The Golden Mile in the 1970s

When I came to do the index page for Blackpool's Golden Mile, I was sad to see just how few dedicated posts there were to it. So I'll sort out a few more as we go along! Actually I'll be doing that for most of the index pages and not just the Blackpool ones!

This one was taken in 1975 from the pedestrian bridge over the Promenade. The Golden Mile Centre was the first of the purpose-built large amusement arcades and at the time a section had been taken over by a large exhibition of puppets, props, costumes and models from the many Gerry Anderson TV programmes from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. THey started with Twizzle, Torchy the Battery Boy and Four Feather Falls and then went through all the favourite futuristic series: Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet etc. all the way through to the live action shows, UFO and Space 1999. The rest of the Golden Mile amusement arcades were still inside the old original buildings, hotels and somewhat ramshackle sheds built onto the front of them. They occupied what had been a row of gardens at one time.

As the more unsteady buildings were demolished, small temporary spaces were soon filled with kiddies' rides and roundabouts, until building commenced on the next modern project. This photo was taken in 1976 and a helicopter roundabout, a version of an octopus ride and a full dodgems ride fills the space next to the Golden Mile Centre, extending from the Promenade right back to Bonny Street.

To 1977 and inside the arcades, Fran's brother Bob with our nephew Chris playing a Peppy the Clown puppet game.

Fran herself was into fruit machines. It was around this time they started to get more complicated. With the old ones, you simply pulled the handle and hoped. Then as electronics came along the Hold feature came along, swiftly followed by Nudge and then a whole host of jackpot options until you needed a university degree to understand how to play...

1978 and still not a single video game in sight! Pinball machines (it was an American phrase that was just taking over - during the 1950s and 60s we had called them Pin Tables in the UK) were my favourite coinslot obsession. The best machines would have a queue of people waiting to play. A row of sixpences or shillings lined up along the side rail of the machine would secure your place in the queue.

A glimpse inside the newly opened Coral Island in 1978. With sumptuous carpets and neon lights and a couple of life-size mannikins swinging from trapezes up in the ceiling, it was a step change from the arcades we were used to.

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Fourth 1977 Blackpool Photo Album, 2: The Golden Mile

Blackpool's Golden Mile features on today's flashback to 1977, with reminders of the Dr Who Exhibition, Lewis's department store, the building of Coral Island and the Golden Mile Centre.

I start with the Lewis's store as the only shot that is less oriented towards the holiday maker. Though it did draw them in their thousands of course. The store, which opened in 1964, is still fondly remembered in the town and added considerably to the aesthetics of the Promenade with it's turquoise tiling and backlit frontage. In 1977 it carried red, white and blue ribbons for the Queen's Silver Jubilee. It closed in 1993.

Another fine sight on the Golden Mile, though a brand new use for the building, was Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium. Celebrating the startling and freakish amongst both nature and achievement, it was fun to visit and brilliantly stand-out at night when the large signboard lit up with bright red neon. A short time later Ripley installed a glass tube that fed water from a pool below to a huge tap that, as the water cascaded from the tube seemed to be flowing from the tap. The water then obscured the pipe so that the tap seemed to be suspended on a column of falling water. It was very effective. Sadly I have no photograph of it.

An out of season shot of Ripley's, also showing the Golden Mile Centre.

This was Blackpool's first large purpose-built amusement arcade. It would eventually become Mr Bee's and today houses the Sea Life Centre.

Together with Ripley's it dominated the Central Beach area of the Golden Mile. The bright blue and yellow of the Silver Jubilee commemorative tram passes by and the two port-a-cabins towards the left are the Lost Children's Centre (white) and a first-aid post in blue. There's a Wall's ice cream kiosk on the beach and I think the other one is selling seafood type rubbish for the southern visitors...

Why anyone would eat jellied eels and whelks is beyond me, though the practice of putting unidentifiable pap on meals and sandwiches is sadly spreading northwards. When people in the south say "we'll eat out" I invariably hear it as "we'll eat owt..." The number of times I went to London for work and had to point at something on a buffet saying "what the hell is that???" doesn't bear thinking of. But for all their culinary short-comings (they seem never to have heard of a crust for instance), the people are remarkably likeable!

For a couple of years the Golden Mile Centre hosted an exhibition of models and puppets from the Gerry Anderson TV portfolio. Twizzle, Torchy the Battery Boy, Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray (Whoopee - colour!) (Waah! We still had a black and white telly!), Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, UFO, Space 1999... I used to go in and just lap up pleasure until it got dark and they threw me out...

An early season shot before they installed a massive and animated ogre figure over the end of this building to advertise The Horror Crypt. My goodness gracious, that steamed up a lot of people in the council who shouted their disgust and distress loud and clear, ignoring the fact that it was carrying on a great tradition of the Golden Mile. Farther into the distance are the green girders that would later hold up the roof of the new Coral Island centre, due to open in 1978.

The Devil's Den was a short-lived exhibition next door to the Brunswick which has opened a self-service fish and chip cafe. Self-service in those days meant you got a tray and slid it across rails whilst you gave your order and then waited for it to be plated before sliding the tray to the till. It wasn't too many years since this would have been unthinkable - that your order wouldn't be taken and served by a waitress in black with starched white apron. "What do I do? What do I do???" muttered people helplessly as others sat at empty tables, fuming because they had been there half an hour without anyone taking their order... The same people a few years later let food go cold in MacDonalds whilst they searched for cutlery...

The old-style open sheds full of flick-ball games, Ber-o-Mat one-armed bandits, pinball machines so old they didn't have flippers etc. were in their last throes. The old houses and hotels behind them that they were built onto had been neglected so long that they were in danger of collapsing. Nothing above ground floor level had been in use for decades.

The kiosks at the front of the arcades were the last bastions of those oh-so-scrummy hamburgers (which now had to be called beefburgers due to advertising law) which were fried on a griddle and then propped up in a row on the back of the griddle plate amongst a pile of fried onions that kept them hot. Asking for lettuce (even though it would have been lettuce and not some sort of weird-looking "salad leaf", then still correctly thought of as inedible) or pickle or a slice of tomato would have earned you guffaws of hysterics. Only recently was it becoming acceptable, though not yet the norm, to ask for a slice of cheese. You had your bun, a burger, lots of fried onions and it was normal to put ketchup or mustard or possibly both on it.

Youngsters have always wondered why old people get so grumpy. And I can now say that for every generation it's because everything that has been familiar and comfortable and good seems to get swept away by following generations. To those youngsters who read this I can say with all surety that you will feel like this yourself when you get older. Sadly though the generation between mine and yours is doing their best to ensure you will never get chance to do this yourselves because they are destroying things for you already, having got into power and now looking after their rich chums whilst dancing with their fingers in their ears in case they hear something that might prick the last remaining vestige of conscience they might have. Robin Hood, we need you back more than ever...

The other reason older people are grumpy is that it is, actually, quite good fun...

Down at Chapel Street, opposite the Central Pier. At the end of the building is an exhibition of props and costumes from Dr Who. The entrance is the Tardis itself, which can be seen halfway down the side of the building. Another of those bits of Blackpool's past that seems to be lovingly remembered. Incredibly almost, we were still only on the fourth Doctor at the time. Tom Baker played the Doctor from 1974 to 1981, lasting not quite as long as did the exhibition which lasted from 1974 to 1985.

As I write it is New Year's Eve. Tomorrow will be 2016, so a Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope it will be / is / was!

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1977 Photographic Album No.3 - Along The Prom

The third article made up of photos from a recently unearthed photo album. All the photographs were taken of Blackpool in 1977. This was the Silver Jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth II and a time of exciting changes in Blackpool some of which are illustrated here.

Not all of the photos were taken on the same day. There's about 60 photos in the album. In 1977 there was no such thing as a digital camera, almost no such thing as a digital anything. Home computers were still a few years off and whilst there may have been the first few digital display watches coming out, anyone who answered "16:05" in response to being asked the time was probably looked at scathingly whilst saying "What's that in proper time?"

So these photos were taken on colour negative film. Technicolor film was a favourite of mine at the time, though I also used Kodacolor every now and then, or Fuji or other obscure brands like Barfen or Orwo which could be bought in bulk lengths through the photographic press and had to be loaded into cassettes in total darkness before being used in the camera. Bought films came in lengths for 12, 24 or 36 photographs and once exposed, films had to be taken to the local camera shop, chemist or the few specialist developing houses for the film to be developed and photos to be printed on special paper. The alternative was doing it yourself in a darkroom which for colour prints was a very fiddly business with some quite nasty chemicals.

The first photo today was obviously taken on quite a breezy day. The flags are flying well off the tethering ropes of the flag pole to the left of the Tower whose own flags, placed there for the Silver Jubilee, plus the excess material of people's seventies flared trousers are all showing the direction of the wind blowing off the Irish Sea!

Above the Promenade, the strings of sockets are waiting for the illumination bulbs to be fitted and over the roadway on the right the illuminations show a Chinese theme.

This looks as though it was taken on a brighter day! It shows a gang of workmen from the Corporation putting up the illuminations we saw in the previous photo. 1977 marked a bit of a changeover period for the illuminations. It was in the middle of several years in which the illuminations on lampposts along the roadway changed from these wooden flats, painted with designs that were then lit by coloured bulbs. Some of the bulbs were painted matt black on the outer part of the bulb so that viewers saw the lit board underneath rather than the glare of the bulbs themselves.

The extending lift of the Corporation wagon looks rather primitive by today's standards. One side of the lamppost has been fitted with its flat and the other lies on the ground. The lorry operative, dressed in overalls is scratching his head in conversation with someone hidden behind him, but the two men up on the gantry have seen me and are posing happily for their picture to be taken.

On the other side of the road in front of the wagon is the bright orange sign of the New Yorker Cafeteria. I have fond memories of sitting in it in the mid sixties, sipping scalding milky coffee (latte? What on earth is that???) out of clear glass Pyrex cups that sat on matching clear glass saucers whilst listening to The Beatles Yellow Submarine on the jukebox!

A little further along the Prom, we approach the Central Pier. A double deck "balloon" tram heads north up the track, closely followed by tramcar No.1 - a new-fangled tram adapted from the Brush railcoach tramcars and given extensions at each end so that they can be run as a One-Man-Only operation. The driver no longer has a cabin to himself, but is sitting as a bus driver would, with a ticket machine taking fares as people enter the tramcar. This leads to conductors losing jobs and also hold-ups along the line, as each tram has to stop longer for the driver to take fares. Due to the strange configuration of the ends of the tram, they came to be known as "coffin-trams".

The coffin tram here is rolling over the junction of the emergency line running down from Princess Street. This street was the first in the world to have an electric tram roll down it in 1885 but was in use only as an emergency route to the Promenade in case of a fire in the tram depot. Because there is a gap in the pavement for the trams, a sign warns car drivers that unauthorised vehicles must not be used or parked on the foreshore.

Looking to the right for a moment we can now see some of the new illuminations - a set showing puppies - made of fibreglass with the light bulbs housed internally and lighting the display from within.

Further up the Promenade again, to take this photo I am standing on the pedestrian bridge over the seafront roadway between New Bonny Street and Adelaide Street West. The trams are at the Tower tram stop where the line branches off to a third line. Trams for the Tower only stop on the middle line, one of whose passengers are disembarking in the photo. They then have their poles reversed here and then cross over to the southward line. At the bottom of the photo a tramway official is taking down the long hooked pole used to grab the tram pole which is pulled down off the line, often with a satisfying crackle of sparks and then swung round as the operator walks round the tram to position the pole under the line at the other end of the tram and slowly ease it upwards until it sits correctly on the line.

A Fleetwood-bound tram has swung into the branch on the left to continue its journey northwards. Further up the line a young man has cheekily tried to dart in front of the southwards coffin tram. The driver has sounded its hooter, causing the young man to take a spectacular flying leap to get out of the way. For most other towns in the UK, trams have not been seen on the road for over twenty years and visitors to Blackpool sometimes act as though they expect the trams to be able to swerve round them!

On the right hand side the illuminations at this point are the old-fashioned flats and are a series featuring steam locomotives. The bulbs along the streams of smoke from the funnels are controlled by elaborate banks of relays and flash on and off in sequence to give the illusion of smoke coming out of the funnel and along the top of the train. Very effective and in the absence of computers and gaming machines, they instil a sense of wonder in children who see them.

Taken from the bottom of the pedestrian bridge (it can just be glimpsed overhead in the top left corner) we see the girder framework of a new building on the Golden Mile. A sign tells us that it will be called Coral Island and that it is scheduled to be opened in May 1978. Locals tut over the size of it, as most amusement arcades along the Golden Mile at this point in time are nowhere near as big as this is going to be. Others are still sighing as they look at the site, remembering the heydays of Blackpool Central Railway Station which occupied the rear of this site until its closure and demolition.

We are close to the Tower. Looking up we can see that the Tower top has been painted silver in honour of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. This brings us to the end of article No.3. In the next article we'll have a look at both sides of the Promenade, as even the side next to the beach and sea is very different to today.

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The Blackpool Experience

The following is adapted from an article that I wrote for the Photographic Press in 1982. Regardless of who I wrote it for - they didn't publish it. So this - dear reader, just for you, is a piece that the magazines of 1982 wouldn't touch with a barge pole...

At the time I lamented how long it had been since I got my slide projector out to give a slide show. Remember those? All that setting a screen up, setting the projector on a table or stepladder.

My slide projector was rather ancient. No push button remote to change slides. No magazine to hold them all. You dropped a slide in a slot on the top and pushed a lever at the side which moved the new slide in front of the lens and in turn pushed the current slide out of the side of the projector where it fell in the dark on the floor and you found it by hearing the noise of the plastic frame snapping when you trod on it...

So I was quite impressed when a friend took me to an exhibition show at the local photographic society. There were two projectors the slides fading into one another very professionally. Not only that but instead of the photographer describing the photos in person, a taped soundtrack with music did the job.

Then one day I was taking photos of a young lady and wanting to get her talking, asked where she worked.
"The Blackpool Experience" she said, "it's a slide show with 18 projectors and special effects!".

The next day saw me down at the Coral Island amusement arcade where around the back I underwent The Blackpool Experience.

The size of the screen was bigger than in many studio cinemas. To fill the screen with a single photo took three of the projectors projecting left, centre and right with softened overlaps. It worked very well.

The special effects included an old train with fiery boiler and smoke belching from the funnel. When Jayne Mansfield appeared on the screen, switching on the Illuminations, flashguns appeared to go off behind the audience from a strobe unit.

The show was the brainchild of Alan Murgatroyd who had been one of four photographers who had gone out in all weathers to take shots of the current day Blackpool. There were lots of photos of holidaymakers and others on the streets, the beach, the fairground. I asked Alan what their reaction had been.

"Normally you get the odd reaction - people asking what the photos are for - but nobody in Blackpool took the slightest notice of us! Blackpool's such a friendly place anyway, but it was really amazing. For instance, I was doing the sequence in the tattooist's parlour and we're in this tiny room, about eight feet by five. I had a camera on a tripod and loads of lights because I was using close-up lenses and this girl came in wanting a rose tattooed on her thigh. She just dropped her trousers and the tattooist got on with it. I was clicking away and she never even asked me what I was doing!" (Note: this might almost be the norm in 2011 but members of the public were not usually keen to bare flesh for cameras in public or otherwise in 1982!)

The photographs were taken over a period of two to three years. Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 were taken and whittled down to around 1,400 for the show. They were mostly taken on Ektachrome 64 slide film on Nikon 35mm cameras for the candids with a Pentax 6x7 camera used for the views and a rostrum camera for the big panoramas.

The same company's The Jersey Experience won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival and the Blackpool show was also being submitted for awards. Meanwhile Alan and his team were planning to start photographing in York. As for me... my slide projector never seemed adequate after that...

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