There seemed to be a lot of visits to the Pleasure Beach in 1981. It was quite an eventful year for me and the family. My parents left the hotel business, I was working at Warriners Cash & Carry on Squires Gate and would end the year being made redundant after it was taken over by Bookers and merged with the Alliance Cash & Carry which relocated to our site with their management team intact... Life changing in fact.
A nightmare at the time but I bought a Commodore 64 computer with my redundancy money, taught myself to program and it shaped my career afterwards, albeit with a very uncomfortable gap for a period. So visits to the Pleasure Beach were mainly walks, rather than going on rides, though I did manage to sell a few photos to magazines and started writing articles to go with them following kind prompting from the editor of Lancashire Magazine. Is there anyone out there who remembers the John Burke's Curious Lancashire series?
Anyway, back to the Pleasure Beach. Looking back north towards the casino building along the row of stanchions that held up the track of the Monorail. At this stage the double Big Wheel ride was still in place, though it was rare enough to see both wheels going round. Riders on both wheels sat facing towards the park's interior with the sea at their backs. They rotated in opposite directions, one wheel going up whilst riders faced outwards away from the wheel and the other wheel going up whilst riders faced the axle on the seaward rear of the wheel.
The Space Tower was celebrating its 7th birthday in 1981, having opened in 1974. (Thanks to Michael Whittaker for his pointing out my original mistake in saying 1976!)
The park south of Watson Road was filling to creaking point with rides aimed primarily at adults rather than children. One popular new arrival seen here is the Tidal Wave - a full-sized galleon that swung to and fro, seen here at it's high point just right of centre.
Approaching the end of its life though was the Skyway Cable Cars. At one time a way of getting from one side of the park to the other, the south station was closed, providing just a turning point so that riders were forced to exit after returning to their starting point right at the northern end of the park.
We caught a glimpse of the trampolines with their attendant animal statues in a previous entry. Some of the trampolines were soon to disappear to be replaced by ball ponds - don't worry... we'll get to them in due course!
The Sidewinder was a more modern take on the classic 1950s (or earlier!) Sky Diver ride. It just had longer arms. The cars at either end rotated so that riders remained seated upright at both the top and bottom of the ride, so there was only need to scream whilst going up or coming down!
The bright network of white tubing at the rear holds up the station for the Revolution looping coaster and in front of it is the Cyclone coaster, also of metal construction. It would move to Southport so I believe. All of it, I mean - they didn't just extend the track for a longer ride... Which now I think of it, seems a shame really!
Struggling to remember the name of this - the Rock Planes or Rock-O-Planes? A sign warns riders not to take loose coins or other items. Falling coins may have provided a financial bonus, but customers lower down the ride getting hit by falling objects would not be as popular. The amount of rocking motion of individual pods could be controlled by the riders.
One of my favourite shots, this mirrored image (so you can read the Big Dipper sign) was published in a couple of the UK's hobby magazines for photography.
A miniature and open-air version of the Space Tower complete with toy guns. This would eventually be relocated to the park's Reception Desk within the Casino building.
The Monorail reaches as far south as it can go and takes a right-angle turn towards the front of the park. In a few yards it will travel alongside the track of the Pleasure Beach Express for a little while. Any chance side-by-side of the two rides was seen as a great bonus by riders of both rides!
On the front of the Casino building a glassed external lift had been added to take customers up to a suspended chairlift ride with animated puppets. This would later be removed to the south half of the park.
Noah's Ark dates from 1922. I can't actually remember ever going in it, though I've been in other examples. I particularly remember the one in Joyland in Great Yarmouth for instance. The Blackpool one I mainly remember for it having a gallery of waterfalls around the outside in the 1960s and for having a Tidy Lion talking and growling waste bin where you fed the lion with your waxed paper bread wrapping that your meat paste or sardine butties were packed in before you left home...
By gum, we knew how to live in the sixties... By 1981 we were moving away from beef paste for the heady delights of slivers of jellied chicken or the creamy yet unidentifiable chunks in Heinz Sandwich Spread. Thankfully I was never lured into burning out all my taste buds with Marmite...
The much-loved and sadly missed Fun House. One of the rotating heads has fallen off or been removed. They revolved in a series of jerks and made a recogniseable face either way up. Inside were a giant wooden slide, a smaller metal slide but which had a vertical drop before gradually levelling out, a turntable which you sat on trying to be the last to be flung off, a rotating barrel to walk through, cakewalks, hanging padded beams to negotiate or swing to make others fall over. And the best bit - the Monorail passed through at the back of the building on its way around the park! You paid once then could stay inside for as long as you wanted. It burned down in a huge fire in 1991.
Tidal Wave, not Tidal Race
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