Children messing around on a bombsite, men working on the docks, a solitary gent sat in a darkened corner of a pub having a pint.

In the 1970s and 1980s Alec Gill captured the everyday folk of Hessle Road in Hull - mostly without them realising it.

The seemingly artless but skilfully composed shots were taken in the dying days of the industry - although Alec didn't know it then.

Now the black and white pictures are history - although they still have a freshness and are powerfully evocative to anyone who lived through the time.

An exhibition and book had its London launch yesterday at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in Greenwich. Alec, who took his first pictures aged 24 on his second hand Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera, said: "Looking back in retrospect I was a psychologist with a camera.

"Thanks to the Rolleicord, people didn't realise I was taking their picture. I would be looking at them and the camera was at my waistline. I didn't mess around long, I usually had my bike nearby.

"I only had 12 pictures on a roll. It's not like today with digital where you can click away.

"The (former Poet Laureate) Andrew Motion, who saw an exhibition in Hull, said it looks 'as though there's no photographer present' which is one of the best compliments I've had about my photographs.” Alec owes a drop of maritime blood to his dad George, who served with Ellerman's Wilson Line. But it was remarks made by a lecturer at Hull University, where he studied psychology, which sparked the idea of creating a visual record of life on Hessle Road. “Professor Clarke told the class one day, ‘if you want to get on in life, you’ve got to specialise.’

Date: 4th November 2021.
Picture James Hardisty.
Dr Alec Gill, 75, of Hull, a renowned Hull historian, and keen amateur photographer for over 50 years has taken over 6,000 black-and-white photographs, with his 120 Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera capturing Hull's history in the Hessle Road area and its people. Alec, has started a campaign to hopefully bring his work to life in the form of a book he's wanting to raise a total of £17,500 to ensure the photographic book is able to be published. — Date: 4th November 2021. Picture James Hardisty. Dr Alec Gill, 75, of Hull, a renowned Hull historian, and keen amateur photographer for over 50 years has taken over 6,000 black-and-white photographs, with his 120 Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera capturing Hull's history in the Hessle Road area and its people. Alec, has started a campaign to hopefully bring his work to life in the form of a book he's wanting to raise a total of £17,500 to ensure the photographic book is able to be published.

"He was talking about psychology but that made me think about the places I’d been and photographed. I’d taken a good picture in Sicily of some fishermen repairing their nets and I thought ‘why am I photographing fishermen in Sicily when I come from a fishing port?’

"So I thought I’d specialise in the communities of Hessle Road.

"Sometimes I'd set off and think I have a theme today and focus on corner shops, another time I might be going down to do the bobbers who landed the fish, then something would happen and you couldn't resist taking a picture. It's trying to capture everyday life as it was - it’s funny how much it’s gone into history now.” Little did Alec know that 1976 marked the last of the Cod Wars – which saw fishermen from Hull battle it out on the high seas over fishing rights, only to see the government ultimately cave in to Iceland. With the demise of fishing, a chapter in Hull’s life closed forever.

The book – which contains 250 pictures honed from Alec’s 6,000-image database – is available on alecgillhessleroadphotoarchivebook.com. Sponsored by GF Smith, it has been shortlisted for the European Design Awards, the winner of which will be announced in June.

Exhibition of pictures in life of Hull's fishing community opens in London