Syd’s stuff: From Pink Floyd to trainspotting – the art of the collector
‘IT’S JUST STUFF I’VE DONE’: Syd Young at his Relics and Rails exhibition at Nordic House
By Phil Ascough
It’s not just the content of Relics and Rails that people should find inspirational. It’s the ideas behind it. Or, more to the point, the absence of any long-term plan or ambition on the part of Syd Young to be recognised as an artist capable of mounting an exhibition in his home city.
Syd put it perfectly in his press release announcing the display at Nordic House: “It’s basically a collection of things which in the past I’ve just seen it as my stuff. Even the paintings and a lot of the photography – it’s just stuff I have done, and never with the aim of putting myself out there or making anything of it.”
We’ve all got stuff, and this exhibition makes you look at it again. Exploring the first run of Relics and Rails at Goole Museum a couple of month ago I realised immediately that my stuff includes articles about some of the bands and gigs that feature in Syd’s stuff.
I’ve also got photographs of redundant pit head winding gear standing as a monument to the mining industry. A great fit with Syd’s over-arching theme of industrial heritage.
The links between some of the work in this free exhibition are obvious, less so with others but hear him out and it all falls into place.
HAUL: Some of Syd’s trainspotting mementoes
The location, Nordic House in the Danish Church at the corner of Ferensway and Osborne Street, is only a few yards from Paragon Station, which is 175 years old this year. A little further in the other direction is the site of Hull’s first railway station, which opened in 1840 in Manor House Street, next to the current ice arena.
The story of that station demonstrates the essential links between the railway and the docks. Fish was landed at the south-west corner of Humber Dock and loaded straight onto the trains along with catches brought to Hull by cart from Bridlington, Filey and Flamborough.
The launch of the rail service attracted trawlers from the south coast and triggered demand for fish nationwide as an article of cheap mass consumption. That in turn led to the creation years later of the boxing fleets of trawlers which spent weeks working in the North Sea. The last of those steam trawlers, the Viola, sailed from Humber Dock to fight with distinction in the First World War. She subsequently worked in whaling and sealing and since the 1960s has sat rusting on a beach in South Georgia.
It’s easy to see how the story could run and run, and that’s even before we get into Syd’s piece which commemorates the Triple Trawler Tragedy of 1968.
MUSIC HISTORY: Tickets from some of the gigs Syd went to
And then there’s the history of the Danish Church itself, built in 1871, bombed flat in 1941 and resurrected in its current form in 1954. It’s never housed an exhibition before but the advent of Nordic House as a centre for cultural, community and corporate events is unearthing new opportunities. Artefacts around the building include items rescued from the rubble of the original – the Danish Church too has a collection of stuff.
Syd’s stuff is even reflected in his name. He was born Richard Young, and became known as Syd because of his passion for Pink Floyd and their original frontman Syd Barrett.
Armed with a grade A ‘O’ level in art he’s demonstrated his talent over the years with paintings, photography and music and pulled all three together for Relics and Rails.
As for the content, rail came first, rooted in Syd’s tours around the country with fellow trainspotters.
HERITAGE: More trainspotting memorabilia
“When I was at school everyone was doing it,” he recalled.
The ultimate prize was to see a Deltic, the powerhouse locomotive which replaced steam on the east coast main line for about 20 years from the early 60s. Syd’s works in the exhibition capture them waiting in Hull, but to see them at their best you had to head elsewhere.
He said: “One of my first trips was to York when I was 11 or 12. I saw my first Deltic and I thought ‘what is this?’ I just totally got into it. Doncaster was the place to see them thundering through.”
Syd’s watercolour Night Fusilier, depicting a Deltic at Doncaster, was chosen as the People’s Choice Award winner of Goole Museum’s 2022 Open Art competition and prompted the invitation to stage an exhibition. The painting claimed a starring role in the exhibition and also features at Nordic House alongside such trainspotting trappings as cameras, notebooks, posters and images of other locomotives, stations and rail infrastructure from across the East Riding.
‘THE WHOLE THING’S A MACHINE’: Inside Skidby Mill
Waterside warehouses and decaying old timbers caught Syd’s eye as he walked and cycled along the footpaths at the edge of the Humber. A huge part of Hull’s heritage.
Skidby Mill was included because Syd worked there for four years. It’s a piece of working history and it had indelible personal memories.
Syd said: “Having worked at the mill I’d taken a lot of photographs of the building and the inner workings as well. The whole thing is a machine and everything in there is 200 years old.”
Cottingham born, and a resident of the village for many years as a child, Syd also found the mill to be a homecoming landmark after trips away, long before the Humber Bridge took up that role.
WORK OF ART: One of Paul Jackson’s handwritten Adelphi leaflets
The music element ties in because trainspotting trips weren’t just about logging locomotive numbers.
“We would also visit record shops around the country,” he said.
“Just as in those days nobody coming to Hull would go home without nipping into Sydney Scarborough’s.”
In the same way that the rail exhibits bring back the roar of the Deltics and pictures of the derelict docks will make you swear you just heard the blast of a ship’s horn, so the collection of pictures, tickets and the iconic listings sheets from the Adelphi Club sets you stretching back 30 years or more to recall the gigs you went to. Or you think you did!
POIGNANT: Syd with his picture commemorating the Triple Trawler Tragedy of 1968
Painstakingly penned by Adelphi founder Paul Jackson, the flyers take their place alongside tickets for shows by such rock giants as Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, The Stone Roses and Oasis.
If we had a full set of Adelphi flyers you’d find the last two of those bands in there as well. The club, a short walk from Syd’s current home in Goddard Avenue, was a launch pad for their glittering careers and for others, and if that’s not an essential part of the heritage of the global music industry then I don’t know what is. It’s a source of frustration and fun that Jacko never put the year of publication on his flyers. Is that Cast gig the one from 1992 or might it have been 1991?
Look closely too at those big gig tickets, ranging from the scrawl on the back of what looks like a cloakroom stub for Billy Bragg at the Captain’s Cabin in London in 1984 to the typically fancy designs on the tickets for three consecutive nights of Pink Floyd at Earls Court ten years later.
In an age where more often than not admission to a gig is by flashing the black and white blotches of a QR code, the actual tickets have become works of art and, as demonstrated by Syd, exhibition pieces. Oh, and look at the price of £25 for a Pink Floyd ticket – you won’t get one for the current tour by Roger Waters for under £100.
Credit to Dr Alex Ombler, Curator at Goole Museum, for recognising that Syd’s stuff had the makings of a compelling collection about industrial heritage and to David Burnby, a mate of Syd’s and the drummer in Loudhailer Electric Company, for tipping off the people at Nordic House.
Relics and Rails is unveiling the potential of an exciting new venue capable of presenting music, theatre, poetry, whatever.
INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE: Some of Syd’s dock photographs
Charlotte Theill, manager at Nordic House, said: “A lot of people have been coming in and saying how amazing it is to see the place transformed into an art gallery. We have had some people in who worked for rail companies. One had 50 years’ service and another 54 years. They were all trainspotters. I’ve really enjoyed the feedback and we have more ideas for future events.”
Syd is already thinking about what might be next. He’s got more stuff. Everybody has. Maybe we should call out to the people of Hull and see if we can create a Museum of Stuff? Anybody fancy curating that?
Syd said: “I have about 73,000 photographs, digital or slides, so I can do more with them. More paintings are unlikely because that’s a big effort and takes you down the road of having to create more.
“I like the idea of putting it all together to view it but I don’t think I would want to produce new paintings. It ties in with the idea of everything just being my stuff. It’s never been done for anybody else or anything else but it’s given me immense pleasure over the years.
“From the monetary perspective none of this is worth anything because there’s tons of it out there but right from the start we have made this a very personal thing. I feel as though I have opened up through this exhibition.
“Some of this stuff is very personal. It’s about me and how I was back in the day and how I am now. But isn’t that what an artist does? Express part of themselves?”
Relics and Rails is at Nordic House in the Danish Church at the corner of Ferensway and Osborne Street in Hull. Admission is free and opening hours are 10am until 2pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until Saturday, July 15. Syd will be giving an artist’s talk from 11.10am until 12.30pm on Saturday, June 10.
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