Temple Street Blackpool 1968-2012

Another pairing with photos from 1968.

In 1968 Temple Street ran from Church Street to Victoria Street. On the corner of Church Street was the Stone-Dri Weatherwear shop selling raincoats. Above it was Gilbert Hair Fashions on the first floor with the School of Hair Fashion on the top floor.

Now it's the Pound Store with The Med, Mediterranean Restaurant upstairs. Next door the stately-sounding Stead & Simpson would have hidden their eyes at the sight of what was to come!

Down Temple Street was a carpet shop, the Temple Grill and Restaurant, and J.N. Diggle & Sons' Temple Toys toyshop.

It now looks much less enticing...

The rebuilding of Victoria Street cut off the southern end of Temple Street and it now ends in a small car park, litter and large wheeled waste bins that seem to have been strewn at random.

Looks nice on Victoria Street...

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East Anglia Transport Museum

Sunday 30 September 2012. We left the Aviation Museum at lunchtime and headed for... a transport museum!

We have visited the East Anglia Transport Museum several times before at Carlton Colville near Lowestoft and it always delivers a good afternoon.

There are both trolleybuses and trams to ride on and here's one of the trolley buses - a London one, or a Leyland one depending on whether you are talking about the place it worked or the make... Yes, alright, I'm being too clever for my own good... Note the double wheels at the back.

London was well represented as one of its trams was trundling about as well. The other tram shown here is from Amsterdam and had to be slightly modified with a reversible turning pole. The tramway in Amsterdam has loops at either end so the tram poles are fixed and the trams can only be driven from one end. To run this at the museum not only did a reversible pole have to be fitted but a second driving position at the back of the tram!

This is an ex-Derby Sunbeam F4A Roe trolleybus. It was our first ride of the afternoon and once we got off it, it was reversed to a parking position and the London bus took over.

This was taken from the lower deck looking towards the rear of the bus and the entrance and exit platform.

There are a couple of Blackpool trams there as well. One is a Standard tram of which Blackpool still runs at least one as part of its heritage fleet. The other is this one. Although it looks familiar it is fairly rare as it is a Vambac tram. The mechanism was a bit troublesome on these and they had a relatively (for Blackpool: a very!) short life.

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Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum

Sunday 30 September. We drove down to a place called Flixton to an old RAF wartime aerodrome where a collection of aircraft and aircraft parts have been gathered together as a museum of Norfolk's wartime contribution.

On the face of it this place is a retired persons' dream project but they have managed to amass some wonderful machines and create some brilliant displays over the years.

The exhibits are by no means limited to the World Wars either. In fact there are many jet aircraft represented at the museum, many of them displayed outside on grass, but the above photo shows Hangar 1. This is an exciting jumble of aircraft types from all eras. The English Electric Lightning - the "Spitfire of the Sixties" sits next to a Hawker Harrier Jump Jet. Both can be viewed whilst relaxing with a cup of tea in the small cafeteria in the corner of the hangar.

Also in the same hangar is this Spitfire replica. Built for the 1968 motion picture Battle of Britain many of its contemporaries were blown up during filming of German attacks on airfields.

Behind it is the fuselage from a real Spitfire.

There are loads of display cases full of Airfix and Revell plastic kits, beautifully put together and painted. Like I say, what a retirement project! 'I'm not "playing", dear, I'm making this for the museum.' I must start one near Blackpool when I retire...

A Vickers Valetta C2. This aircraft used to be open to the public to look round but no longer apparently. I remember the seats were all facing the rear of the aircraft, which was used to ferry VIP passengers about for the RAF.

And here was a surprise! Little Nellie the autogyro from the Bond film You Only Live Twice.

Whilst I was marvelling at all things aeronautical, Miss Franny was filling bags with books from a massive book sale. I even bought one myself!

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Old Photographs and a Touch of Glamour

It's been a busy old time! I know you were expecting the next instalment of the long weekend and that will come soon I promise.

This explains some of the stuff I've been spending time on recently. I mentioned a while ago that a new scanner had brought the possibilities of scanning my larger 120 film negatives. These are two and a quarter inches (6cm) square. Therefore they carry the potential for much better quality than 35mm film.

Here's an example of a shot I took in 1979 of country star George Hamilton IV

He was taking part in the annual carnival parade along the Promenade and had to put up with being squashed next to that year's Carnival Queen. I'd have stepped in if he hadn't wanted to...

I also mentioned that I'd been given the loan of some old negatives of Blackpool from 1968 and here's a sample.

The old UCP shop on the site later taken by Clarkes's Shoes and which is now Nando's (see below). UCP was a chain that once sold that most Lancashire of dishes: tripe. It was once a most commonly eaten dish. Indeed it was a fast food that sold in bulk to men coming home from the pub. Its place in that respect would be overtaken by fish and chips.

I have it in mind to take photos from the same viewpoint as these old photographs as much as is possible. The centre of Blackpool changed hugely with the building of the Houndshill shopping mall. Streets disappeared. Others were blocked at one end. The properties along Victoria Street were demolished to make way for brand new shops on both sides of the street that narrowed the street considerably. It became a pedestrianised area.

Also in my scanning I have reached a point where I was heavily involved in the Blackpool & Fylde Photographic Society. I tend not to publish portrait photographs, many of which were taken during the second half of the 1980s. Not that they were all of beautiful girls...

There was murder and mayhem on the night that the local Vikings came to model!

Great Yarmouth Weekend

Last weekend we took a last minute planned long weekend break, staying in Great Yarmouth at the Trotwood Hotel.

This was in a nice spot as you can see from this photo taken from our bedroom window!

Miss Franny has left her job to look after our granddaughter Grace, once Gill goes back to work and decided graciously that I could take her away for the weekend.

The Yarmouth season is just about come to a close, but most things were open over the weekend and there were a few people wandering up and down the prom.

The Winter Gardens was closed - apparently it is in dire need of some fairly serious structural repairs. A great shame and I hope it can be refurbished and reopened.

It's quite a while since we were in Great Yarmouth and there were a few changes we saw. The horse drawn landaus now have their own road which they share with a road train up and down to the Pleasure Beach and back. It's been well done and the landaus now cause considerably fewer problems for traffic and don't have to contend with drivers who are unused to horses. A win-win situation.

The Pleasure Beach was open but not exactly crowded. Their log flume ride sits outside the perimeter wall and north of that there was a new set of kiddies' rides that have taken the place of something I can't remember for certain... putting greens? I'm not sure. Certainly a putting green has disappeared from somewhere!

We ate at The Arches on Regent Road, brilliant staff and good food and we went back there each night. I don't recommend restaurants as a rule but that must say something!

Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee were at the Pier Theatre that night. Had it been the following night we might have gone, but having driven around 7 hours from Blackpool (massive hold-up due to an accident west of Norwich) we decided not to bother. It was the last pier show of the season too so we didn't get another chance. But the hotel lounge had excellent large comfy sofas and we settled there with a good book and a drink!

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New Scanner Arrives

Phew! I can now start scanning again as my new scanner has arrived.

I wasn't actually sure that it was the scanner when it arrived - the box was big enough to hold at least half a dozen...

But after digging through all the shredded cardboard packaging inside I only found one box!

It's a Cannon 9000F flatbed and film scanner all in one, so I've been able to replace two separate scanners with just the one. Meant I had to tidy up my desk... duh!

So now I can scan not only my 35mm negatives and slides but the 120 roll film ones as well. And (pauses to let you get a bit excited) Miss Jeannie has given me a box of her father's 120 negatives showing Blackpool properties from the 1960s.

I might work my way slowly through those and take some photos from the same places for comparison with today! But of course I did have to have a go to see if it worked, so to compare yesterday's shots of Marsh Mill, Thornton, with the same place before the craft village was built, here's a shot from 1983/84.

Oh yes! It works!

Breakfast and a Windmill

Yes, you don't often see the two words "breakfast" and "windmill" together, but there you go...!

Saturday started with a celebration.

Miss Franny has finished work in order to be able to look after our granddaughter, Grace, once Gill goes back to work. So the day after the slightly tearful goodbye at Sainsbugs - it was more the rest of the staff than Fran I think - we met up with Eddie and Gill and David and Jeannie for breakfast at Quilligans.

David and Jeannie had phoned to pre-order a bottle of cava and some orange juice and we enjoyed a Bucks Fizz breakfast! Love you guys!

Later in the day we were round at Gill and Eddie's and walked round to the Marsh Mill craft village, where Fran and Gill wanted to buy some things.

I took the camera along to get some shots of the windmill.

And speaking of photography, I'm afraid I bust my film scanner one night this week. So if anyone was wondering why it had gone slightly quiet on my Flickr site (no longer active) then that's why. It's going to have to wait until I find a replacement.

Considering how long I have had it though, I should think I could probably get an upgrade in quality or at least size resolution. And I'm looking for one that can do my 120 roll film negatives and slides too.

Windmills, Wind Pumps Watermills Index

1,000,000 Views at Flickr

Well, you did it! I've been checking the view statistics at Flickr throughout the day and when I looked at 20 minutes past eight o'clock tonight I had topped the million mark by a hefty 115!

A few minutes later when I snatched a screen grab it had gone up a bit more...

The photo with the most views during the day was this one with just 9 views - so it's place in the day's listings could change very quickly!

A massive thank you to you - my readers and viewers.

Get Me To A Million!

I'm getting all excited. This morning as I checked the statistics for my Flick account I found I was just 1000 views short of one million!

So this is a plea - help me reach the magic number today by having a look at a few photos on my site. Here's a few tasters of what you might find...

No surprises to say there's a few of Blackpool! In fact there are 20 sets of photos with almost 1400 photographs to choose from.

There are also 21 sets of photographs of different parts of Great Britain. All the countries and regions of Great Britain have their own set and there are sets of holidays we have taken in the UK plus sets for such things as bridges, rivers, canals, roman remains and pubs!

There are 22 sets with over 2700 photos of our travels abroad. Mainly of Europe, though there are 164 photos of a trip to Orlando, USA in 1993. Places include France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece, Croatia, Egypt and Turkey amongst others. Lots of cruise ships to look at too!

If it's animals that you like there are 12 sets containing over 500 photos of domestic pets, farm animals and zoo animals.

There are almost 5000 photos in a collection called simply Other. It houses sets on things like academic buildings, portraits, family, churches and religious sites, coin operated machines such as inball, jukeboxes and arcade games, celebrities, toys, night shots and my sketches.

There are two sets in the above collection of all of my black and white collection. These also appear in some of the other sets but the B&W sets bring them all together. Note also that a photo of a bridge will appear in the bridges set but also in the set for the region of the uk or the set for the holiday if it's abroad.

In the Curiosities collection you will find 22 sets of photos on such topics as castles, hillforts, stocks, crosses and memorials, legends, stone circles, statues and windmills. 1200 photos await you there. Again, they will also be in other relevant sets.

In all there are currently 8379 photos altogether - blimey! If you try hard you could have me well on the way to two million views!!!

Model Trains at Fleetwood

Today I took myself off to Fleetwood High School to see an exhibition of model trains.

I never put so much effort into model trains myself. I was happy if I could set up a track and got one end to meet the other so a train could go round it instead of all this fiddle yard nonsense where you send a train from one end to the other and then send a different one back...

But if I'm totally honest, I never bothered much with scenery either... The front of the sofa was a mountain range and I had couple of plastic Airfix platforms and a few buildings, none of which in a real town would have stood anywhere near each other...

This one was modelled on a container yard. The crane gantry went up and down and the crane came down and picked up containers from lorries and placed then on trains or vice versa. The modern diesel engines made quite realistic sounds too - an innovation that was quite missing from the train sets of my childhood.

But I couldn't help feeling it was a boring setting for a model railway... sorry guys! Get some trains going, never mind all this fiddling about lifting boxes up and down... Still... whatever floats your boat I suppose!

And talking of things that I never had as a kid - this stall (Kytes Lights) had LED lighting sets for emergency vehicles and platform lighting etc. Brilliant! Really realistic too - model ambulances and fire engines had blue flashing lights behind their grills!

There was a large Scalextric track in the main entrance. The trouble with Scalextric was always two-fold: you needed a space the size of your entire home's footprint and the cars move at a scale rate of something roughly twice the land speed record and therefore fly off at corners far too readily...

I used to have a OO scale set called Minic Motorways which was excellent and you could have trains and cars going and both scaled the same! There was even a level crossing so you could crash them into each other!

Chesfield Tramways represents a 1950s town with Blackpool trams running through it. A brilliant set with copper wires strung over the roadways and mostly scratch built trams running up and down. There were Glasgow and Sheffield trams in their fiddle yard I noticed so they weren't just Blackpool trams. The trams actually do pick their current up from the overhead wires too.

A massive layout and N gauge trains allowing for a really intricate and detailed scenery layout. Or a lot of grass... The river crossing was good but not enough trains going for me. Surely that's the point of model trains? I can't be doing with all this bell clanking and lever pulling and signal setting - just get some trains going! Heh heh - ain't I a stinker?

This one was good - I loved this scenery! The setting was Arizona and there was a wrap-around layout with operators standing inside. There were more buildings on the other side so I wondered if we were seeing the back of it, but there was a train going round all the time, so top marks. The loco was making all the right noises too, including a deep hooter blasting out to wake the folks in the nearby reservation...

But for the best ever train sets you need to watch an old Addams Family episode. Two trains would be on a direct route to collision and the watching guest would say "They're going to crash!"
"You think so?" Gomez would say, pressing the plunger to blow up one of the trains!

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