Blue. Gone. Forgotten?

One of the most beautiful experiences of my ....you may soon decide.....sad little life was a visit to the Holliday Pigments factory of Stoneferry Road maybe five years ago. This place produced what many older people will remember as ‘Reckitt’s Blue’, the stuff that started the trend of making your white’s look whiter by making them blue (it’s something about light).
The factory shut last year and is in the process of being demolished from the inside. The first thing the demolition men smashed up were the kilns. Why? Because these were 120 years old and the heart of production. They were probably list-able but the civic society types are into external chintz not our industrial history that gave meaning and purpose to working people’s lives. So, Hull’s oldest manufacturing facility has gone. In case you didn’t know it, it had that rather more modern chimney, the tallest in Hull.
I told the architect who designed the ‘arc’ building, that triangular thing with the multi-mini turbines, that if he wanted Hull motif in colour he should see the factory. Well, he sent his assistant. And the arc is part blue.
Lapis lazuli was more valuable than gold, that’s why there is more of it on Tutankhamen’s death mask than gold. Some clever chemist worked out how to speed up nature’s manufacturing process and ‘ultramarine’ went into production. Hull’s factory was, on closure, the producer of the best quality, that’s THE BEST quality ultramarine in the world. It had order books worth £5million. But there pressure from the east and the French factory was bigger and remains in production; costs were higher here.
Ultramarine is the only blue pigment safe for making clear plastic have that healthy, fresh looking blue tinge. It’s completely inert. And it’s what made your super-black dashboard in your swanky car look that black (blue does that too!). This was a top quality product going into top quality merchandise made in Hull’s oldest factory. It was a truly wonderful place. Blue, everywhere; blue, covering everything. I guess before ‘health and safety’ it covered people’s lungs too.
They put simple natural grey ingredients together and made bricks out of them. They stuck them in a kiln, jacked it up to 800C and then let it cool for three weeks. And out came these grey blue bricks. And then you break it open and inside is this fantastic ‘ultramarine’ colour.
So vibrant and so beautiful. Of course there was lots of processing and refining to do. But at heart, it was just natural ingredients, made hot and making something lovely.
And now it’s all gone. Not a word about it’s passing as St. Stephen’s opened and some proper jobs are replaced by cheap ones. Hull wasn’t just fishing and docks; but it can feel like it’s become only retail. But I didn’t want to bemoan the present, but just to say, something beautiful has gone. Drive down stubby little Morley Street and you can still see the blue, for a while longer.