Blackpool Pleasure Beach 1987 / 1989

We start in the year 1987 this time. As we get closer to the time of writing (a mere 37 years...[WHAT???]) there are fewer and fewer photos to draw on in my collection. Work was increasingly taking more of my time especially after I started a new job in 1988, my daughter was getting interested in other things and not wanting to go on rides the same and I was writing both magazine articles and a novel which was published in 2012 as a Kindle book - details in the side column!

Anyway here we are in 1987 on the south side of the park with my daughter and nephew on the front of this clown-themed coaster-cum-roundabout.

As more and more adult rides moved onto the south side of the park crowds got noticeably larger and more walkways had to be created to get them to the rides. These took the form of ramps from the Watson Road crossing and pathways with bridges over existing rides such as the Turnpike / Grand Prix.

Here we are on the ramp from Watson Road having passed the Roller Coaster on our left and coming up to the Pleasure Beach Express station and a row of shops on the right.

Before us to the left is the Space Invader: first a video game, then a wide-bodied pinball machine (at this point there was one still in the arcade opposite the Ghost Train entrance, which I was to buy myself - the pinball not the Ghost Train...) Now it became a dark ride roller coaster.

From across the Promenade roadway a view of the north entrance to the park. We have now jumped in time to 1989. Maxim's Flying Machine can be seen and at the front of the park an amusement arcade which at the time had but was about to lose another row of pinballs including the normal-sized version of Space Invaders which was called Silverball Mania. It also had Elektra, Devil Riders, Road Kings and Mousin' Around. None of them were working all that well. Those silver balls are solid steel and travel fast before they hit something so pinballs require a lot of maintenance.

The Rainbow ride just inside the entrance creates lines of colour against the night sky as it shakes the change out of riders' pockets. Behind to the right, the station of the Cableway can be dimly seen.

Back outside the park a similar long exposure of the Space Tower from the corner of Watson Road. Taking such photos was mainly a matter of using a very sturdy tripod to enable a shutter speed of a couple of minutes and guesswork as to a few other settings. On a windy night - forget it! The vibrations caused by the wind on the tripod and camera would result in an unsharp image.

Also these were taken on film. No one made film greater than 400 ASA at the time. You could "push" a couple of stops but now on digital cameras you can choose to shoot at the equivalent of 3200 or even 6400 ASA (or ISO - they meant the same thing in terms of film sensitivity to light and were identical calibrations).

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