This time we are in the year 1983 and once again meandering around Blackpool's famous Pleasure Beach.
We'll start with the Wild Mouse ride, now sadly gone to much public outrage, it disappeared overnight. What a fabulous ride it was. This was the ultimate white knuckle ride, much more so than far newer rides such as The Big One which gave about the same amount of bruises but far less of the terror of anticipation. The photo was taken from a balcony in front of the Cresta Cafe.
We saw the Go Karts briefly in a previous article but here they are in wondrous Technicolor. Yes, for a while the film brand most associated with the cinema brought out 35mm film for cameras and I used to use it quite a bit. This was print film rather than transparency or "slide" film and, as with all my colour prints, I've scanned the original negative strips wherever possible.
Taken on the same day was this shot of the Space Tower. Looking a little as though it's in need of a lick of paint, the once-bright red building with portholes for windows was an amusement arcade and held some older coin-operated machines and games for a bit of nostalgia. Whereas riders of the Space Tower entered the ride on a lower level, this is where you got off so that you had the temptation of the machines and less of the crush with any queues of riders awaiting their turn.
One evening with the other members of Blackpool & Fylde Photographic Society, we had a wander around the Pleasure Beach and I took this shot in the sunset. Except it was a bit too early for the colours to be so sunsetish (hey, if Shakespeare can make up new words, why shouldn't I?) so I put a filter in front of the camera lens and wondered when Adobe would get around to creating Photoshop. Given that my Commodore 64 was still pretty much state of the art, (unless you were a teacher just hearing about something called a BBC Micro), it would be probably another 10 years before I would see a decent (make that "half-decent") attempt at a photograph being displayed on a computer...
The same filter was used here for a shot looking through the spiral staircase of the Casino building.
The Pleasure Beach Express in the station with driver Ted Askey on the footplate. He was a hugely popular figure with both children and adults alike, always willing to pose for a photo and he was sadly missed by all when he stopped working on the Pleasure Beach Express. He died at the age of 83 in 2016.
The Tom Sawyer rafts were a strange ride. Well, perhaps not so much strange, but they were sadly let down by their surroundings I always thought. You got on and off them on a huge circular platform which continued turning whilst you did so. A lot of people didn't like this, though there are lots of rides with similar boarding and exiting in Mr Disney's parks. Also after a trip down a short length of water - call it canal or river or trough as you see fit - it emerged onto the lake under the tracks of the Log Flume which dripped onto the roof of your raft. (Aha! That's why they had a roof...!)
If all this excitement wasn't enough, some isolated attempts at rustic scenes had been put up here and there. I seem to recall a wigwam with Native Americans? Was there a dinosaur somewhere? Someone must be able to remember it better than I can - please leave a comment. To me they seemed totally out of place as though someone had given a sheet of hardboard and a few tins of paint to someone and said "Just do your best..."
Gulliver! He held up the Monorail track in the southern half of the park. Well someone had to... There was a clown with different faces front and back too. I must have a photo somewhere but I'm struggling to find it.
My daughter and dad on the Little Dipper. She always insisted on the front seat. I always made for the back seat of coasters when I could. That way you go fast down hills instead of up them. The ride gets through names like I burned out gussets in those horrible woolly knitted swimming trunks in the 1950s... It was the Little Dipper, then the Zipper Dipper, then (I'm astounded to find) the Warburtons Milk Roll-A-Coaster and now the Blue Flyer.
The mind boggles at the Warburtons one. Apparently they sponsored it, but the signage didn't change. Why not the Arctic Roll-A-Coaster, or the Jam or Chocolate Roll-A-Coaster? The Fancy-A-...? The Little Dipper described it perfectly. What is "Blue Flyer" all about?
The Big Dipper meanwhile has determinedly held onto its original name and well done it! Here it approaches the footbridge on the way back towards the station. There's something disconcerting about being on a ride that appears to be about to crash into a solid chunk of concrete. It does dip at the last minute to pass safely underneath the bridge though. Comn to think of it, there's something mildly disconcerting about standing on a bridge watching a train full of screaming people hurtling towards you...
And bringing this article to a close is this shot of mini-motorbikes being ridden by mini-people somewhere close to the track of the Pleasure Beach Express. Judging by the queue, they were quite popular!
And now I want my readers to be especially brave... I have no photos of the park from 1984. [GASP] I know. But we'll be back for a look at 1985 in due course. It was in 1984 that I started working in the Education Sector and visits to the Pleasure Beach started to dwindle I'm afraid.
Brilliant photos 📸 👌
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