Day trip to Hull

Sounds exciting but the main purpose of the journey was a hospital visit. Here in Scarborough we get passed on to Hull or York when what is required exceeds the provision here. Today involved a one hour and forty minute train journey (12 stops!) for a ten minute consultation. We shall need to return for a pre med and then an operation. The supportive and visiting relative will need hotel accommodation for up to a week as well. Nevertheless we are grateful that good NHS care and first class surgeon are the end result.

We were able to stay on in the city for four or five hours so as well as a meal we looked in on Holy Trinity because a friend is vicar and Wilberforce was baptised there. Across the square from the church we also spent time in the old Hull Grammar School where Wilberforce was educated. It is now a very good hands on museum retelling the story of Hull with a sub display of Egyptian artefacts. The rest of the time was spent in the Ferens Art Gallery where there is an interesting travelling exhibition at the moment "Mind Forg'd Manacles: Slavery and Blake".

William Blake (1757-1827) was a contemporary of William Wilberforce and during his lifetime saw successful campaigns against the slave trade, leading to its abolition in 1807. Slavery was a fundamental theme in his art and writing and he was fervently opposed to it. This new exhibition features over 40 watercolours, prints and plates from Blake’s illuminated books, alongside other prints of the period showing contemporary attitudes to slavery. The works are on loan from the British Museum which holds the most comprehensive collection of Blake’s art in the world and the exhibition also marks the 250th anniversary of Blake’s birth.

But for Blake slavery was also a mental state. Limited perceptions and following conventional religion or science was akin to enslavement, to being held with ‘mind forg’d manacles’ of one’s own making. Blake represents these notions through the contorted body; mentally restricted figures are enclosed within themselves, while those free of mental shackles fly upwards like birds. The image of enslavement is associated above all with the suppression of sexual desire and the desire for unity, represented in Blake’s imagery by chained figures. Many of the most dramatic and complex images show a confrontation between the forces of repression and those seeking freedom.

So despite the unwelcome initial purpose of our visit to Hull it turned out to be a good and positive day out. We shall now look forward more to our return visits later in the year.