John Mooney's first book, Walk The Walk, captures the energetic atmosphere of Hessle Road during the 1950s. Will Ramsey hears more.
THE Bounder, as John Mooney remembers him, was known the length of Hessle Road. One of the "three-day millionaires" – the fishermen who docked with a wedge of money in their pockets – he was a frequenter of the bars and the bookies.
"I call him a hard-bitten trawlerman and a hard-bitten drinker," said John, who has written Walk The Walk, a semi-fictionalised book about Hull in the 1950s. "He was a punter in the bookies and he'd spend his money in the pubs. They'd roll him back on the trawler for his next trip."
John, 68, was a keen observer of life during his Hessle Road childhood. His dad, Wilf, was a street bookie in the years before gambling was legalised, eventually going on to run a series of bookies and clubs in the city. When John, a semi-retired racing journalist, decided to write his first book, it was his childhood – and the gamblers and bookmakers he grew up around – that he decided to look back on.
"There are stories that are true but the names have been changed, and stories that are wholly made up," John said. "And then there are others that are somewhere in between."
Walk The Walk is named after an annual walking race that would start in Hessle Road and attracted much in the way of betting. Stories of the stakes that were waged on it – recalled as being more than the "Aintree spectacular, the Derby and the FA Cup Final put together" – bookend the tales.
And through looking at the people who made up everyday life – John's dad and other bookies have been fictionalised in a single character, Malloy – he has aimed to capture the energy of the time.
"It isn't another good old Hessle Road yarn, as there are plenty of those around. It is about Hull," said John, who lives in Swanland. "It is about what a fantastic place it was in the 1950s. It was thriving because of the fishing industry, the railways and all these massive industries in the east of the city."
John's dad, now 94, was the son of an Irish immigrant and part of the large Irish Catholic community that had arrived in Hull looking for work. Wilf worked on the fish docks before being injured the Second World War.
"He was at Dunkirk and got out by the skin of his teeth," said John. "He was so badly injured he couldn't work physically again so, like so many others, he had to use his brain to get by."
His dad and John's uncles worked as street bookies, a common sight across Britain before the legalisation brought about by the 1961 Betting and Gaming Act.
"Every street had a bookmaker and they all had their pitch," said John. "Some were down back alleys, my dad used to be in a stable that housed the horse and cart from the greengrocers.
"Guys would go and have a half crown round robin, the staple bet, trying to win a few quid for a night out. It was small stakes but it was a pastime and an enjoyable one for most."
It was also largely tolerated. Even the occasional raids were co-ordinated. "The police used to take backhanders off the bookmakers," John said. "Everyone knew it went on. The policeman would let a bookmaker know he was going to raid him on a particular day and not have too much on him."
It was in this entrepreneurial atmosphere that John's dad also earned extra money through buying items and selling them on.
"It wasn't black market stuff, it was a way of earning a few quid," said John. "There would be hundreds of men doing the same thing, buying something cheap and flogging it for a little bit extra – whether it was chickens, dustbins or typewriters."
Others who could not find work took other routes towards it. Despite the booming industries, some struggled to make a living.
"There wasn't full employment," said John. "We had five per cent unemployment here, which was higher than anywhere else in the country.
"There were three guys from Hull who hitchhiked to the Houses of Parliament to present a petition about the high level of unemployment. It was the three members of Parliament for Hull who paid their fares home, so they wouldn't have to hitchhike back."
After gambling was legalised, John's family began running betting shops in Hull and venues including the West Hull Club. It was, he says, a close-knit community.
"Once a year we'd all go to Withernsea – all of Hessle Road. You'd meet up with people you lived alongside back home," John said. "Very few people went elsewhere, as you could go on the train."
John's fascination with the past has seen him toy with the idea of writing a historical novel, possibly on the theme of the Spanish Civil War or the Crusades. But it is echoes of his own history that have inspired him here.
"One of the things I emphasise is how life really changed in the 1950s," he said. "It was how we all dressed like our parents and listened to the same music. Everything was an imitation until Elvis came along.
"I was only ten or 11, but it was a phenomenal change. The idea of teenagers were born, for a start. I don't think there has been anything like it since."• Walk The Walk by John Mooney, published by Rossendale Books, £9.99, is available from Waterstones in Hull and on Amazon.
• More nostalgia from the Hull Daily Mail
