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!

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1977 Blackpool Photo Album 4 - When The Tide Comes In

Continuing our series of photos from my 1977 album of Blackpool. We are still mooching up and down the Promenade, but today the tide is in so we'll have a look at what holiday makers would do when the beach was off limits.

Use of a telephoto lens has played with the perspective a little here. I was standing underneath the pedestrian road bridge whose shadow crosses in the foreground. It appears as though there is an army of poles standing sentry, leading towards the North Pier and holding up the tram wires and the same goes for the line of lampposts on the central reservation between the northwards and southwards lanes of the roadway. On the right a crowd of people wait to cross the road to the Tower, reminding us of a time when there were kerb stones...

Next to the Tower is the blue-green honeycombed front of Lewis's store, a true landmark of the Promenade. I must have been in there countless times, yet all I can remember is that marvellous front facia and an arcade of window displays that was accessed from the Promenade.

In the foreground a proud nan pushes her grandchild who is wearing a smart navy blue cardigan or jacket with white piping. He or she is bent down to admire the tiny wheels of the ground-breaking MacLaren baby buggy. Every single baby in 1977 had one of these. They were all the same design, there were as yet no imitators and they were available with deckchair-style material of either blue and white or red and white stripes. They folded down to a hitherto undreamed of small size and were great for taking babies on buses or in cafes and restaurants where the old style baby pushchairs took up too much room.

A little further on and a family are walking to catch the Fleetwood-bound tram. To their left an elderly man is wearing a suit for his stroll along the Promenade. All through my childhood in the 1950s and 60s, people wore their best clothes when out for the day and even by 1977 the tradition was slow to disappear, particularly amongst the older visitors. People still dressed up to go to a show whether it was at the poshest theatre or at the end of the pier. Whether a formal suit or a more flamboyant style (this was not long after the glam-rock era after all) people would go out looking their best. Alas; punk rock would break into mainstream during this year and "looking their best" came to include bin bags held together with safety pins...

As we walk along the Promenade, past the end of the Tower, we take a quick glance up Victoria Street. This street would undergo radical change over the next five years as almost every building would be replaced, narrowing the street which became closed to traffic and obscuring much of this view of the Winter Gardens Coronation Street entrance. A fine display of blue denim flares is marching past the corner of the Tower Lounge.

The impressive looking tower with its tiled roof on the left hand side of Victoria Street belongs to The Little Vic pub. A sign advertising Steaks sticks out from the Majestic Grill. This street was choc-a-bloc with cafes and restaurants at one time. There was the Egg and Bacon, Granville's Restaurant and Milk Bar, The Mirabelle Grill, a Wimpy, and Stanley's Restaurant which had a magnificent frontage to rival The Little Vic.

We start to head southwards, passing the front of Blackpool Tower. In true seventies style the fantastic decorative brickwork of the Tower building is obscured behind plastic and tiles. Several noteworthy mosaics though make up part of the building's front and although these have disappeared subsequently, some at least are preserved and displayed inside.

The Tower Circus is billed as Circus Fantastic and features the familiar face of Blackpool's beloved clown Charlie Cairoli, who is in his 38th year of performing in the ring at the Tower. In early 1939 Charlie and his wife had performed in a circus in Munich in front of Adolf Hitler, who presented Charlie with a watch as a memento. That September with the outbreak of war, Charlie had walked to the end of the North Pier and flung the watch into the sea. He would perform at the Tower to 1979, clocking up a record-breaking 40 years before retiring due to ill health. He is remembered with great affection in the town.

Over on the seaward side, the tide has come in and sunbathers are forced off the beach. Keep Out signs have been chained across the stairs leading down to the sands which are totally covered in crashing waves. Watching the waves crash up at high tide is a time-honoured pastime, if not always a sensible one. When the sea is at its most spectacular it is as well to remember the weight of a full bucket of water and reflect that some of those crashing waves are made up of a hundred such buckets. Quite enough power to knock someone down and drag them through the railings.

Not so powerful today though and a father and his two children, with yet another of those MacLaren buggies, stands to watch. Perhaps he is looking over towards the pier jetty in the distance and thinking that the fishermen standing on it are somewhat close to the waves!

On a sunny day the sunbathers are not put off by such a small thing as a few feet of water. They simply move lock stock and deck chair up onto the Promenade and set up camp there. On a windy day the brightly striped canvas wind breaks, usually held up by thrusting their feet well into the sand, are wedged into the tricky woodwork of the deckchairs and if they lean a bit, well no one minds really! Buckets and spades, still a feature of a childhood holiday have to be abandoned for a while, but comics, books and newspapers come out. There are no personal stereos or Sony Walkmans yet - the prototype would not be developed for another year and it will be 1980 before they appear on sale. A few people may hold transistor radios to their ear, but in general, anyone playing music loud enough to annoy others would be frowned on and most people respected the right of others to a bit of peace and quiet. Many people would spend their entire holiday on a crowded week in a little oasis of either sand or concrete with their neighbours' wind break just a couple of feet in front of them!

Good Lord! What is this?!? A monstrous ogre has appeared on the facia of an amusement arcade on the Golden Mile. As people watch, it turns its head slowly from side to side, glowering at the passing throngs. Most of them seem amused rather than alarmed. Not so the great and glorious worthies of the town. The local Evening Gazette's letter pages and news columns have never seen such outrage! "Is this the sort of thing we want on the Golden Mile?" scream the headlines. Councillors indignantly debate the abomination. "Lowering the tone of the Golden Mile!" they cried, conveniently forgetting that the Golden Mile was built on such things and far worse. Indeed what a shame that new advertising laws forbidding any false descriptions have swept away the two-headed giants, women with disembodied heads and living, breathing half-human, half-animal creatures from the Golden Mile. You knew they were all done with smoke and mirrors but they would now have to be described in advertising as illusions and that would not draw the curious in quite the same way.

The mermaids returned to the sea, the giants slouched to conceal their height and the women carried their heads off with them to where... no one knows... Eventually the ogre disappeared too. The Council chamber gradually subsided and the staff editing the letters page of the newspaper breathed a sigh of relief.

At the other end of the same arcade and attracting much less notice was a visiting display of replicas of the Crown Jewels. Bits of coloured glass and paste were displayed with pomp and subdued lighting. And all for an entrance fee of - wait for it - ten pence!

Looking back northwards from the Promenade in front of the Golden Mile. We can see the Tower with its silver top and flags for the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the Woolworths store, still occupying its site with the clock tower on the corner, the pedestrian bridge crossing the roadway, and on the left hand side near the bridge, one of the boats that used to take visitors on a half hour sea cruise off the beach. Sea cruises from Blackpool were less than spectacular. The coastline has no great rocky outcrops like Cornwall, though there are a couple of chunks sitting on the beach or just under the waves up near Bispham. And boats can't sail round into a nearby bay opening up new vistas and scenes to look at.

At Blackpool, the boat simply sailed away from the coast with Blackpool becoming a thinner and thinner line of buildings until it was time to turn around and sail back. There were no seal colonies and visiting whales are so few and far between that they make the newspaper headlines whenever spotted. As exciting as the boat ride, was the journey on a World War II vintage lorry which took you down to the water's edge from the beach and from which you walked the plank onto the boat.

A glance at the people walking towards us reminds us that the seventies was a period of renaissance for knitwear...

And I'll finish this time with this shot taken from the pedestrian bridge. The tide is going back out and the sands are starting to become visible again. The keen sunbathers, eager to get their spot are already sitting on their deckchairs close to the slope of the slade with the receding waves occasionally lapping at their feet. Someone else is heading down to join them whilst others are quite comfortable on the Promenade and showing no signs yet of moving their deckchairs.

A pretty young mother is guarding her pram with a baby just a couple of months old. Time for me to go and give her a cuddle, because she's waiting for me to hurry up and take my pictures!

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From Riva to Torbole and Back

Sunday 19 August. Sunday morning and we set off to walk the 4km to Torbole.

This is the day for some wonderful Lake Garda scenery. Although we set out straight after breakfast the temperature was already in the mid to high 30s and climbing. The last 2km were gaspingly hot!

This is one of the most scenic walks to do. The Via Gardesana. From this little inlet you could hire boats and small yachts to go out on the lake. Tiny black fish were swimming in the water.

Now we come to the beaches. Pebble beaches but none the worse for that. This being a Sunday they were crowded. The north of Lake Garda is within easy reach of Munich and lots of Germans come down for the weekend either to laze on the beach and top up tans or to squeeze themselves into lycra and scare you to death by powering past on racing bikes, groups of ten or more all dressed exactly the same, determined looks on their faces, sparing neither man nor beast... Even if they are not exactly in a race they act as if they are and any lesser mortal who doesn't give way will soon be shy a limb or two!

I didn't take any photos of the beaches because I didn't want to be labelled as I labelled the several old guys who were wandering up and down past the bikinis and odd topless young damsel openly holding their i-phones in the air, videoing the female delights they passed. For Heaven's sake! Now I can appreciate the feminine form as much as anyone but this was a step too far methinks! However, nice to see that the Italian elderly have a grasp of technology...

And so we reach Torbole. Hot. In need of a drink. Wanting to sit somewhere in the shade. And this spot, overlooking Torbole's harbour with the delightful little building on the jetty affords us just that with a set of tables under a roof but open on the side to allow us the view.

We were sitting behind the arched windows seen on the right of this view. No matter what angle you choose that little building just looks perfect!

At the northern end of Lake Garda the mountains rise up on both sides and it's almost impossible not to point your camera here there and everywhere, snapping away.

What an expensive place this would have been twenty years ago when we all had to use film and then pay again to have it processed. I used to spend a fortune on film and "D+P" as we used to call developing and printing. I'd have bankrupted myself here!

We spend a little time in Torbole. Then walk down to the landing stage to catch the S. Martino ferry back to Riva. It's only 4km. But that is just too far to repeat the walk in this heat!

Back in Riva and we have the now inevitable stop at Gelaterie Cristallo. From here we can sit and watch the ferries arrive and depart. Tipple of the day is an Aperol Spritzer.

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