John Burke's Blackpool

Way back in 1994, when the Internet was somewhere only nerds went, this particular nerd started a web page about Blackpool. I was allocated a magnificent 5Mb of space by my then Internet Service Provider, Demon who pointed out that this should be sufficient to store around 50 books of text. Or was it 15? No matter!

Photographs though, made a huge dent in the amount of web space I had and all the photographs were a tiny 147 pixels wide. Through the years the web pages moved from place to place until I started this blog in 2007 and slowly, the Blackpool pages have been recreated and added to here. After 12 years they were becoming hard to find. Hence this index.

Each topic has an index of its own which can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each index will bring you back to this main index page.

Bank Holiday In Fleetwood

Bank Holiday Monday, 30 May 2016. We had gone south of Blackpool to St Annes on the Sunday so today we head north and come to Fleetwood.

We head for a sunny Fleetwood to walk down from the boating lake to the ferry and back. For a change I decided to fit my telephoto lens to the camera and see what I could find to photograph with it. This is Fleetwood Mount, seen over the putting greens.

There's a model boating pond and a second boating lake where dingy sailing used to be taught. When I worked at the Nautical College in 1985-6 they used to use this lake and had an enclosed lifeboat on davits and a couple of large lifeboats on the water, which are still there. I've not seen them in use for a long time, so am not sure if they are still owned by the college or not.

As we got down onto the seafront near the "Lower" lighthouse, one of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's craft was speeding past Wyre Light out in the bay. The telephoto was at 300mm for this and there's quite a bit of heat haze messing up the image I'm afraid. Heat haze off the north west coast - who'd have thought...?

I've pulled back the zoom a bit on this one but even so, if you make out the tiny figures of fishermen on the first spit of land then you'll get an idea of just how far out Wyre Light is.

Dandelions are taking over the beach! They are intent on taking over my lawn too, come to think of it...

Another full zoom, looking across the broad expanse of the estuary and Pilling Sands to Heysham Power Station. The tide recedes two and a half miles here and comes in faster than you can run. The sandbanks are riddled with gullies that fill up even faster as the tide approaches and these can cut you off from land very quickly. Given that there can be over ten metres (32.5 feet) difference between low tide and high tide you can see why Morecambe Bay is one of the UK's most dangerous places to decide to amble out for a stroll...

Knott End ferry landing across the River Wyre. That sandbank is the reason that even when it is covered and looks to be just river, the ferries do a dog-leg manoeuvre to get to the landing!

Flowers. Don't ask, I don't know. They just looked nice! If I was pressed all I could offer would be: pink flowers...

Between the gardens and buildings of the Marine Park and the site where Fleetwood's pier used to be, a path leads down to follow the seafront which heads off at right angles as the River Wyre channel also bends to head out to sea. From the path we get another glimpse of Fleetwood Mount.

Fleetwood Beach Lighthouse. Designed by Decimus Burton and Captain H. M. Denham in 1839. It is partner to the much taller Pharos Lighthouse, a little farther inland. Known locally as the "upper and lower lights", ships coming into Fleetwood up the River Wyre estuary had to keep the lights directly one above the other to know they were safely in the deep water channel.

The squat building to the left, built on stilts over the beach is - or was, I'm not sure if it is still used - a radar training facility, part of what is now the Nautical Campus of Blackpool & The Fylde College.

Having taken the beach path we are now away from road traffic and in an area much favoured by walkers, holiday makers and cyclists. A row of beach huts adds a bit of colour to the scene.

I never got into the beach hut thing. My parents when I was a child would rather sit on the deck chairs on the beach, sometimes with a wind break if it was really rough and would happily force us to eat sandwiches (such an apt name) that were gritty with sand. Well, it did me no harm. Coffee or tea came from a stall on the Promenade and the only concession to the blowing sand was a saucer placed on top of any open jugs of water or milk. The cups just filled up and we tipped them upside down before pouring into them.

A general view of the beach between the Marine Hall and Rossall Point - the weirdly-shaped building in the far distance is Rossall Point Observation Tower. Open to the public it provides a viewpoint over Morecambe Bay. It is a facility of the National Coastwatch Institution.

Pleasure flights and pilot training flights from Blackpool Airport often pass over the town. The telephoto lens picks this one out nicely. I did this myself on my 40th birthday. Of course the plane then was more like Biggles would have been used to in World War One...

Finally we complete our round trip and arrive back at the boating lake and our car.

Return to Holidays and Days Out in UK Index

New Brighton Postcards

A couple of postcards sent from New Brighton in Merseyside in the early decades of the 20th century. The first features New Brighton Tower.

New Brighton's Tower was built just after the Blackpool one and set out to be better, higher, more sumptuous and with extensive gardens. Like Blackpool it rose from a building surrounding its base which incorporated a luxurious ballroom with sprung floor for 1000 dancers, a menagerie, shooting gallery and billiard room. The tower itself was octagonal in plan and 40 feet taller than Blackpool Tower so that when it opened somewhere between 1898 and 1900, it was the tallest building in Britain. Initially hugely successful, the tower remained closed during World War One and maintenance during that time was neglected so much that renovation was beyond the finances of the owners once the war was over and the tower was dismantled from 1919. The building and gardens continued but a massive fire in 1969 gutted the building and it was demolished.

The postcard was bought in New Brighton but not posted until the purchaser, Edie, had arrived home to Horley near today's Gatwick Airport. She wrote a message to her mother in Anerley, south east London which says:

Dear Mum, I arrived home safe and sound. The train reached Horley about twelve. Love to all from all, Edie

The card was posted on 3 June 1909. Unconnected but an interesting fact all the same - some three months later on 7 September 1909, a woman and her twelve-year-old son were stranded at the top of New Brighton Tower for the night when they missed the last lift down. They were found the following morning at ten o'clock and, presumably embarrassed, left the building quickly without giving their names!

This postcard has the feel of a genuine silver gelatin photographic print and is on quite sturdy card. It shows New Brighton Promenade in the late Victorian or very early Edwardian period. Not a single person without a hat can be seen amongst the many people walking up and down the pavement. Most of them wear what look like quite thick coats too, though the young girl nearest to us at the left of the photograph is carrying her coat over her arm.

The sender, only identified by initials which are open to interpretation, probably kept their coat firmly on as the card was posted on the second of January 1922 and it seems the weather was typically northern and rough! He or she writes to a Miss D Dugdale in Blackburn, east Lancashire:

Many thanks for the pretty handkerchief. I'm staying here for a few days. It is terribly rough, the boats are unable to land today. A Happy New Year. Love from (G.M.L.? F.K.L.?)

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!

Return to Blackpool Promenade and Beach Index Page