A series of articles featuring Blackpool's North Pier. It was Blackpool's first pier and for many years fought to retain an element of sophistication over the two other piers that followed.
Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.
Another selection of Blackpool folk and visitors enjoying Blackpool in the days before mobile phones.
We are back to good old black and white photos for today and again it will include a mix of topics, though quite a few will feature the Pleasure Beach. We'll kick off with one of the attendants on the North Pier talking to two ladies sunning themselves on the side benches. One of them at least is riveted by what he is saying and his job at this time (in the early 1980s) allows him to enjoy smoking his briar pipe whilst working.
The sound of a fairground organ, squeals of children and the hum of many people squeezing past one another along the pathways of the Pleasure Beach. The carousel of gallopers was a feature of the Pleasure Beach south of Watson Road for a few years from the late 1970s.
There's a couple of photos this time in response to requests. The first request was for any shots I might have of the Steeplechase ride in action.
These two photos were taken in 1982. The vast majority of my photos from this year were taken in black and white. I could process the films myself whereas colour films had to be taken to a chemist or photographic shop for developing and printing (D&P as it was known). This cost a considerable amount of money and it was far cheaper to put black plastic sheets over the bathroom window and process my own black and white films. Photography is free now, once you have bought the camera or phone. It was once quite an expensive hobby.
The other request was for any shots of Blackpool's donkeys and their operators. I don't have many of these I'm afraid. But this was one that I took off the deck of Central Pier. The tide was still on its way out and very little of the beach has been uncovered as yet. The structure at the top centre is one of the legs supporting the old lifeboat house. The sand still wet and dark to the seaward side of the walking donkeys.
The sea was so close to the beach in fact that people were playing in it at the side of the pier's arcade. These four young girls were shrieking and splashing away at each other and having a great time.
The Rock Shoppe. Rock was such a large part of going to the seaside when I was small. It was almost unthinkable not to have a stick of it. I remember going at least once during a week's holiday to watch it being made, though this seems to be a Great Yarmouth more than a Blackpool memory for me. We lived in Rochdale at the time and Blackpool was a fairly regular (if not as often as I'd like) trip whilst Great Yarmouth was a car-testing long run to a place where locals spoke with a strange accent.
As a boy it was fascinating to watch the letters being formed and then the rock being stretched until the massive column, too large to hug, was stretched to the thickness of a stick of rock, snipped into the right length by one of the rollers who used their whole forearms to roll the rock so that it kept its round shape and didn't flatten whilst it cooled.
The forecourt of the Hounds Hill Shopping Centre became a favourite spot for buskers in its early days. Here Dorothy Perkins occupies the spot currently taken by the Disney Store. The glass-roofed forecourt was free of stalls and units at that point.
And on the same day, these were to be found at the entrance to Hounds Hill from Adelaide Street. They were quite good - a trio playing folk instrumentals with guitar, accordion and a dulcimer.
A couple of the photos from this bunch of candid shots of people in Blackpool come right up into the current century. Most of them were taken on the Pleasure Beach this time but there are a couple which weren't, so let's start with one of them...
I just absolutely love this one. The year is 1979 and the lady is in the middle of processing in her mind the skimpy nature of the girl's shorts. She falters and then can't resist looking back to confirm what she thought she saw!
On the Pleasure Beach and from the same year. For several years this set of Gallopers was to be found on the park south of Watson Road.
Whoops, I've been clocked! But what was it they were all so intent on gathering around? Answers on a postcard to...
By 1995 The Big One was the big draw on the Pleasure Beach. Opened the previous year, the ride followed Pleasure Beach traditions in setting a number of records: on its opening date it was the tallest and the steepest roller coaster in the world. It was the fastest in Europe, second fastest in the world and was the longest in the UK.
Ah, the old faithful! Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machine. It was a bit of a disappointment to him as he had originally wanted the public to experience the sensation of flight and his original intention was to fit controls to let riders raise and lower the carriages. The fairground trade (several of these rides existed), no doubt wary of the potential for riders plunging into the ground, vetoed this and he thought the end result little better than a "glorified merry-go-round!"
Whilst undoubtedly a great viewing spot for watching the Grand National coasters race for the finish line, the window looking over the track as the cars dipped beneath the paving to rise again to the station was at its best late in the afternoons or early evenings. Before that on sunny days you had to contend with the shadows of the row of buildings containing toilet blocks, popcorn and sideshow stalls etc.
The trick was to expose for the shadows. After all of these articles no one yet has admitted to spotting themselves... Don't be shy folks!
We are all the way through time up to 2006 for the last two shots (including the second one of the Grand National). This is the Roller Coaster emerging from its station and banking left to join the chain lift for the pull to the summit.
The last couple of days I've been scanning some of my colour slides, taken in Blackpool. I'd love to say that my filing system for slides was as good as my system for black and white negatives - which were stored seven strips of five negatives in plastic or tissue pages in a binder. The page would be dated and the negatives numbered by strip with negatives A to E.
Colour slides were single photographs and whilst also mainly stored in similar albums on pages with 20 individual plastic pockets, many of them got taken out to be stored in those long magazines that fed into a projector ready for those winter nights when the "big screen" would come out. As different presentations were put together, some for family, others for the local photographic society etc. they inevitably got mixed up a bit and because I also used to send them off to magazines for publication it got too easy to get them mixed up and wonder what year they came from... So thirty years on, here's a few slides most of which I think come from 1986!
Looking up the Promenade from South Pier. The windmill opposite Waterloo Road was more for decoration than milling flour (which it never did). It originally was installed to disguise a ventilation shaft at Manchester Square in 1931 and was moved to the Promenade opposite Waterloo Road in 1963. It was illuminated during the autumn illuminations and the sails were motorised so they would turn. It was removed to allow the sea defences and new promenade work to take place a few years ago.
If any of these photos is not from 1986 then this is one of the most likely candidates. From 1976 to 1981 we lived adjacent to the Promenade near Manchester Square and at weekends would often just walk into town early on Saturdays. We then moved down south shore and a bit away from the Prom but it was still a regular occurrence for us to walk down to the sea front and into town.
Every morning the council used to send these lorries out to wash the Promenade roadway. High pressure jets on the front of the vehicle used to blast at the road surface and rotary brushes would follow. This does pre-date the June 2008 regulations requiring horse-drawn landau owners to fit dung catchers to their horses. At first ridiculed as "nappies" in the national press, the catchers, designed by the RSPCA, did play a huge role in cutting down the much criticised piles of pongy poo on the road.
A sunny day on the North Pier. The least commercialised of Blackpool's piers has always remained the favourite of sunbathers. The side benches may get a little uncomfortable after an hour, but deckchairs could be hired regardless of the state of the tide either on the northern side of the pier or in the sun lounge which not only provided shelter from the wind but had gentle entertainment from the organist.
The pier tram was later to commandeer the northern half stretch of the pier. But for now it was a quiet haven for relaxation. With few personal electronics and no Internet people read books, magazines and newspapers. The cassette-playing Sony Walkman was well established by 1986 and their first portable CD players (called Discman until 1999 when they became CD-Walkman) were brought out in 1984.
I remember taking this photograph from the pier one Saturday morning. During the week there had been a death from drowning in the sea which had been featured on the news and yet people still thought think of Blackpool as a gently sloping and therefore safe beach. There are currents and underflows however. This young lad isn't necessarily an idiot. But his parents... Respect the sea. It won't respect you at all...
Donkeys by law had a day off every week in Blackpool. Like the tourists themselves, the donkeys would lie in wait (well... stand in groups...) for the tide to go out and would then be amongst the first on the beach as soon as a bit of sand appeared. The first eager sun seekers were advised not to wear expensive shoes on the beach as feet are much easier to wash...
Walking past the front of Blackpool Tower one day I came across "Little" Jimmy Buchanan, stooge to the great Charlie Cairoli. Jimmy was a star in his own right, recipient of Heaven only knows how many pies in the face over his many years performing with Charlie. He was happy to pose for this portrait which I hope brings out the warmth of his character.
Having stepped as far back as possible and leaning backwards over the railings of the Promenade's edge, I almost manage to fit in the full height of Blackpool Tower with a wide-angle lens.
This one could be either 1984 or 1985. Taken at Blackpool Zoo it shows the female orang-utan Azimat with her daughter Victoria. Vicky was born in 1984 and is now the matriarch of the orang-utans at Blackpool with two daughters of her own, Cherie and Summer. Born with a dental problem, she was taught by keepers to bare her teeth for inspection and as a consequence delights zoo customers by grinning at them regularly!
Yesterday we decided to be tourists for a day. We started off with breakfast with Gill and Grace and David and Jeannie in Quilligans and then whilst the ladies went shopping and D&J went off to do their own thing, I took myself off down to the North Pier.
It was a gorgeous day for being out and about and I decided to go onto the pier and take a few photos.
As you walk down the ramp onto the pier this Victorian Penny Arcade faces you at the bottom of the ramp. I love these places. They are bits of my childhood that I can relive and wallow in. When I was a boy and Mum and Dad took us to Blackpool, the arcades were still full of these wonderful machines, hardly any of which relied on electricity. They were all mechanical machines.
Most of the machines are a little later than Victorian, but many of them date from Edwardian times - 1901-1910.
Above, the Bryans Clock on the right is one such. A game of chance where winding the key after dropping your penny causes the big hand to spin. If it stops over a red line, you win. They hardly ever stopped over a red line of course...
The shooting gallery used tiny ball bearings to shoot at targets. They were fired by spring action, the spring contracted when you pulled the trigger until it was released as the trigger reached its full draw. Animal welfare would have a riot with these today - many of them had metal cats as the targets, which fell over backwards on a pivot when hit.
The North Pier never went in for the full scale amusements and darts and hoopla stalls along its length. It remained true to its original purpose - that of walking over the waves and resting in the sun. Just a few shop kiosks were to be found along its length and even those sold more refined goods. They no longer sell fur coats, but most are food related. Being on holiday obviously requires stoking up at regular intervals. Ok when I was a slim teenager - not so good now...
At the far end of the pier is a fairly modern 2-storey carousel. Of more interest is a smaller kiddies' roundabout with some far older items to sit on or in. I'd say they date from the 1940s or 50s. Western stagecoaches, rocket ships and train locomotives - engines as we used to call them.
I met up with Fran again and we took her shopping home. But given the weather which was showing no signs of reverting to the year's usual heavy showers, we decided almost immediately to go out and ride one of the new trams. They had started running in April and we had yet to set foot on one.
So we decided to play tourists for the day and got on a tram at Bispham, heading for Fleetwood.
I've described the trams in the previous entry, so I won't repeat that here. The people sat opposite smiled indulgently when I whispered to Fran "Ooh! We're on a tram!" in best excited schoolboy mode.
I gathered they were from London. They spent the entire journey moaning about how long it was taking. "We've been on this thing half an hour already!" he complained in a refined voice. She vented her spleen with a vicious (but refined) slap against the window, crushing a small fly with a satisfied grimace. I struggled to keep a straight face...
We arrived at Broadwater. "Oh, Broadwater," she exclaimed in a surprised tone, "It's lovely there!" Now I don't know which Broadwater she had in mind. I used to work in Broadwater, Fleetwood at the Nautical College in the mid 1980s and it's a nice place for certain, lots of houses and a couple of shops where the tram tracks cross the road, but "lovely"? A step too far methinks...
And so we reached the terminus at the Ferry. As we got off he stopped me and said "Where is Freeport?"
My surprise must have shown. "Freeport's out of town - you should have got off about four stops ago for there." The stop after Broadwater in fact...
"Can we not walk there?" he gasped. The tram conductor told him to get on a No.1 bus. We left them to it and bought ice creams from the large fish and chip restaurant nearby.
We wandered up the Promenade which is very pretty. The surface has a different coloured sinuous line like a river with tiny metallic fishes stuck to it that kiddies love to walk along and there are statues and memorials to fishermen who have been lost at sea over the years. There are a couple of lighthouses, one huge and one small.
We started to walk back and watched the ferry cross the River Wyre from Knott End. We stopped for a coffee at a pavement cafe, sitting outside, watching people and trams going by.
The latest female fashion for wearing tights under incredibly short shorts requires a restraint that wearers do not always possess. Like mini skirts in the 1960s and early 70s, the fashion only suits a minority. Unlike mini skirts, this particular fashion calls for a sense of gusset management, or perhaps selection, that, I have to say, causes several spectacular fails...
Ah well... mini skirts > leggings > tights with micro shorts. Times move on...
We had bought day tickets for the trams, this being cheaper than a single return trip. So to make the most of them we decided to ride the tram all the way to South Pier and went for tea to Pablo's Chippy on the Promenade.
The last time I was in there was probably when I was taken in by my parents with my brother some time in the 1960s. I remember distinctly that fish and chips with bread and butter and a cup of tea was two shillings and sixpence. Today it is six pounds and twenty five pence but you also get mushy peas and a choice of tea, coffee or a standard cup of fizzy mineral. You would have paid extra for the peas and alternative drinks in the 60s. 50 years on the price has increased 50 times. Which is probably about right. So with the extras this was darn good value. I don't recommend restaurants lightly.
It was clean, it was fast service and the food was excellent. As a bonus, the two blokes on the table behind Fran made it hilarious. Somewhat the worse for drink, one was trying to teach the other to speak French. So this is the conversation as it went. I swear I am not making this up...
"Bonjour..."
"John Bower"
"No - bonjour..."
"John Bower..."
Repeat ten times...
"Try again: bonjour"
"bun jower?"
"Now try: je m'appelle Martin"
"Je propel Martin..."
"No... je m'appelle..."
"My uncle used to say that to me. He's not with us now."
"Was he French?"
"No, he went to a better place"
"Oh dear... well you still remember him though?"
"Yes... he moved to Torquay..."
Thursday 27 May 1982. I went down to Blackpool's North Pier to the second heat of the weekly Miss Blackpool Contest.
At the organ is Raymond Wallbank, who had a shop selling musical instruments in the town.
Contestant No.1 please... (fanfare). Sadly I didn't manage to note down the girls' names apart from the winner of the heat - and I can't give that away so early...
And what she looks like when not obscured by a microphone!
Getting good at this obscured faces thing! Contestant No.5.
And she was moving fast here too so lost focus. I'll catch her next time!
Meanwhile Contestant No.7 is taking to - no she's leaving the stage...
Step forward contestant No.8 - oh blimey, she's off as well!
Sad to say that not everyone is giving the contestants their full attention. Come on! These girls are putting their all into it!
Staying wide awake, however, is judge, skater Robin Cousins.
Contestant No.9... leaving the stage...
Once all the girls have been on in turn, they come out to line up together. First they line up on the stage.
Then they line up in front of Robin Cousins, lucky lad! He's so embarrassed, he's closed his eyes!
He gets an all-round view.
A shortlist of six contestants is agreed. Having been selected, they line up on stage again and Robin now has to decide on his final three placings.
In third place is Contestant No.1.
Runner-up is Contestant No.11
Winner of the second heat of Miss Blackpool 1982 is Contestant No.5.
She is Wendy Phizacklea from Barrow.
A final appearance on stage. Each of the placed contestants has a prize cheque in an envelope. Having peeked, Contestant No.1 looks quite pleased with hers!
Of course, (ahem! ahem!) what I really came for was a photo of Raymond Wallbank...!
The Press are taking their photos of the winner, Wendy Phizacklea, so I join on the end of the line.
It can't be denied that she absolutely deserved to win!
I seem to recall that she turned up a couple of years later in one of the national contests, Miss UK or Miss Great Britain, but I wouldn't swear to it. If she happens across this article perhaps she could leave a comment.
