Blackpool changes so rapidly that 30 years is enough for some of the photos to be totally unrecogniseable to visitors and residents of today.This first shot was taken just south of the Star Inn at the bottom end of the Pleasure Beach. No Ocean Boulevard with its string of shops and kiosks blocking the view of the Pleasure Beach's Log Flume.
And if there were no Ocean Boulevard today the Log Flume is no longer there to be seen... Also no longer to be found are some large tableaux which used to be found at South Shore as well as the Bispham cliffs. Some can be glimpsed in the distance on the far left hand side of the photo.
This one is from a little further north. We are just south of Watson Road for this one. The familiar blue and red structure of the Big One roller coaster is many years off yet. On the corner of Watson Road the Space Tower takes riders up and around as it spirals up to the top, spins for a couple of revolutions and comes back down again.
Below it is a camera obscura. The bright archway welcomes visitors to Blackpool and the Pleasure Beach. From this point on a busy night cars will take a couple of hours at least to reach the end of the illuminations at Bispham!
By putting the camera on a tripod and leaving the shutter open whilst the Space Tower went up and came down, the lights on the outside of the ride's disc corkscrew up and then cross their own path as the ride comes down.This must have been a very calm night without any wind as the shutter had to stay open for around three minutes to take this!
And I finish for this time with a much-loved display of clowns. Alternate displays juggled balls and tossed them over the roadway or squirted each other with water pistols - with rows of light representing the water.There's just another two and a half weeks to go before this year's display turns off until the end of next August.
Great pictures. I have only been to Blackpool once and that was in 1978 - sadly I didn't take any photographs of the vist!
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