Heaton still sings praises of the city that hooked him

There are half a dozen English towns and cities that can lay claim to Paul Heaton as a famous son.

Born in Cheshire, he spent his childhood in Sheffield before moving with his family to Surrey as a teenager. Later he lived in Leeds for the best part of a year and a few years back he moved to Manchester.

However, while the singer/songwriter behind the Housemartins and the Beautiful South may have never lost his childhood allegiance to Sheffield United and while he may now reside on the other side of the Pennines, Hull will always be the place he calls home.

It was a spur of the moment decision that brought the 21-year-old Heaton to the East Coast one day in 1983 and he could have just as easily ended up in Bridlington or Scarborough.

“Some friends from Germany had come over and we’d been doing all the usual tourist attractions, ending up in the Lake District,” he says. “I’d been wanting to move back north for a little while and another friend I was with said he wanted to live by the sea. I’d never really been to Hull before, but it seemed like as good a place as any.

“On the way back we stopped off in Hull and went to a pub called the George right in the middle of the city. We never left. We picked up a copy of the local newspaper, had a look through the classified ads for places to rent and ended up moving into a flat we had only seen through looking through the letterbox.”

The 1980s were not kind to Hull. The decline in the fishing industry which had begun the previous decade deepened, unemployment reached record highs and the city’s football club was in the fourth division on the brink of financial collapse.

Heaton was among those on the dole queue, but he didn’t mind. In between signing on, he and Stan Cullimore, who would go onto play guitar for the Housemartins, would busk in the city centre. They were never going to get rich on the takings, but as long as they made enough for a couple of pints in the evening, the money was unimportant.

“Me and Stan played everywhere,” says Heaton. “There’s a lot of freedom in being able to get up, grab a guitar and be out there playing. I remember we used to get £5 for playing Hull Truck in Spring Street. We were relegated to the bar area, but eventually they did let us in the main venue and it was there that we performed with John Cooper Clarke. Those kind of nights when we were just starting out were really special.”

While regulars at the Ye Olde White Harte, during the 1980s Heaton and the rest of the Housemartins frequented most of the pubs in Hull. But there was one venue which was central to the life of any musician in the city. In the middle of the decade, the Adelphi opened its doors and quickly became part of the infamous toilet tour.

New bands would inevitably find themselves on De Grey Street, unpacking their kit outside the Adelphi. The brainchild of Paul Jackson, a champion of live music, the dressing rooms weren’t much to speak of and the venue always looked better after daylight hours. It was the very definition of dingy, but when the venue celebrated its 25th anniversary, everyone from Radiohead to Pulp and Athlete lined up to pay tribute. At the head of the queue was Heaton.

“Paul Jackson was a massive support not just to us, but to any new band and it really made a difference having someone like that in a city like Hull,” he says. “People who played there always remember him. A few years back I happened to meet Brandon Flowers from the Killers, we got talking and when he found out where I was from, the first thing he said was, ‘The Adelphi, tell me you’ve still got the Adelphi’.

“There was something very special about that place. It was all about the music and you don’t get that very often these days.”

By 1986, Heaton and Cullimore had left busking on the streets of Hull behind and were busy promoting their debut album as The Housemartins, London 0 Hull 4. It was first single Happy Hour which sparked the interest of the mainstream music press and attracted a fanbase from outside of Yorkshire.

While they were denied the Christmas no 1 when Caravan of Love was knocked off the top spot by Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite, by the end of the year the Housemartins were a constant on the radio playlists and Heaton and the rest of the band were continually being asked when they were going to leave Hull and move south.

“People talk about a north/south divide but I guess I only realised it existed was when we used to go down to London to do Top of the Pops. People just couldn’t get why we were still living in Hull. For me, and I think it was probably true of the rest of the band, it did become a bit of Yorkshire against the world.

“It has always annoyed me that Manchester has a certain credibility when it comes to music and places like Hull have historically been looked down upon. In the early days we had to go down to London to do interviews with Melody Maker, but after a while we were well-known enough to get the journalists to come to us. It was funny because they’d arrive, we’d take them on a bit of a tour, usually ending up at a pub, and the standard response was, ‘Hull’s not that bad is it?’ I’m never sure what they expected to find, but I like to think we did our bit for the profile of the city.”

Two years after that first album, the Housemartins split and Heaton formed The Beautiful South. Songs like You Keep it All In, Perfect 10, Old Red Eyes is Back and Don’t Marry Her led to massive commercial success, but despite selling an estimated 6.5m records Heaton’s life remained largely unchanged.

“Hull’s smartened itself up a bit now, but when I was living there parts of it were pretty depressing. Boothferry Park was falling down, the city centre was pretty miserable and it seemed that every other city had something going for it. Even Sheffield had ABC and Cabaret Voltaire.

“But despite that most of my time was spent struggling to get back from gigs in time to play football on weekend. I was in a pretty decent league which meant I got to see a lot of this part of Yorkshire, all these overlooked places that a lot of people just don’t even know are there.”

When the money did start to come – in 19 years the Beautiful South had 10 top 20 albums, plus half a dozen lucrative compilation albums – Heaton still drank in the same pubs, still went to the same clubs and still hung around with the same set of friends he’d always done.

“I guess the thing that first attracted me to Hull was that the people were just so laid back, much more so than other parts of Yorkshire. They were actually quite reserved. I remember once we got a new newsagent, who kept asking everyone how they were and trying to chat to anyone who came in the door. We told him he’d better stop or he’d go out of business.

“It’s not that people in Hull aren’t friendly, they are, but only when you’ve got to know them. Polite chit chat with strangers isn’t something they go in for much.”

Heaton left Hull a few years ago. He moved to Manchester to be closer to his eldest daughter, but when the father-of-three heard Hull was the only council in the country that hadn’t had a single application for a street party for last year’s royal wedding, he admits to feeling a sense of pride.

“Hull doesn’t go in for pomp and circumstance and I got a lot of texts from old friends that day saying, ‘Good ol’ Hull’. We tend to look down on things that strike us as wasteful; they are not people who appreciate those who flash their cash.

“I don’t think I was ever that kind of person, but it was good to live in a place like that when the band became famous. When a record company is telling you you’re great and there’s a bit of money about, there’s always a temptation to go a bit mad. I’m always asking old friends from there over to Manchester, but it’s hard to get them out of the place. To be honest, I don’t mind being the one who always visits, because a large part of me will always be from Hull.”

One man, 50 gigs and 2,500 miles by bike

Some mark their 50th birthday with an expensive holiday, others hold a lavish party – Paul Heaton is toasting his with a tour which requires him to cycle 2,500 miles.

It comes after last year’s Pedal and Pumps tour in which he biked 1,000 miles, stopping off to play a series of gigs in pubs, but he’s already begun to wonder whether it’s such a good idea.

“I wanted to cycle 50 miles a day for every year I’ve been around,” he says. “Last year we included some days off, but this time around there’s no such luxury, every day I’ll have to get up and be on the bike. Having booked a gig each night, I can’t say, ‘Sorry, but you know what, the legs are a bit tired, I’m staying here for another night’.

“The reason I did the first pub and cycle tour was to try to raise awareness of the importance of the local boozer. When I first moved to Hull I went to the pub most nights even if it was only for a half. It’s sad that so many have closed.”

For more information on the 50/50 tour which begins on May 15 and runs to June 23, visit www.paulheatonmusic.co.uk