From Preston Road to Beijing: Former Hull pupil continues Lord Prescott’s legacy

‘SUDDENLY I WAS SPEAKING MANDARIN’: Ex-Archbishop Sentamu Academy student Lewis Anderson

Now & Then, a column by Angus Young

Nearly 20 years after John Prescott’s groundbreaking trip to China, a former Archbishop Sentamu Academy pupil is following in his footsteps by forging links between Hull and Beijing

In 2006 John Prescott visited China in his role as Deputy Prime Minister.

The trip aimed to build bridges between the two countries and was judged a success, despite one famous moment at the end of a lavish reception banquet.

When the hosts asked their VIP guest what he thought of the food, he replied it was good but not as good as  Mr Chu’s – his favourite Chinese restaurant back in Hull.

Legend has it the quip nearly caused a diplomatic incident, but his long-standing relationship with China not only survived but continued to flourish long afterwards.

During the visit he was welcomed by Maria Wang, a leading education official in the Beijing district of Fengtai. Within a few months, they were both back in Hull at a ceremony establishing a formal civic twinning between the city and Fengtai.

It’s been something of a one-way street since then with regular visits from Chinese delegations led by Mrs Wang but no-one going in the opposite direction – except for one man who was still at primary school in Hull when the twinning arrangement began.

Today, Lewis Anderson affectionately refers to Mrs Wang as his “Chinese Mum” while he works alongside her in the Fengtai municipal government.

His remarkable journey from Preston Road to the Beijing district – often referred to as “Canary Wharf on steroids” with a population of just over two million people – has echoes of the late Lord Prescott’s own rise from grassroots politics to the office of Deputy Prime Minister.

However, Lewis says he’s not particularly political and at only 28 years-old, his story is only just getting into gear.

It started when he moved from primary school to the brand new Archbishop Sentamu Academy in the heart of East Hull two years after the start of the Hull-Fengtai civic twinning. As the city’s first academy secondary it was breaking new ground in many ways including, being the first state school in Hull to teach Mandarin as well as organising exchange trips for pupils to Beijing.

As part of the academy’s first intake, Lewis was also among the first pupils to tackle this strange new language.

“I started learning it in Year 8 after we did it as a trial,” he recalls. “I don’t really know why but it just clicked with me straight away. After just one class I could do basic interactions. It just came naturally for me. I was just a kid from East Hull but suddenly I was able to speak Mandarin, It was a bit crazy.”

Under the wing of teacher Liqin Dai, Lewis went on to secure GCSE and A-level qualifications in Mandarin before going to Goldsmiths, University of London where he achieved a BA Honours degree in international studies and Chinese.

As part of his degree course he took part in an exchange programme, studying at Capital Normal University in Beijing.

CIVIC TIES:  Chinese artists during a visit to Hull in 2019. Picture credit: Hull City Council

“That was the moment I knew my future was going to be in China,” he said. “I had been there before on a couple of school trips but this was like seeing a whole new world. The transformation between 2009 when I first went there to 2017 when I joined the university programme was shocking but in a positive way. The progression through new development was incredible.

“I had been very fortunate because when I was at Sentamu and I moved into the sixth-form I was the only one doing Mandarin as an A-level. It meant I got one-on-one tuition which probably wouldn’t happen now because it’s become an established language subject now but back then it was still all very new.”

After graduating, Lewis found himself co-ordinating the Chinese end of twinning relationship along with Maria Wang, Fengtai’s director of education, as he prepared to launch his own business in Fengtai offering a one-stop shop service for Chinese students looking to study at a UK university.

Despite the subsequent upheavals created by the Covid pandemic, both his company and his work to encourage Chinese interest in Hull have flourished with regular visits by Chinese school pupils and their teachers through new links with two more schools – Kingswood Academy and Tranby School in Anlaby.

Now also appointed as Fengtai’s cultural and international relations officer, he’s in the unique position of being able to continue Lord Prescott’s legacy having recently played a key role in the latest visit to his home city by a delegation from his adopted district.

The visit was aimed at not only reinvigorating the civic twinning partnership but also developing new plans to forge deeper business and investment links between the two. There’s optimistic talk of a reciprocal visit finally taking place later this year and a new dedicated annual Chinese cultural festival being staged in Hull along with an expansion of the existing Confucius Institute at the University of Hull.

“It was designed to be a bit of a refresh because we were getting new interest from people in Hull’s business community and I was keen to tap into that,” he said. “Until now it’s largely been seen as a civic thing here.

FORGING DEEPER LINKS: Guests at the recent Hull-Fengtai event at The Deep

“It was also a chance to get the new Mayor Luke Campbell involved and, to his credit, he has been great. We had a meeting with him and he was so open and positive. He really got it and wants to get involved. He spoke at an event we held at The Deep, presented a commemorative gift to my Chinese Mum and they loved him.”

The continuing educational links with Hull are an obvious cornerstone of this developing relationship. However, Lewis believes Fengtai investment in infrastructure projects in Hull could eventually happen given the right circumstances.

It would be a radical step but he insists there is genuine interest in the idea back in China. To underline the point, the visit to Hull received extensive coverage in China Daily, one of the country’s biggest news platforms.

After Lord Prescott’s death last year, international economist Michael Taylor noted that none of the obituaries written about the former Hull East MP had mentioned he was also, for many years, “Britain’s key man in China”.

“Yes, he kept it quiet, but he was a very regular visitor to the People’s Republic of China, partly in a diplomatic capacity as a rapporteur on China for the Council of Europe, but also partly too as a regular, welcome and back-channel for Britain,” said Taylor.

“Britain’s usual diplomatic representation to China has been essentially British mandarin talking to Chinese mandarin, in Mandarin. But with Prescott the contact was very different: an old-fashioned trade unionist talking, well, shop. On that level, Prescott had probably the best relationship with China of any British politician.”

As our interview outside Humber Street Gallery draws to a close, Lewis laughs off the suggestion he’s our new man in Beijing.

“What John Prescott did was fantastic and forward-thinking. I’m just proud to be from Hull and to be in a position where I can continue the work he started.”