Charlie Hoult, Hoult's Yard, Newcastle

Aug 16 2010 by Chris Knox, The Journal

CHARLIE Hoult would be the first to admit his career in PR hit the buffers in 2008 as the recession began to bite. However he has returned from London to take the lead at family business Hoult’s Yard in Newcastle, which he aims to transform into a centre for creative businesses. Christopher Knox caught up with him.

HOULTS Yard has started to attract some of the region’s more creative individuals. Whether it is hosting a dance music festival at its warehouses or inviting a street art collective to adorn the walls of the 250,000sq site, it is certainly one of the region’s trendiest business centres.

Although you get the sense that this creative atmosphere seems spontaneous and organic, it’s fair to say that it has had a little bit of encouragement from its landlord, Charlie Hoult, whose energy and broad outlook typifies the culture.

After taking up the mantle from his father, Fred Hoult, he has sought to transform the place from its roots as a pottery, making jam jars for the likes of Robertson’s during the late 18th Century and early 19th Century, to the much more zeitgeisty “cluster of creative and digital businesses.”

Born in Gosforth, the 42-year-old has led a varied career which has seen him work as a gossip columnist as well as a dance club promoter.

His very first job as a fruit seller at the age of 10 was a sign he would always try to go his own way and has an ability to get other people to do his will.

He says: “My family used to holiday on Holy Island every year, where my sisters, cousins and I would run riot on the beaches there.

“Also, every year I would take the opportunity to set up my own stall selling strawberries and raspberries which I would send my cousins out to collect from the nearby fields and bushes.”

With a interest in journalism, Charlie got involved with student magazines while studying at Oundle public school in Northamptonshire and at Manchester University.

He would go on to help fund the Manchester University Student Editorial (MUSE) by hosting club nights at its union before setting up a night at Covent Garden in London called ‘Pump Ya Rump’, which was singled out as the worst named nightclub in the city by Time Out in 1992.

He says: “I thought it was a great name for a club and it certainly got us noticed.”

His determination to break into the newspaper industry saw him pick up an internship for a year in 1990 with New York magazine PAPER while on his holidays.

“PAPER is a trendy magazine like The Face or i-D and I just pestered them with phone calls and told them about my work for the student magazines and they allowed me to work there for a year, which at the age of 20 was a fantastic experience,” he says.

“During my time there I went to Deee-Lite’s first ever gig, with the band having a massive hit with Groove Is In The Heart at the time. I was also working with the girlfriend of Chuck D from Public Enemy at the magazine and even managed to end up on a catwalk with Cyndi Lauper, which was an experience.

“I guess I’ve always enjoyed getting involved with interesting people and doing interesting stuff.”

He returned to the UK the following year to study for a post graduate course in journalism at Cardiff University, during which he managed to land a deal with a publisher to write a book, Living Green, which is based around sustainable living and saw him cycle around Britain to profile those involved in the green movement.

He said: “I have always been interested in green causes and it was at a time when issues surrounding sustainable living were coming to the fore, so it was great to be able to go and meet these interesting people so see how they were putting all these theories into practice.

“The idea was strong enough that I was able to land an advance from a publisher and led to me meeting a host of colourful characters such as green gurus and the occasional hippy.”

Following his two-wheeled escapades Charlie landed himself a job contributing to the Londoner’s Diary gossip column on the Evening Standard, which saw him keep tabs on MPs and report on tittle tattle floating around Westminster.

“It was very hard work,” he insists. “I’m not really a gossip by nature but I just think that the newspaper thought that, as a public schoolboy, I would be able to hob-nob with the Tory boys.

“It’s fair to say that I didn’t prove them right and found getting stories on the more interesting MPs really tough. It’s just like today, there are thousands of celebrities, but only a handful that the papers want to know about.

“However, I was around when Margaret Thatcher retired and had to run around Parliament Square grabbing interviews with as many MPs as I could, although I must say that most were tight-lipped.”