First Gig with New Keyboard

We played a charity gig in aid of Sports Relief last night at Bispham Conservative Club arranged by the ladies from Sainsburys store next door. They raised over two thousand pounds for the charity altogether so a tremendous effort.

We did a couple of spots, starting and finishing the evening and there was a performance by Britain's Got Talent contestant Tom McLeod.

The new keyboard sounded good, but I'm still not totally familiar with it yet and there was a moment's panic when I couldn't find an entire folder of rock and roll songs. It took a while before I realised there were too many folders to show on one page and there was a page 2 button lit up! Duh!

Anyway we got everyone up dancing, which we were told was a most unusual feat!

Carrying all the gear down a very steep fire escape in the dark was a bit hairy!

Gynn Square Trams

This postcard shows trams turning from the Promenade into Dickson Road at Gynn Square Blackpool. The route, to Blackpool North Station closed on 27 October 1963 and there is no trace of rails left anywhere along the route today.

At the same time the tram sheds at Bispham were closed along with the route to it down Red Bank Road. For another twenty years or so the rails to the sheds were visible in the car park of Alpic, a cash and carry that opened in the old sheds. Today the sheds have gone and the car park now serves a building on Red Bank Road itself - the Sainsburys store.

This being a John Hinde postcard (taken by John Hinde himself) it has several examples of the painted red coats, I mentioned in an earlier post! At time of writing the Gynn gardens are still there and have a colony of rabbits which can be seen quite often munching the grass and flowers!

Walking Race Up The Lights

Ow, ouch, oh my bones, agh, need hip replacements...

We walked the entire length of Blackpool Illuminations. Over 5 miles according to the map but either it is more or the average speed of walkers is nothing like the 4 miles an hour they say it is... We were with a group of women (hmm, yes I was the only bloke!) from Sainsburys where Fran works and as some of them were seasoned walkers we set off at the boggart. (translation - we were walking bloody fast!)

We had tagged on to a party from some ramblers' association and we took a tram down from Bispham to Starr Gate near the airport and almost as soon as we set off with some of the ramblers in front someone said "I'm not going so slow..." and we moved up eighteen gears. I had taken the camera but there was little chance of taking photos if I wasn't to fall way behind. As it was, I nipped to the loo when we reached the North Pier and then had to step up until I looked as though I was in a speeded up film to catch everyone up!!!

I took just one photo of the Illuminations and had to run to catch up with the ladies who were by then just little orange dots in the distance... "Do you want a jelly baby?" one asked. So who's got extra energy for chewing??? It took us just less than two hours to walk all the way back to Bispham by which time my shoes were smoking... Someone said they must be new because they had been squeaking... That was my joints for Pete's Sake!!!

Sore feet, sore back, hip joints telling me they do actually exist and I should be aware of that... Sheesh, I can't wait to do it again... groan...!

Return to Blackpool Illuminations Index Page

The Drifters at Sainsburys

Fran works as a supervisor at our local Sainsburys and seldom comes home with tales of superstars dropping in for a packet of washing powder.

In July though (we've only just got the photo) the Drifters were appearing in Blackpool and (complete with guitar) dropped in to see Anne who was a big fan and who was retiring from the store.

Fran managed to get an autograph and has promised to try to get our band, Creeping Bentgrass, a high-profile gig at Sainsburys...

On This Day...

I thought it might be fun to look back to see what photos I'd taken over the years on this date: 9 May.

There's absolutely none would you believe!!! But had I done this yesterday then I'd have come up with the following...

8 May 1977 - the christening of our daughter, Gillian, who later this year is getting married. Of all the family shown only Fran, Gill, myself, and Mum are still with us.

8 May 1982 - ITV were filming their series "Airline" with Roy Marsden, using Blackpool Airport and the Dakota aircraft of Atlantic Airlines.

8 May 2005 - Fran was doing the Blackpool 10k Fun Run with colleagues from Sainsburys.

So... 9 May - not a big news day in the Burke household!