Second Blackpool 1977 Photo Album 2 - Along the Seafront

The second entry from my 1977 photo album. In this we'll have a look at various bits and pieces on the piers and on the beach with a brief stop to admire a tram.

Taken from the Central Pier, this shows activity on the beach near the slade. As soon as the tide started to recede, the wet sand would be immediately claimed by someone with a deckchair, an ice cream van, a small group of donkeys or a boatman. Before the sand was uncovered the steps leading down to the beach would be so full of sitting tourists that anyone else wanting to go down had to either tread on somebody, or slither down the slope of the slade itself. It's a nice word - slither - I must use it again...

The ancient lorries used by the boatmen were a testament to their mechanical skills. Dating from somewhere around World War II, they spent all winter in the exposed weather of the Promenade, engines tightly sheeted with canvas. In the spring someone would come and lovingly whack them with a lump hammer and they would shed any new rust in a shower and obediently splutter into life... When they disappeared I felt as though part of my youth had gone with them, I had known them for so long.

Just swinging the camera round to the right a touch gives us this view of the Golden Mile Centre. If you follow the line of steps from the beach then just to the left of the top step is the green canvas that covers rows and rows of folded deckchairs available to hire for the half day or full day for the beach. For a bit extra you could take a canvas windbreak down and erect a little wall behind you, but with the prevailing winds coming off the sea all they usually achieved was a drift of sand after a few minutes that on really gusty days could build up to halfway up the canvas, until the wind died and it collapsed, sliding down like an avalanche to bury your feet, sandwiches and children. Dogs invariably went behind you to wee on them too which all added to the aroma of fried onions from the burger stalls on the Golden Mile...

Taken from the North Pier, this shows the Tower, with its top painted silver for the Queen's Silver Jubilee. The much-loved honeycombed front of Lewis's store is on the left and the beauty of the old sea wall with the symmetrical double staircases leading down from the Promenade to the beach is something now gone apart from a tiny portion next to the North Pier itself.

Another once common sight along the Promenade was the Twin-Car combination of a tram and trailer set. This was taken just south of the Central Pier. The street leading off the Prom behind the tram is Princess Street - the first street in the world to have an electric tram travel along it under its own power.

I think this is the Central Pier, but am not 100% sure. It could be South Pier but I think it is the Central Pier. In 1977 there was still a 5 pence admission charge to the pier itself once you got behind the amusement arcade. This required the employment of pier attendants, two of whom are saying "That chap's taking our picture...!"

We were walking along minding our own business when we spotted my Grandad and Doris, his second wife, on the beach. We waved and shouted but... nothing...

Absolutely fast asleep... But they weren't the only ones. There's a young chap behind them, legs outstretched past my Grandad's chair also with a long line of Zzzzzzz coming from him. Behind him someone is wagging a disapproving finger at the little lad with the spade - a tin spade on a wooden stick, none of today's plastic rubbish. She's probably saying to him "If you chop your toes off don't come running to me...!" which is the sort of thing Mums and Nans do all the time. Naventi's Ice Cream van waits for customers. Tubs of well frozen ice cream, filled from deep containers packed round with ice make up for the lack of any refrigeration. Early morning ice creams had chunks of solid ice throughout. Later ones had to be eaten quickly before they just ran away down the cone and your fingers.

Those were the days... Please note that suits and ties should always be worn on the beach - no riff raff please!

Return to Blackpool Promenade and Beach Index Page

On the Beach

A few days ago I showed the folks of 1982 Blackpool sitting it out in deckchairs on the Promenade whilst the tide was in. The very minute the tide turned and a strip of sand appeared, people were up and laying claim to their patch for the rest of the afternoon.

The traders were not far behind. Here the donkey ride has reached it's halfway point - the young lad is pushing to turn the lead donkeys around for the run back to their starting point. They are reluctant because the sand is still wet from the tide in the foreground.

Even before the majority of people have left the safety of the sloping sea wall, the caravans selling shrimps, whelks, cockles, crisps and ice cream are jostling for a position on the narrow strip of sand.

In the background are the Funland and Mr B's (later Mr Bee's) arcades as we are on Central Beach here on the Golden Mile. The Royal Mail tram trundles past. It had a counter for selling stamps - one of the more innovative or barmy of Blackpool ideas depending on your viewpoint!

The closeness of the sea to the sea wall is never an irritation for those whose idea of fun is to play in the sea anyway. However a retreating tide has to be treated with respect and caution even on as shallow a sloping beach as Blackpool's! Nobody came to any harm at least on this sunny July day in 1982.

Blackpool has always been the place for fun and good-natured humour and it is written large across the faces of this pair here, who I spotted for the first time yesterday as I scanned the original negative, 29 years after taking it! They were right in the very bottom corner of the photo and I've enlarged this enormously to zoom in on this happy couple enjoying the fun of a Blackpool day out.

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High Tide at Blackpool, 1982

Old negatives are still going through the scanner, although there's been a few more personal ones and others that don't hold a lot of interest for anyone other than me. However, I'm coming to another lot of Blackpool photos just at the moment so I'll start off with a couple of them here.

I'm now up to July 1982 and the two scenes today were taken on the 11th of July of that year. This one was taken from the end of the Central Pier at high tide and includes Lewis's and Woolworth's stores flanking the Tower. Lewis's was destined for closure and demolition and Woolworths vacated their building and moved into a brand new building on the Lewis's site. The old Woolworth building was turned into an indoor market - probably the only sure-fire way to make money for the building's owners as the stallholders have to pay rent whether or not they make any profit...

The Promenade footbridge crosses the road a little further south. I used to like that as a viewpoint for taking photos of trams and the illuminations, but that too was demolished in 2010 in preparation for the new Promenade and sea defence works. The 1980s also saw the last of the pleasure trip boats operating from the slade. Passengers were taken out to them on the backs of a couple of ancient World War II vintage lorries which by this time I suspect were getting hard to keep in running order. Not only were they old, but they were used exclusively within a few yards of the sea and the salt damage to the engines alone must have caused problems for the operators!

At high tide thousands of deck chairs had to come off the beach. Around the slade, up to a hundred chairs were set up and holidaymakers relaxed there, looking out to sea or reading or simply going to sleep. Here a helicopter is hovering over the sea on the horizon, yet virtually no one is even aware of the possible drama being enacted out to sea. Instead people are concentrating on their newspapers, which report the concluding chapters to the Falklands War of that year. That day the requisitioned P&O cruise ship Canberra would arrive back at Southampton, carrying Commandos back from the conflict.

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Blackpool Tower and Beach

A couple of today's photo uploads to my Flickr account.

I could almost have included this in the Vanished Blackpool series as these days it is rare to see the number of people on the beach that you see in this photo from around 1980.

Even by the 1980s the beach was still a favourite spot for tourists to park a deckchair and put up a wind break. The Council used to employ a number of staff every year to man stations all along the promenade, hiring out deckchairs and windbreaks by the day or half-day.

A path from the slade has to be kept free of deckchairs as this is the route down which the lifeboat will be brought in case of an emergency. Most of the ice cream koisks still relied on insulation and lots of ice rather than generators and refridgeration to keep their ice cream cold.

Moving into the Tower for a photo again taken in the very early 1980s, this shows the Tower Ballroom.

Phil Kelsall is playing the Wurlitzer, although the dance floor is empty as this was a Sunday night. Dancing was still not allowed on Sunday nights and instead the organist gave a recital of film music, popular classics and fun items.

When he played The Dam Busters March the Ballroom vibrated as the very loud sound effect of a Lancaster Bomber was played over the organ music!