Blackpool Gondola

A postcard picked up from the antiques and collectors' fair at the Winter Gardens the other week. This shows the special illuminated tramcar shaped like a gondola (well it is if you've never been to Venice) that dates back to around 1949 when the Illuminations started again following World War II. The tram was rebuilt from bits of much older tramcars and remained in service along with a lifeboat shaped tram and a couple of standard tramcars with light displays on the exterior to the end of the 1950s by which time the wiring was in such a state that passengers were apt to light up themselves if it rained whilst they were riding on it...

The postcard started life as a black and white photograph with just about everything apart from the riders and the sea in the background having been lovingly obscured in paint with all the finesse of a decorator with a blob of Dulux on a 2-inch brush! A few of the passengers have been painted over and one black and white woman in the centre of the photo has a blue coat to make it look like the tram driver and conductors have black coats that were other than an accident whilst painting out the background, which was presumably daylight! The postcard was published in Blackpool by the Saidman Brothers and indeed the front boasts "Photo by Saidman Bros". Presumably one took the photo whilst the other(s) wielded the paint brushes...!

Update: Well would you believe it! Obviously all those people visited again whilst wearing different colours...