Hull: Photographer recaptures city pub scenes 40 years on

Russell Boyce lived close to the pub in the early 1980s and returned in 2022 to contrast his old images with how it now looks

A photographer who frequented a pub nearly four decades ago and caught life there on camera has returned to recapture similar scenes 40 years on.

Russell Boyce took a series of photos in the Star & Garter pub on Hessle Road while he studied in Hull and says he became "part of the furniture".

He revisited his former haunt in 2022 to capture his former photos in the same position they were taken in 1983.

"It's like the figures were coming back to have another pint," he says.

The pub's name is now Rayners, as it was known informally when the original images were taken.

Russell Boyce says many of the drinkers in 1983 were "old, retired or unemployed fishermen, their wives or their widows"

The photographer was a student when he first visited the Hull pub and lived nearby

Mr Boyce first went in the pub, which was a popular meeting place for Hull's fishing community, when he was a student photographer learning the trade.

The lensman, who used to live just off Hessle Road, says: "I came here every single day, just shooting pictures, until eventually everyone just ignored me, I became a part of the furniture.

"That's when you can get in closer. You can walk around and get the pictures and they just ignore you."

Mr Boyce said the pub was a spot where deep-sea trawlermen, who worked for weeks at sea then came home for a couple of days, used to gather.

Rayners, which was officially the Star & Garter in the early 1980s, is situated where West Dock Avenue meets Hessle Road

By 1983, many of the drinkers were "old, retired or unemployed fishermen, their wives or their widows", he says.

The photographer, who went on to work for the Reuters agency for 20 years after honing his skills in Hull, says: "I thought it'd be nice to try to connect the pictures from the 1980s to now.

"What hasn't changed is the warmth of the people accepting what I'm doing and it's wonderful."

The pub, pictured here in both 1983 and 2022, is a short walk away from the Humber

The smell of cigarette smoke may have long gone, but Russell Boyce put this pair back in the corner of the pub where they once sat and chatted

Rachel Naylor, the pub's current landlady, says: "There's not a day where I don't learn anything about the pub.

"Another story, another piece of history. The things people have got to tell you are fantastic. "