Blackpool in the Mid 1970s

More photos from 1975 have been going through the scanner. In fact there's quite a few photos been going up to my Flickr account (no longer active) where you can have a look at them in large versions.

We'll start off with this one of a "Boat" tram of 1934 on the Promenade. Blackpool is due to get some new trams next year. The artists' impressions I've seen fill me with dismay. Blackpool was the first town to have electric trams running down it's streets in 1885 and the only town in England to have continuous tram operation since the heyday of trams. It must require Herculean effort to keep a fleet of public service vehicles running after 70+ years of service, but if they required replacing surely you would want the replacements to still look like the distinctive originals? Instead Blackpool is set to order sleek, multi-carriage "anywhere" trams. I despair. The London Docklands Light Railway will be more exciting.

The Boats had replaced earlier open decked trams called Toastracks - because they had minimal body work and the rows of seats on a moving platform looked like a moving toast rack... "Toastrack" was the original official name for these, but the elegant prow suggested a boat and "Boats" they became.

Mr B's on the Golden Mile was almost the first purpose-built amusement arcade as opposed to canopies or glorified sheds built onto the front of what had once been hotels or houses. It was modern, it was two-storied, it contained rides such as waltzers and dodgems as well as slot machines and pinball. And at the time this photograph was taken part of the upper floor had been given over to a display of puppets and vehicles from Gerry Anderson TV programmes. From Supercar to Thunderbirds and beyond to live action programmes such as UFO and Space 1999 this was a fabulous attraction. I can't remember how many times I went in to look at Lady Penelope, Mike Mercury, Steve Zodiac, Troy Tempest etc. But it was a lot!

There was one earlier purpose-built edifice on the corner opposite the Central Pier that was partly demolished to make it possible to widen Chapel Street. This led to the loss of Fairyland, a children's dark ride full of elves and fairies that I remember from my own childhood. Another part of the building housed a cinema that showed a continually repeated hour's programme of cartoons. If we were on holiday as kids in Blackpool we always wished for one day of rain so we could watch the cartoons in the morning and go in the Tower in the afternoon!

And of course we used to throng on the beach, struggling to find a tiny spot of sand where we could set up Mum and Dad's deck chairs hired from a great pile on the Promenade. Canvas or raffia windbreak was added if it was windy. Buckets and spades and a ball and that was us set for hours. We built sand pies, sand castles, great mounds containing chutes, tunnels and dips that we could roll the ball down. Kids on beaches these days? Pah! They wouldn't have a clue what to do. "But it doesn't plug in!" they would wail... And the ice cream vans of the day kept their wares frozen with nothing more than insulation and huge chunks of ice that rapidly turned to water. Ice cream was frozen so much at the start of the day that a gob full of crunchy ice cream was often what you got! Oh, the nostalgia!

And the railings along the edge of the Promenade would groan under the weight of pensioners, looking out to sea as though sighting a whale were a regular occurrence. Overheard conversations would be along the lines of "Eeh, she might just as well have not got anything on at all! Look at that bit of string she calls a cossie, Elsie! Bert! Bert! You takes your eyes off her!"

The massive waste bins were necessary to contain all the rubbish generated by the tens of thousands of people on the beach and Promenade on a sunny day. Even then, piles of waste would surround them once they became full. Wasps would come on their own holidays just to hover around them! Happy days... I wonder what the next few negatives will bring?

Return to Blackpool Promenade and Beach Index Page