Blackpool Pleasure Beach 1987 / 1989

We start in the year 1987 this time. As we get closer to the time of writing (a mere 37 years...[WHAT???]) there are fewer and fewer photos to draw on in my collection. Work was increasingly taking more of my time especially after I started a new job in 1988, my daughter was getting interested in other things and not wanting to go on rides the same and I was writing both magazine articles and a novel which was published in 2012 as a Kindle book - details in the side column!

Anyway here we are in 1987 on the south side of the park with my daughter and nephew on the front of this clown-themed coaster-cum-roundabout.

As more and more adult rides moved onto the south side of the park crowds got noticeably larger and more walkways had to be created to get them to the rides. These took the form of ramps from the Watson Road crossing and pathways with bridges over existing rides such as the Turnpike / Grand Prix.

Here we are on the ramp from Watson Road having passed the Roller Coaster on our left and coming up to the Pleasure Beach Express station and a row of shops on the right.

Before us to the left is the Space Invader: first a video game, then a wide-bodied pinball machine (at this point there was one still in the arcade opposite the Ghost Train entrance, which I was to buy myself - the pinball not the Ghost Train...) Now it became a dark ride roller coaster.

From across the Promenade roadway a view of the north entrance to the park. We have now jumped in time to 1989. Maxim's Flying Machine can be seen and at the front of the park an amusement arcade which at the time had but was about to lose another row of pinballs including the normal-sized version of Space Invaders which was called Silverball Mania. It also had Elektra, Devil Riders, Road Kings and Mousin' Around. None of them were working all that well. Those silver balls are solid steel and travel fast before they hit something so pinballs require a lot of maintenance.

The Rainbow ride just inside the entrance creates lines of colour against the night sky as it shakes the change out of riders' pockets. Behind to the right, the station of the Cableway can be dimly seen.

Back outside the park a similar long exposure of the Space Tower from the corner of Watson Road. Taking such photos was mainly a matter of using a very sturdy tripod to enable a shutter speed of a couple of minutes and guesswork as to a few other settings. On a windy night - forget it! The vibrations caused by the wind on the tripod and camera would result in an unsharp image.

Also these were taken on film. No one made film greater than 400 ASA at the time. You could "push" a couple of stops but now on digital cameras you can choose to shoot at the equivalent of 3200 or even 6400 ASA (or ISO - they meant the same thing in terms of film sensitivity to light and were identical calibrations).

Blackpool Pleasure Beach Index

Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 1985

We look back this time to 1985 for this article about Blackpool's family-owned fairground.

We'll start with a pretty girl on the Dodgems. This was a particularly hard ride to photograph because it was a large covered rink and was therefore quite dark inside, yet with (by comparison) blinding light coming through the side unglassed windows which affected the light meter of any automatic point and click camera.

The Tidal Wave was originally located on the south side of Watson Road. A fabulous ride particularly if you got away from the middle of the swing boat.

The Water Chute had gone up in the north east corner of the park, next to the Funhouse. It opened in 1980 but had previously operated at Manchester's Belle Vue park from 1957 to 1979, the last year being operated as a concession.

Previously on this site had been a winding waterway that was used by self-drive little "putt-putt" petrol-driven boats that in turn had, in days gone by, operated on the parks' large lake before the Log Flume was built there. The ride was called "Speedboats" but the boats had no chance of living up to that name...

Another view of the Water Chute. It was renamed Vikingar in 2000 in keeping with the new Viking-themed ride Valhalla that was opened that year following the clearance of the site of the Funhouse after the fire that had destroyed it in 1991. Vikingar closed in 2004.

The Wild Mouse was opened in 1958 and was, I think, one of only four such rides in the world when it closed in 2017.

The Grand National double roller coaster dates from 1936 and is still from my point of view the best of all rides ever existing on the Pleasure Beach. Apart from the station, hill lift and final length of track back to the station, it is hidden from view from within the park so this was taken from Bond Street which runs around the back of the park.

The Roller Coaster (does what it says on the tin) is a rather more gentle woodie coaster on the southern half of the park, with a station right against Watson Road. It was built in 1933 and used the hill lift from the earlier Velvet Coaster of 1909. It was renamed the Nickelodeon Streak in 2011 (doesn't really do what it says on the tin, if indeed the tin makes any sense at all...). As far as I know (I've not been on the park since admission charges came in) you are not instructed to undress and streak your way around the track...

The Monster! was a sleek, black, version of the old Octopus ride. It replaced the 1935 Turtle Chase in 1968, which was relocated to the south side of the park and Monster! was in turn replaced by the Ice Blast in 1995.

The Pleasure Beach Express pulls out of the station, drawn by locomotive Princess Royal in distinctive maroon livery.

In this second shot, loco Mary Louise is clearly modelled on the Flying Scotsman even down to the its designated number: 4472, sits at the platform. On a sunny day the Pleasure Beach Express would always be full to capacity. It was unchallenging even to grandparents and offered some unique views of the south side of the park, particularly if crossings with other rides occurred when the rides coincided with each other.

We caught sight of the trampolines in a previous article, but by 1985 most of the pits had been converted to ball ponds with the name Bubble Bounce displayed on the ticket box.

A temporary fairground ride it may have been, but this magnificent carousel of gallopers with its gold embellished lion heads on the top drew both riders and spectators alike.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach Index

Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 1983

This time we are in the year 1983 and once again meandering around Blackpool's famous Pleasure Beach.

We'll start with the Wild Mouse ride, now sadly gone to much public outrage, it disappeared overnight. What a fabulous ride it was. This was the ultimate white knuckle ride, much more so than far newer rides such as The Big One which gave about the same amount of bruises but far less of the terror of anticipation. The photo was taken from a balcony in front of the Cresta Cafe.

We saw the Go Karts briefly in a previous article but here they are in wondrous Technicolor. Yes, for a while the film brand most associated with the cinema brought out 35mm film for cameras and I used to use it quite a bit. This was print film rather than transparency or "slide" film and, as with all my colour prints, I've scanned the original negative strips wherever possible.

Taken on the same day was this shot of the Space Tower. Looking a little as though it's in need of a lick of paint, the once-bright red building with portholes for windows was an amusement arcade and held some older coin-operated machines and games for a bit of nostalgia. Whereas riders of the Space Tower entered the ride on a lower level, this is where you got off so that you had the temptation of the machines and less of the crush with any queues of riders awaiting their turn.

One evening with the other members of Blackpool & Fylde Photographic Society, we had a wander around the Pleasure Beach and I took this shot in the sunset. Except it was a bit too early for the colours to be so sunsetish (hey, if Shakespeare can make up new words, why shouldn't I?) so I put a filter in front of the camera lens and wondered when Adobe would get around to creating Photoshop. Given that my Commodore 64 was still pretty much state of the art, (unless you were a teacher just hearing about something called a BBC Micro), it would be probably another 10 years before I would see a decent (make that "half-decent") attempt at a photograph being displayed on a computer...

The same filter was used here for a shot looking through the spiral staircase of the Casino building.

The Pleasure Beach Express in the station with driver Ted Askey on the footplate. He was a hugely popular figure with both children and adults alike, always willing to pose for a photo and he was sadly missed by all when he stopped working on the Pleasure Beach Express. He died at the age of 83 in 2016.

The Tom Sawyer rafts were a strange ride. Well, perhaps not so much strange, but they were sadly let down by their surroundings I always thought. You got on and off them on a huge circular platform which continued turning whilst you did so. A lot of people didn't like this, though there are lots of rides with similar boarding and exiting in Mr Disney's parks. Also after a trip down a short length of water - call it canal or river or trough as you see fit - it emerged onto the lake under the tracks of the Log Flume which dripped onto the roof of your raft. (Aha! That's why they had a roof...!)

If all this excitement wasn't enough, some isolated attempts at rustic scenes had been put up here and there. I seem to recall a wigwam with Native Americans? Was there a dinosaur somewhere? Someone must be able to remember it better than I can - please leave a comment. To me they seemed totally out of place as though someone had given a sheet of hardboard and a few tins of paint to someone and said "Just do your best..."

Gulliver! He held up the Monorail track in the southern half of the park. Well someone had to... There was a clown with different faces front and back too. I must have a photo somewhere but I'm struggling to find it.

My daughter and dad on the Little Dipper. She always insisted on the front seat. I always made for the back seat of coasters when I could. That way you go fast down hills instead of up them. The ride gets through names like I burned out gussets in those horrible woolly knitted swimming trunks in the 1950s... It was the Little Dipper, then the Zipper Dipper, then (I'm astounded to find) the Warburtons Milk Roll-A-Coaster and now the Blue Flyer.

The mind boggles at the Warburtons one. Apparently they sponsored it, but the signage didn't change. Why not the Arctic Roll-A-Coaster, or the Jam or Chocolate Roll-A-Coaster? The Fancy-A-...? The Little Dipper described it perfectly. What is "Blue Flyer" all about?

The Big Dipper meanwhile has determinedly held onto its original name and well done it! Here it approaches the footbridge on the way back towards the station. There's something disconcerting about being on a ride that appears to be about to crash into a solid chunk of concrete. It does dip at the last minute to pass safely underneath the bridge though. Come to think of it, there's something mildly disconcerting about standing on a bridge watching a train full of screaming people hurtling towards you...

And bringing this article to a close is this shot of mini-motorbikes being ridden by mini-people somewhere close to the track of the Pleasure Beach Express. Judging by the queue, they were quite popular!

And now I want my readers to be especially brave... I have no photos of the park from 1984. [GASP] I know. But we'll be back for a look at 1985 in due course. It was in 1984 that I started working in the Education Sector and visits to the Pleasure Beach started to dwindle I'm afraid.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach Index

Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 1982

Yes, we are back in time once again, this time to the year 1982 for our look at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. In the cinemas were Evil Under The Sun which I watched for the first time just the other night, Blade Runner, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, First Blood our first look at Rambo. Also Fast Times at Ridgemont High, ooh-Phoebe Cates..., The Beastmaster ooh-Tanya Roberts - ok, I'm going to stop this now, it's not good for a man of my age...

Noah's Ark is almost our first sight as we walk into the park at the north entrance. Sadly I never went in it. But hopefully it smelt and still smells better than the real one must have done...

A quick turn to the right gives access to this thoroughfare lined with cafes, amusement arcades, attractions such as the Hall of Mirrors and the Haunted Swing - I never went on that either, I missed out on such a lot in life... Then there were rides like The Whip and The Wild Mouse - I definitely went on that! Then the River Caves.

The River Caves ride had recently added a splash drop at the end of the ride. To avoid passers-by getting splashed,the walkway in front of the ride which led to a flight of steps up to the Watson Road bridge was replaced by a gently sloping ramp.

This meant that passers-by were already above the splash point by the time they reached it and could look down on the hapless riders who expected nothing more than a gentle end to the ride.

If you were paying attention a couple of photos ago instead of drooling over the thought of Tanya Roberts - oh sorry, that was me... - you may have noticed a sign pointing the way to Go Karts. These had taken up residence in a spot right at the front of the Pleasure Beach, visible from the pavement where now Ocean Boulevard blocks the view.

Crossing over the top of Watson Road here is a general view of the south side of the park. The Turnpike/Grand Prix track in the foreground is now crossed by a new footbridge to the Tidal Wave which was a great ride, particularly if you could get yourself on the back row of seats. Under the footbridge on the right is the water of the Tom Sawyer ride whose rafts were attached to a track on the bottom of the channel and the lake under the Log Flume by a loose cable which allowed them to drift a little before being pulled back to their allotted route.

The Tidal Wave at full swing!

The Princess Royal locomotive of the Pleasure Beach Express pulls its string of open carriages and the final closed carriage bringing up the rear. All the kids wanted to go into the closed carriage, which was a challlenge to any adults to enter and prise themselves out of afterwards...

The Monorail ride always looked a good bet for older or more infirm grandparents, but I remember my own Nana looking aghast at the thought of having to lift her foot high enough to get in. This would be a memory from around 1968 and things like ramps and assistance for those with physical challenges were not common.

Under the Monorail track at this point was a small pond with radio-controlled boats, operated from a coin-slot console in front of the pond.

The Steeplechase had three tracks but you seldom saw more than two in use. It had had a rocky start as the horses, when the ride was new, had a nasty habit of stopping dead. Nutting the horse - or even nutting the rider in front - was not good, but thankfully the problem was treated as a priority and got sorted!

The Cyclone was one of the better temporary fairground rides in the south side of the park. Metal construction and a compact foot space yet with a three-storey track that had some good dips and curves and a spiral, it gave a good ride.

Time to make our way back north and a pause to look at the Grand National station. Dating from the 1930s it remains the best ride on the Pleasure Beach. A twin track roller coaster with two trains racing each other and with the added bonus that it is a mobius loop. Each car starts on one track but then peel away from each other before meeting side by side on the lift hill. This means that when they return to the station they are each on the opposite track to that on which they started.

And so we finish as we started, with a view of Noah's Ark, this time from the vantage point of the Monorail. I can now go back to dreaming of Tanya Roberts...

Oh... and yes! I did meet her!

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Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 1981 (2)

There seemed to be a lot of visits to the Pleasure Beach in 1981. It was quite an eventful year for me and the family. My parents left the hotel business, I was working at Warriners Cash & Carry on Squires Gate and would end the year being made redundant after it was taken over by Bookers and merged with the Alliance Cash & Carry which relocated to our site with their management team intact... Life changing in fact.

A nightmare at the time but I bought a Commodore 64 computer with my redundancy money, taught myself to program and it shaped my career afterwards, albeit with a very uncomfortable gap for a period. So visits to the Pleasure Beach were mainly walks, rather than going on rides, though I did manage to sell a few photos to magazines and started writing articles to go with them following kind prompting from the editor of Lancashire Magazine. Is there anyone out there who remembers the John Burke's Curious Lancashire series?

Anyway, back to the Pleasure Beach. Looking back north towards the casino building along the row of stanchions that held up the track of the Monorail. At this stage the double Big Wheel ride was still in place, though it was rare enough to see both wheels going round. Riders on both wheels sat facing towards the park's interior with the sea at their backs. They rotated in opposite directions, one wheel going up whilst riders faced outwards away from the wheel and the other wheel going up whilst riders faced the axle on the seaward rear of the wheel.

The Space Tower was celebrating its 7th birthday in 1981, having opened in 1974. (Thanks to Michael Whittaker for his pointing out my original mistake in saying 1976!)

The park south of Watson Road was filling to creaking point with rides aimed primarily at adults rather than children. One popular new arrival seen here is the Tidal Wave - a full-sized galleon that swung to and fro, seen here at it's high point just right of centre.

Approaching the end of its life though was the Skyway Cable Cars. At one time a way of getting from one side of the park to the other, the south station was closed, providing just a turning point so that riders were forced to exit after returning to their starting point right at the northern end of the park.

We caught a glimpse of the trampolines with their attendant animal statues in a previous entry. Some of the trampolines were soon to disappear to be replaced by ball ponds - don't worry... we'll get to them in due course!

The Sidewinder was a more modern take on the classic 1950s (or earlier!) Sky Diver ride. It just had longer arms. The cars at either end rotated so that riders remained seated upright at both the top and bottom of the ride, so there was only need to scream whilst going up or coming down!

The bright network of white tubing at the rear holds up the station for the Revolution looping coaster and in front of it is the Cyclone coaster, also of metal construction. It would move to Southport so I believe. All of it, I mean - they didn't just extend the track for a longer ride... Which now I think of it, seems a shame really!

Struggling to remember the name of this - the Rock Planes or Rock-O-Planes? A sign warns riders not to take loose coins or other items. Falling coins may have provided a financial bonus, but customers lower down the ride getting hit by falling objects would not be as popular. The amount of rocking motion of individual pods could be controlled by the riders.

One of my favourite shots, this mirrored image (so you can read the Big Dipper sign) was published in a couple of the UK's hobby magazines for photography.

A miniature and open-air version of the Space Tower complete with toy guns. This would eventually be relocated to the park's Reception Desk within the Casino building.

The Monorail reaches as far south as it can go and takes a right-angle turn towards the front of the park. In a few yards it will travel alongside the track of the Pleasure Beach Express for a little while. Any chance side-by-side of the two rides was seen as a great bonus by riders of both rides!

On the front of the Casino building a glassed external lift had been added to take customers up to a suspended chairlift ride with animated puppets. This would later be removed to the south half of the park.

Noah's Ark dates from 1922. I can't actually remember ever going in it, though I've been in other examples. I particularly remember the one in Joyland in Great Yarmouth for instance. The Blackpool one I mainly remember for it having a gallery of waterfalls around the outside in the 1960s and for having a Tidy Lion talking and growling waste bin where you fed the lion with your waxed paper bread wrapping that your meat paste or sardine butties were packed in before you left home...

By gum, we knew how to live in the sixties... By 1981 we were moving away from beef paste for the heady delights of slivers of jellied chicken or the creamy yet unidentifiable chunks in Heinz Sandwich Spread. Thankfully I was never lured into burning out all my taste buds with Marmite...

The much-loved and sadly missed Fun House. One of the rotating heads has fallen off or been removed. They revolved in a series of jerks and made a recogniseable face either way up. Inside were a giant wooden slide, a smaller metal slide but which had a vertical drop before gradually levelling out, a turntable which you sat on trying to be the last to be flung off, a rotating barrel to walk through, cakewalks, hanging padded beams to negotiate or swing to make others fall over. And the best bit - the Monorail passed through at the back of the building on its way around the park! You paid once then could stay inside for as long as you wanted. It burned down in a huge fire in 1991.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach Index Page