Blackpool Postcard - A Real Photograph

I like this one! I love old postcards. So often they were 'enhanced' by the makers - daytime shots made to look like night; seaside illuminations painted on with blobs of colour, other photographs printed over the top to add an item of interest such as a tram... or a wave...

On the face of it, this is a straightforward photograph of the sea crashing up at Blackpool. Not an uncommon occurrence - though it may become less common with the new Promenade steps hopefully to be completed this year.

However a closer examination has me convinced that these waves are flowing over into the sea from the Promenade side!!! I suspect they may have started life as a waterfall somewhere!

Although the sea can spout upwards quite spectacularly and at least as high as these waves appear to be, you would not get such a wide expanse bursting upwards all at the same time. The waves approach the sea wall at a slight angle and so out of the cluster of three waves at the left you would see the left hand one, followed a few seconds later by the middle one and then after another few seconds by the one on the right. This isn't a time exposure because the waves are not blurred from a long exposure.

I'd date this in the late 1920s. The Big Dipper, far right, was built in 1925. The Rainbow Wheel is the centre with the Scenic Railway and the familar Maxim Flying Machine to its left and the original casino building on the extreme left.

Now, where was that water coming from???