Saturday 17 August 2002. We had booked a week's stay in a B&B in Great Yarmouth, a well remembered childhood holiday town for both myself and Miss Franny, though if we ever caught a glimpse of each other during those childhood years, it passed us by completely...
Apart from its own attractions, Great Yarmouth is a convenient spot to do a bit of touring around Norfolk and Suffolk in a car with many activities and places of interest, some of which we'll visit during the week. The first thing we did on arrival though was book front row seats for a couple of shows.
Next, a nostalgic look at Joyland which is just next to the Britannia Pier. It seems amazing, but all those rides were them same when I was a little lad. They are just a tad more expensive per ride than they were then but I suppose wages are a tad more than they were back then too. The sight and sound of the snails in particular took me right back to the late 1950s...
Quite a lot of everything else had changed. There were still bowling greens but they were by far fewer in number. The putting greens had gone in favour of a large scale crazy golf course themed on pirates. Er... Miss Franny, why have I got a crow's nest coming out of my head...?
The Wellington Theatre wasn't presenting any shows. In fact the big difference between Great Yarmouth of the 1950s-60s and the 21st century is the unbelievable loss of live shows. This isn't unique to Great Yarmouth, but the town had a huge number of theatres as I remember it, now either disappeared or turned into cinemas or just plain derelict and empty. The Britannia Pier was alone in presenting shows and these were mainly short-runs, not a summer season as such.
A reverse bungee ride occupied what I think was another putting green. At twenty five pounds a go (what???) it would have taken far more money at a quarter of the price as it was unsurprisingly standing empty for most of the time.
Had it been twenty five pence a go I still don't think I would have been tempted somehow...
Up at Botton Bros Pleasure Beach (or down at - to me, living on the west coast it was easy to mix up north and south on the east coast) the Roller Coaster has a brakeman and the quality of the ride depends on his skill. It can be a thrilling ride, but I had in distant past years seen riders having to get out and push from the bottom of a dip due to the brakes being applied a bit too much.
Heading back down north (huh?) we passed the Winter Gardens at the side of Wellington Pier and thought we would come back for a spot of evening's refined drinkies.
There were a couple of girls singing to backing tracks and they were quite pleasing to the ear, though the P.A. system required you to be more or less opposite them to hear without some form of distortion. It was a promising start to a week's holiday.
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