When Billy Bluelight died in 1949 he was already a legendary figure in Norwich, more well-known and loved than many public figures and famous for his races against the steam pleasure boats along the Yare and for selling flowers and cough sweets on Gentleman's Walk.
Memories were revived in the letters pages of the local press and contributions came in from around the country to an appeal fund set up to erect a bench in his memory, close to the spot, opposite the station, where he started many of his races against the Jenny Lind and other passenger boats. The inauguration of the bench was described as 'a recognition of the common man by the common people' and Billy was remembered "not for his intellect but for his kindness and strength of character."
Little is known of Billy's early life and over the years his story has been much romanticised. Looking back it is sometimes difficult to separate the myth from the man, the eccentric showman from the economic circumstances which dictated the need to earn living in a time before the welfare state. The inscription, now worn and weathered, on the Riverside Rd. bench, reads: "In memory of Billy Bluelight (William Cullum) 1859-1949".
It has long been believed that Billy was born in 1859 but Norwich Register Office has no record of a William Cullum born in that year. There is a record of a William Cullum born in 1863 but these were days when not all births were recorded so a mystery remains.
Born amid the slums and overcrowded yards of Victorian Norwich he never attended school but taught himself to read newspapers and books and always reckoned that his reading enabled him to talk to anyone about any subject. Words were important to him and he is remembered for his rhymes and sales talk as well as for the fact that he sometimes used long words out of context. For a brief period he worked in the dispatch bay of Caley's (now, but not for much longer, Nestles) factory where he performed recitations when the foreman was not about and reportedly did his work "at a trot."
By l907, when an article about him appeared in the Carrow Works Magazine, he was already well-known for his racing and street selling activities. It is here that a reference is made to the "blue light" of Billy's eloquence, but other theories about his knickname include the suggestion that he had a blue nose in winter or that he sold blue-tipped matches. It has also been suggested that because bluelight was a Victorian term for a teetotaller or Temperance worker, Billy spoke out against the dangers of drink. But although he is known to have neither smoked nor drunk, there is no evidence to prove that this was the case.
Small and wiry and dressed in running gear of long white shorts, snake belt, cricket cap and plimsolls, and with medals on his chest, he would issue his challenge to passengers aboard the pleasure boats which plied their trade along the Wensum and the Yare. Then he would set off, walking or running, or probably a mixture of both, and be there waiting to meet the boats at their next landing stage and receive the acclamation and the pennies of his admirers. He is widely believed to have raced boats like the Jenny Lind, Waterfly and Yarmouth Belle between Norwich and Yarmouth but much controversy has surrounded this question. There is evidence to suggest that many races ended and began at Coldham Hall with stops at Bramerton and Surlingham on the way. This is not to say that he didn't, on occasion, tackle the full distance and there is a story that he once refused an offer of the train fare back from Yarmouth, despite pouring rain, because he did not want to disappoint his public on the way home. On the return journeys to Norwich he would regale day trippers with his usual rhyme, "My name is Billy Bluelight, my age is 45, I hope to get to Carrow Bridge before the boat arrive." He is said to have remained '45' for many years.
Billy's boat racing usually took place on Sundays, in the heyday of the passenger boat era before the First World War. During the week he made his living selling wild flowers or heather from his pitch on the Walk near the Royal Arcade, with cries of "Nature's natural flowers - penny a bunch". He seems to have sold whatever he could find, in season, in the countryside around Norwich. In the winter months he sold Leach's cough lozenges," good for coughs, colds and boys' chests", kitted out in a military style uniform or frock coat, covered in medals and with a peaked cap or bowler on his head. Some of the medals were presented by admirers for his running feats but many more were sewn on by the factory girls at Carrow where Billy sold his a wares at lunchtime. He also sold the cough lozenges from door to door with the slogan, well known to youngsters, "Patronised by Norwich City footballers, as oil is to the machine, so is this wonderful cough lozenge to the lungs", and reckoned that they helped him run.
Billy never married and lived with his mother, to whom he was devoted, until her death. They are known to have lived in the Oak Street area, in Grapes' Yard, off Colegate, and in rooms in Pykerell House, the 15th century thatched building in St. Mary's Plain during the twenties. There are also claims that Billy lived in Hall Rd., near to the public house which was renamed the Billy Bluelight in November 1995.
It has been said that Billy never got over the death of his mother, probably around 1930, and there are reports that he entered Woodlands, at the West Norwich Hospital, in 1933. But in the early l940's he was said to be living in a council flat in Palmer Road on one of the estates created between the two World Wars to replace the over-crowded city centre slums. Locals remember him selling firewood and blackberries and there are reports that he sold papers in the city during the war. Some remember him using a walking stick, others a bicycle .Now in his eighties he no longer relied solely on the legs which had carried himn so far in the past. Housing office records do not provide any information on Billy's tenancy at Palmer Rd., although the Debit Dept. was able to report that a William Cullum left there in 1945 to enter West Norwich hospital. He was later moved to St. James' Hospital, Shipmeadow, in Suffolk, where he died in 1949.
Sometimes he was referred to as a simple man but he was "not as soft as he was made out to be" according to one man who knew him. Some said he was quite crafty and sometimes boosted his flowers with the addition of two-pennyworth of perfumed oil from a nearby chemists. Ever cheerful, tidy and polite, with a word for everyone, he lit up the lives of all who knew him, according to another. Five years after his death the writer R.L.Potter summed him up, "That over-worked term 'nature's gentlman" was never better exemplified than in the gentle, unpretentious character called Billy Bluelight. It may seem astonishing that a humble little man could imprint his personality so widely on a large city, but it was so."
Tom Carver