Elaine Garland has spent a heady 12 months as Lord Mayor of Hull. Ian Midgely went to meet her at the city's Guildhall in the final days of her role to discover just what it has been like to hold Hull's highest civic office . . .

Elaine hard at work at the Guildhalll

Walking up the Guildhall steps held special significance for Elaine Garland on her first day as Hull’s Lord Mayor. The moment marked the culmination of an incredible journey for Elaine, from the streets of Hull’s Orchard Park estate to the city’s highest office.

It’s been a journey that’s witnessed years working as a secretary to a shipping agent, time spent as a beauty consultant and a long career spent caring for the elderly as a residential home manager before seeking political office as a Liberal Democrat councillor for the ward where she has lived for the past 20 years.

But it was those final few steps, the steps that Elaine’s hard-working mother, Florence, used to scrub, that meant the most to the new Lord Mayor.

Growing up for most of her childhood in a single parent family after her father, Harold, a printing compositor, died of bronchitis when she was just six, Elaine excelled at school – especially in sport. A promising runner, she dreamed of competing at the Olympics – but the cold realities of having to earn a living meant she would leave school, aged 15, to work for a Beverley Road shipping company.

“My mother was a wonderful woman,” says Elaine, whose year as Lord Mayor has been marked by some incredible highs for Hull.

“She used to hold down four jobs just to make ends meet and put a roof over our heads. She was a real worker. She had a hard life but she never complained – she just got on with the job and had a smile for everyone.

“I think she’s always been a huge inspiration for me and that must be where I’ve got my work ethic from. She always said if you work hard you’ll get your just rewards and that stuck with me. She gave me the opportunities in life that she never had and I’ll be eternally grateful for that.”

Sitting in the opulent, oak-panelled surroundings of the Lord Mayor’s private Guildhall rooms, possibly in the same chair where the Queen took a breather with a glass of Dubonnet and lemonade during her official visit to the city earlier this year, Hull’s own first lady, thinks her mum would have approved.

“One of my biggest regrets is that she didn’t live to see any of this,” she says, with no small amount of emotion wavering in her voice.

“I think she would have been very proud. I can remember vividly, when I was about nine or 10, mum saying to me: ‘I’ve cleaned the Guildhall steps, but one day you’ll walk in there as someone of substance’. I never knew what she meant at the time – she wasn’t the sort of person to make predictions – but it’s strange to think what’s happened since.”

What has happened in the past 12 months has been an incredible rollercoaster ride for Elaine – starting with a baptism of fire for the newly-inaugurated Lord Mayor. Her term of office started on Thursday, 22nd May, 2008, and three days later she found herself at Wembley, clutching her mayoral chain and watching Hull City clinch a nail-biting promotion to the Premier League.

Her first official speech came several days later in the heaving cauldron of Hull’s Queen Victoria Square in front of thousands of euphoric, celebrating fans.

Elaine in full Mayoral robes

It was a heart-stopping moment, admits Elaine, but a memory she will cherish for the rest of her life. Before she took to the stage to publicly congratulate the Tigers for their momentous achievement, Elaine’s daughter, Emma, who served as her Lady Mayoress during her year of office, leaned over and whispered: “Are you nervous mum?”

“I was incredibly nervous,” she admits. “But I thought, if those players could go out and do that for the city and really put us on the map, then I could go up on stage and tell them how we all felt about it.”

If the Tigers set the buoyant tone for the year ahead, it was long overdue, says Elaine, and just the tonic the city needed after the floods and turmoil of 2007.

“We get a lot of negative, often uncalled for, publicity here in Hull,” she says. “But I’m really proud of this city and its people. They’re the sort of people who’d give you their last penny if you needed it and it was about time we had something wonderful like the football team to celebrate. It’s really lifted the city and got people talking about us for all the right reasons.”

It was a sporting event of an altogether more watery nature that would return Hull to the international stage barely a month later, when the Hull and Humber Clipper raced to a sterling silver finish in the Round The World Yacht Race.

And, as Admiral of the Humber as well as Lord Mayor, the race would barely give 57-year-old Elaine time to catch her breath following the excitement of the football, before taking her to New York to visit the crew and represent her home city Stateside.

“That was an incredible experience,” she says dashing to the window where a framed photograph sits showing her standing proudly alongside clipper captain Danny Watson and his crew in North Cove, New York.

“I had to keep pinching myself. I kept thinking, ‘I’m Lord Mayor of Hull and I’m in New York, sailing down the Hudson River, drinking pink champagne on a Hull clipper, which is second in a round the world race’. I mean, in what other time in history has Hull’s Mayor ever had the privilege to experience two such historic events in such a close space of time?

“And then Danny asked me if I would like to take the wheel. It’s a good job I didn’t have time to think about it because it was mind-blowing. I just got on with it. We sailed past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and I just kept thinking how lucky I was. Then he asked me to veer right saying, ‘it’s just like driving a car’. That’s when I told him I don’t drive and he took over pretty sharply.”

Elaine meeting the Queen at Paragon Interchange

Although major events such as the Queen’s visit and clipper race are the ones that hog the headlines, mum-of-two Elaine says her year has been packed with a vast number of memorable occasions in the city. She’s particularly proud of the money raised for her two chosen charities – Marie Curie Cancer Care and Hull Rape Crisis – and says she’s loved meeting people from every walk of life through her duties as Lord Mayor.

“People think that being Lord Mayor is about just turning up, opening a few fetes and cutting a few ribbons. Well, it is, but that’s all before 9am on Monday morning and you’ve got a packed diary that lasts all week. I can do anything up to eight or nine engagements in one day and then there’s your other political duties. I chair the full council meetings – and the last one we had lasted seven-and-a-half hours.

“But that’s all part of the thrill of the job. I’m a people person, like my mother was, and I love getting out and talking to different people. But you have to be committed to it, it has to be your life.”

Relaxing in her private chambers before her term of office came to an end last month, it is obvious that Lord Mayor Garland will miss the ceremony and duties of being Hull’s first citizen.

Always immaculately turned-out, she even loved the ornate gold-embroidered robes that come with the job.

But you suspect that this isn’t the last the people of Hull have heard of her. She’s already been asked to put her redoubtable energy to good use serving with various voluntary organisations in Hull.

“I still feel like I’m running the race,” smiles Elaine. “Just like when I was a schoolgirl. I’m far from finished. I haven’t finished doing all the things I want to do for this city. One day I’ll reach the finish line – but that won’t be for a long time yet.”

Elaine Garland’s successor as Lord Mayor of Hull is likely to be the current Deputy Lord Mayor, Karen Woods, who represents Boothferry ward for the Liberal Democrats. Her appointment was due to be ratified by a full meeting of the city council as this issue of the magazine went to press.