me to have my photos on that same street. It really is a magnificent exhibition. This is from the heart of Hull to show what's happened in the last 40 years. We've had the stuffing kicked out of us but we're still here and we’re still doing our thing.”
The pair hope that it will inspire the next generation of local photographers to follow in their footsteps. “We’re hoping to encourage young people to photograph their own communities,” says Boyce. “All you need is one or two people to connect with it and that will create a body of work for another 40 years.”
You and Me in HU3 runs at the Humber Street Gallery until April 14.