Fourth Blackpool 1977 Photo Album: 1

Another photo album full of photos taken in Blackpool in 1977. We've already seen two articles from it of the Jubilee Air Show and this time we turn to the tram tracks for my content.

I'll start with a tram that was only painted in this particular livery for just that year, 1977 being the Queen's Silver Jubilee year! Brush car 634 was chosen the previous year to be painted in a special livery to mark Blackpool Corporation's centenary anniversary and the design forms the basis of the Silver Jubilee livery.

Boat tram 605 stands temporarily empty at the Pleasure Beach loop.

The resting point between journeys also gives us another chance to admire the special livery for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

Brush car 632 on the Promenade heading north towards the Central Pier, sports a more basic and more familiar colour scheme.

And to wind up this article, a handful of photos of maintenance car 753 at Starr Gate. This had been built from Standard tramcar 143 in the 1950s.

By 1977 it was barely the bones of the Standard car it had once been. The top deck had been removed and an inspection tower installed. A bus engine and generator allowed it to work independently of the power lines.

I'm not sure how many of these albums I have altogether. Over 30 certainly, but of course they are not all from 1977. And many of the photographs in them are prints from negatives that I may have already scanned and shown. But there's a couple more articles to come from this one yet.

Blackpool's Jubilee Air Show (Part 1 of 2)

Back in 1977 everything was labelled "Jubilee". It was the year of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and after a period when the Royals were out of vogue all of a sudden Britain could not get enough of them. The entire country went red, white and blue and Blackpool celebrated with a Jubilee Air Show, held at and over the Squires Gate Airport over the weekend of 28-29 May 1977.

The airport was not as busy then as it was to become. Apart from the Isle of Man, round the Tower and the occasional mail planes, it was fairly quiet. Quiet enough at any rate to hold the air show overhead with just a couple of regular flights taking off or landing between displays.

I was there myself and yet when I look back at these photos I took almost 40 years ago, I'm amazed at the carefree, let the punters walk round the aircraft atmosphere that there was. Yes there were a few barriers - even then, Health & Safety was not about to let people wander about the runway. But they could could walk around very close indeed to the aircraft including some which would have display slots during the day.

As witness the crowd around the Fairey Swordfish - we'll have a closer look in a minute - during one of the pauses in the programme to allow a local plane to land.

There were two Spitfires flying that day, one of which was licensed for a full aerobatic display and the other which was allowed to fly up and down alongside the row of spectators at the barriers but without doing any loops or rolls.

The Avro Lancaster, probably Britain's most famous World War II bomber, was there in the shape of the City of Lincoln which flew during the day and when not airborne was parked close to the barriers.

The Fylde Radio Controlled Models Society had laid out a display before the Lancaster. I think there was a smaller version of a Lancaster there. They too gave display flights of their models as part of the day's programme.

A few shots of the Lancaster...

It had been built right at the end of the war, too late in fact to carry out any hostile missions. Instead she was put to use undertaking aerial surveys over Africa until 1952 when she returned to the UK to face an initially uncertain future. Luckily she was spared and restored and joined the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in 1973.

The Fairey Swordfish was one of last biplanes in service with the British armed forces, serving in the Fleet Air Arm as torpedo spotters and dive bombers. Already considered obsolete by the start of the war, the 1936 Swordfish never-the-less had great successes in their field and served right through to the end of the Second World War both in Europe and the Far East.

The photos here have been scanned from prints, the negatives having been lost I'm afraid. Yet another of my collection of photo albums from the year 1977.

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