He has to make people from Hull proud of their city, because then businesses will come and invest there, and the middle-classes will move into the old buildings along the river in the centre, and after them will come the caf?and bars and boutique hotels, and then tourists will discover that Hull is worth a stopover, along with York and Leeds. Cities such as Liverpool and Canterbury are bidding to be the 2008 European City of Culture. Glasgow did it, and Salford has just relaunched itself with the Lowry and the War Museum. So, can Hull? According to Mr Till, it has to be somewhere that executives’ partners want to live, as he explained the “trailing spouse” syndrome That means places to eat, shop and be entertained. Where do you begin? Hull has no buffer zone of middle-class suburbia: it’s a place where industry extends right into the centre.They’ve got off to a good start with The Deep, a marine life centre, shaped like a shark’s fin, designed by Terry Farrell, jutting out over the Humber in uncompromising style.

The Deep is fabulously successful, achieving its year one visitor targets after only four months. As I arrived, a hundred anxious pensioners thronged the foyer. A lady liked the plaster mermaids in the shop so much she’d just bought four for her relatives. My journey to the bottom of the ocean meant manoeuvering around hundreds of happy punters.

In the giant central fish tank a large cod had been brought from a fish farm in Scotland as the local supplies had been exterminated years ago. No complaints about fish in captivity, although one woman thought the jellyfish looked very miserable. The Deep is well worth a couple of hours, but what then? In the old city centre by the river the William Wilberforce museum is unforgettable, with cases of shackles and branding irons and an upsetting reconstruction of life below deck on board a slave ship.The port frontage runs for nearly seven miles with two of the largest ferries in the world making daily trips to Rotterdam. At the other end of town a stunning sports stadium is nearing completion. Next to it are houses people can’t even give away – that’s the dilemma of Hull. A huge shopping complex designed by Lord Foster is to be built next, including a theatre for the Hull Truck Company, founded by award-winning writer and director John Godber.

We talked in a working men’s club where he was shooting a new drama, Thunder Road, to be shown in 30 daily three-minute episodes on the city’s interactive television channel in November. John Godber admitted to owning a caravan, so it seemed a natural progression to the Cosalt factory, where the subtle differences between a tourer, a motorised caravan, a caravan holiday home, and a residential park home were explained to me. Confusing isn’t it?The Humber bridge is sensational, but it only takes you to grim Lincoln or ghastly Grimsby, where I ate the worst fish and chips for a long while. Heading north, the next stop was the Baltic in Gateshead – a jaw-dropping conversion of a flour mill into an art gallery. But the Baltic wouldn’t work without the lifeline of the superb bridge over the Tyne outside, and top-quality restaurants and bars.