Brought to book: Frank with his picture of Buffalo Bill.

When wild Bill roamed the UK

Pony Express rider, buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, army scout and international showman - 'Buffalo' Bill Cody was that rare thing: a legend in his own lifetime. One of the main reasons for his fame was his Wild West Show. A big draw wherever it went, it made two visits to Hull, in 1888 and 1904.

In the second visit, 100 years ago last month, over 20,000 attended four shows at the Walton Street fairground to see this cast of hundreds recreate scenes from the Wild West. The entourage consisted of some 800 performers and animal handlers, 400 horses and some of Buffalo Bill's erstwhile enemies, including the Native American chief, Sitting Bull. Then there was Buffalo Bill himself. A larger than life character in every sense - he stood over six foot tall and had a long mane of blond hair - his exploits were already famous, thanks to the 'dime novels' of Ned Buntline.

The Hull visits have inspired Brough-based writer, Frank Beill, to pen his own version of the Buffalo Bill myth. Off To See The Wild West Show tells the story of an orphan, Sammy, who becomes convinced that one of Buffalo Bill's Native American performers is his father. He runs off with the show, returning to his hometown in 1904 to find out what has become of his sister and friends from the orphanage. "It must have been so unusual for something like this to happen in Hull, which at the time would have been a very grey place," said Frank. "I wondered how the spectacle of all this colour would have affected local people." Frank spent a year researching and writing the novel, which combines historical details gleaned from contemporary press reports with imagined events. "The Wild West Show toured from 1883 until Buffalo Bill's death in 1917," said Frank. "He virtually created the myth of the Wild West single-handedly and his show was the precursor to the Western movie." It featured re-enactments of real historical events, including Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn and the ambush of the Deadwood Stagecoach, later immortalised in the musical Calamity Jane.

A scene of life in a Sioux camp would culminate in a cowboy being 'scalped' and Buffalo Bill would perform trick shots with a rifle, shooting glass bottles thrown into the air. Despite the popular success of the Wild West Show, the combination of an extravagant lifestyle and some ill-advised investments meant that Buffalo Bill died penniless.

Now Frank Beill is trying to find a publisher for his novel to bring this little-known episode in Hull's history to a wider audience. "The amazing thing was he had really done all these things," said Frank. "He had ridden with the pony express and hunted buffalo to feed the workers building the American railroad. "He was feted by kings and queens but he also performed to thousands of ordinary people all over Europe and America, including in Hull."