Peace, War and Wigging-in

This work is a local and social history of east Hull’s Courtney Street which housed many families within a heavily industrialised area of the city.


The book opens with an account of the building of the street and leads on to my birth in 1931. After this I have called on my memories and reported events, of life in the street, that highlight deep poverty, aggravated by the Means Test system, that affected every household within the period 1931 to 1939.


This is followed by the period 1939 to 1945 in which the horrors of WW2 gave Hull the dubious distinction of being the most bombed city outside London. I experienced every air raid on the city and have recorded first-hand accounts of this tragic period in the history of the street.


Finally I have noted how post-war Courtney Street had irrevocably changed much to the dismay of many who looked back upon a way of life that would never return.


However throughout the tribulations of the period 1931 to 1945 the humour and tenacity of its residents was ever to the fore, which comes through in many of the anecdotes I have recorded. I look upon this book as my way of saying thank-you to the Courtney Street I love.