At The Movies

Going to the pictures is something embedded in me since infancy by Sonia Livesey who is about eight years older than me and who was trusted enough by local mums in the streets of terraced houses in Little Layton where I grew up to round up the tines to go to Saturday morning Cinema Club at what was then the splendid Art Deco Odeon Cinema, and is today Funny Girls - the Odeon of 2016 is now on Rigby Road where Blackpool's then Rugby League and Greyhound Track existed.

I cannot remember any of the films we enjoyed "back then" (the 1950s) being in colour - but b/w was fine.  And it was my introduction to stories being told in episodes, Flash Gordon, of instance, not realising until five or six years later that Dickens, for instance, let his tales play out over numerous episodes in print magazines - stories on an early version of the "Never, Never" as books were expensive, but a magazine could be afforded each week.

The Saturday morning film shows began with a famous sportsman, usually from memory, a boxer, displaying a recently-won title or Lonsdale Belt, then a newsreel (no TVs or 24 hour news, but where  learned the brand Pathe).  Then the latest episode of the serial, a break to buy ice lollies, and a film at the close.  Lots were from The Children's Film Foundation, and featured youngsters playing on bomb-sites which to us in Blackpool looked to be great fun.  Blackpool had escaped major bombing, Central Station and Seed Street being the only recipients of Nazi bombs, probably from planes getting rid of their left-overs from a raid on Manchester or Liverpool.

But what really sticks is the reek of chewing gum and body odour and the inability for an audience of children to keep quiet for longer than a few seconds.

What I only realised later is how much in pain and grief my mother must have felt after the shock of my father's sudden death in the summer of 1953 - and "going to the pictures" was a weekly escape.  She loved Dirk Bogard, Yul Brynner and musicals, and I'm very glad to have been taken along on her Technicolor escapes: everyday Britain was so monochrome in the 50s.

For me the movies have always represented life in different worlds, and as I aged my tastes sought out foreign films - Truffaut, Godard, Sergio Leone - and I began to apply what I had learned in writing about literature to the craft of film-making.  Directors attracted me to their movies as much as *stars* did, and Polanski's Chinatown stands out - I must have seen that at least five times and notice something fresh on every viewing.

Today, of course, I can satisfy most of my desire for film by scouring the many, many, many TV channels and their film offerings - if I visit a cinema itself it is usually to see a "live" performance of a play, often the RSC presenting Shakespeare.

Thank you for reading.

(c) C J Heyworth 29/02/2016

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This Was My Blackpool In '68

       

         Sometime in the mid ‘60s my family moved to Blackpool. My parents were in the

licenced trade and the opportunity to have a pub on Blackpool Prom was their dream

come true. This was at South Shore, the aptly named ‘South Shore Hotel’, a site now

occupied by The Viking Talk of the Coast and our pub no longer recognisable from the outside.  My younger sister and I had the beach for our playground. A beach so

crowded, we would have to pick our way through clusters of holiday makers and family gatherings to find a space. The smell of seafood mingled with sweet, fragrant

candyfloss and donkeys. Summer holidays lasted forever. Our feet had blisters from

Woolworth’s plastic sandals.

         This was the Blackpool my grandmother enjoyed. Nan and Grandad, taking a break from helping my aunt run her pub, would come and sit in ours. Grandad would make himself useful behind the bar or in the cellar. Nan, always in the bay window of our upstairs sitting room, would leave her knitting untouched to watch the world go by. There would be chuckles and exclaims of  “Oh quick, come and see this! Well, I never!”  Groups of young ‘flower power’ people wearing cowbells round their necks and singing loudly was not commonplace to Nan. Bemused, she’d be ‘well I never-ing’ all day as she drank pots of tea and smoked her Park Drive. She only moved if my mum took her across to South Pier for a game of bingo in the Beachcomber amusements. I loved her to bits and it always made my day to see her wave from the window as I came home from school. I probably drove her mad with none stop chatter when I sat with her. We’d wait for the Illuminations to come on as more noisy throngs marched along the prom. Out of season, Nan was happy to watch the tide come in and out and gasp at waves crashing over the sea wall in stormy weather.

             For the summer of ’68, my parents were also in charge of The Huntsman Hotel on

Central Promenade. It’s holiday flats or something now, but back in the day it was a

busy hotel and the residents bar was popular with stars and celebrities appearing in the summer shows. I was delighted to meet a favourite of mine, Don Partridge,  when he held a party there.  He was a street busker from London, made famous by his songs ‘Rosie’ and ‘Blue Eyes’ and was appearing at Central Pier for the season. Engelbert Humperdinck was on at the ABC and Peter Gordeno was also there, or maybe South Pier. My mother took me to meet Engelbert back-stage after we’d seen his show. I was too star-struck to speak.

            A couple of years ago, my husband and I went out to dinner at The Viking. It was our anniversary and a nostalgia trip for me. The restaurant is upstairs, along the front of the building where our living accommodation used to be. Some rooms have been knocked through, but I could tell where the original walls had been. It felt good to wander around and stand for a moment where I’m sure our bay window would have been, all those years ago.The ABC Theatre, as it always was to me, is recently demolished.  So many memories, not just Engelbert, but Frankie Vaughan, Tommy Steele, oh I have a long and varied list.

Time passes, things change. The Blackpool I grew up with, my Nan’s Blackpool, will never come back, but what a wonderful time we had. I am privileged to have been there. My poem captures that magical summer

Thank you for reading,  Pamela Winning.

This Was My Blackpool In ’68.

Taking a tram from North Pier to Starr Gate.

A summer of fun and staying up late.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Anne, Auntie Kath and me, all holding hands

Crossing the Prom to get on to the sands

Where the grumpy deck-chair man always stands.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

We were young ladies with panache and style,

Playing the penny arcades for a while,

Frittering our spends on the Golden Mile.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Spinning the Waltzers three times in a row.

Make it go faster, we don’t like it slow,

And then the man said, “That’s it, off you go!”

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Out to a summer show, straight after tea.

Engelbert tonight at the ABC,

A back-stage delight for my mum and me.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Got to get ready, there’s no time to lose!

My trendiest outfit is what I will choose…

A pink mini dress with bright orange shoes.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

A time of peace, love and Flower Power,

Charlie Cairoli and Blackpool Tower,

Seaside and sunshine for hour after hour.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Pamela Winning,   2013

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When Elephants Strolled The Sands

'Lost Blackpool' is the theme this week - and I'm resisting the temptation to lament the sad decline of our local football club. I explained in an earlier blog (Tangerine - Follow Your Dream, 22/08/2015 if you're interested), how I was born and spent my early years in Africa and how the Seasiders became my lifelong footballing passion because they won the FA Cup in the year I was born.

We used to have monkeys in our African garden and zebras and elephants wandering through the grassland beyond the compound. Ilorin, the nearest town, meant 'town of the elephants' in the local language. Occasionally a leopard would make off with a goat. I grew up with such beasties and took them all for granted (plus the snakes and scorpions, of course).

For people living in the hills, dales, mill towns and big cities of north-west England, sheep, cattle and horses were about as exotic as it got...until they rode the charabanc or train into Blackpool on holiday and visited the Tower menagerie.

Legend has it that Dr. Cocker's Aquarium, Aviary and Menagerie, to give it its full title, was first established on the site in 1873 and functioned as a source of revenue while the Tower was being built around it in the early 1890s. When the Tower finally opened in 1894, the aquarium, aviary, menagerie and a permanent circus were among its major attractions for decades to come.

Its collection of birds and animals was regarded as one of the finest in the country in the first half of the last century. Apart from the extensive aviary, there was a monkey house with a variety of primates including chimpanzees and mandrills, a reptile enclosure containing crocodiles and turtles and an array of cages housing bears, cheetahs, hyenas, leopards, lions, a black panther, porcupines, sloth and tigers.

Visitors could wander round and marvel at the sights, sounds and smells in ornate surroundings, even take afternoon tea within view of the creatures on display. Regardless of modern-day views on the ethics of keeping wild animals in close confinement, the inhabitants of the Tower were, by all accounts, well cared for and bred quite successfully. It must have been an extraordinary thrill to encounter such exotic specimens for the first time.

Underneath the menagerie was the elephant house, elephants being a big attraction of the Tower circus. On early mornings when the tide was out, it was not unusual to see the elephants strolling on the sands for their daily constitutional. How fantastic must that have been?

I never visited the Tower menagerie. It finally closed on its centenary in 1973 following the opening of Blackpool Zoo, adjacent to Stanley Park. Now I can only ever visit it in my imagination...

Imaginary Menagerie
If the world possessed four far-flung corners,
in the great years of its waxing
Blackpool Tower would proudly stand
as the centre of an earthly square
and gather to it, Noah-like,
fare from occident and orient,
antipodes, septentrion,
creatures sure to thrill
the mill-girl and her beau,
delight the pasty-faced young children
from the back streets of beyond,
amuse indulgent parents on a spree
and scare old spinsters sitting down at tea.

Furry frisson of the north,
majestic snarling of the south,
quivering bristle of the west
and powerful prowling of the east -
here at the fecund centre of the world
how could anything compare
to the splendour of these beasts in their repair
in gilded cages in the air?

Oh to have seen it, heard it, smelt it,
felt the spell of that menagerie
in the tower by the sea,
then to have wandered along the beach
like those mighty elephants,
trumpeting that we were free
- but not free -
out on a wakes week,
feeling cool damp sand beneath bare feet...

Thanks for reading. Those of you who've been there, seen that - let me know what you think.
Have a good week, S ;-)

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A very lost Blackpool

With the demolition of many of the town's architectural gems from years gone by, in the name of "Progress" (which is laughably also the town's motto), there is much of Blackpool that its ever transient population know little, if anything about.

I have posted in the past, a poem written about Blackpool in its heyday, when the Wakes Weeks would turn out the whole population of mill towns for their yearly holiday break. Thousands upon thousands of people would descend on our seaside resort, to let their hair down, fill their boots and relax as best they could. In that poem, I compared then with now, and what this place has become.

I wanted to go back further though and write something which told of the origins of our "Black pull". In the following poem, there is equal measure of fact and fable (or artistic license as some might say), and I would like for YOU to discover where those lines are drawn. Blackpool's history is fascinating! I urge you ... go and find out more for yourself!


Origin:

I want to take you on a journey to Centuries past,
Picture it in your mind!
Close your eyes and come with me
As time begins to unwind ...

A coastal moor so very bleak,
windswept with bog and dune grass.
No inhabitants except for local wildlife,
birds wheeling and screeching en-mass.

The odd twisted tree bent from the Gale,
stands like an old man hunched with age.
Isolated, with its branches reaching out,
pointing the way like an ancient Sage.

Further inland, a line of deepest green
marked the start of a Forest so dark,
providing shelter of sorts from the elements,
away from the mire and landscape so stark.

There were settlements scattered here and there
throughout this densely wooded land ...
Gypsy encampments, this was their home,
Earth and Human living hand in hand.

Hunting and fishing just to survive,
it was a quiet and peaceful life.
Disturbed by none, they flourished here,
even through harshest winters and through strife.

Legally, the land belonged to the King,
to do with just as he chose.
But though the folk who lived here did no harm,
they soon found of it he wanted to dispose.

We come forward through time, just a little bit,
to find a Lord has been awarded this land.
Along he came and built a Lodge,
Vaux (Fox) Hall, his place to hunt and relax by the sand.

It became a popular place for his friends,
to come and enjoy the air by the sea.
Then he started driving out the local Gypsy’s
by burning the Forest, forcing them to flee.

It was the start of development along this coastline.
One by one, more houses appeared.
Mostly Fishermen just earning their keep,
on the land of the Lord they so feared.

As the Forest receded and disappeared,
a town slowly grew over the sand and peat.
With a reputation for curing all that ails,
To come to the “Black Pull” was a real treat!

But spare a thought for those Gypsy’s ...
They lost their home without real reason or rhyme.
This is a story of the origin of our town,
I hope you enjoyed our journey through time.

Thanks for reading! ;-) x

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Lost Blackpool - a walk through memory.

It's an interesting theme.  I was thrilled by an exhibition of photographs at Stanley Park Visitor's Centre during summer 2015.  I took Mum along and she told me some of her recollections of The Palace Ballroom and Raikes Hall Gardens, with its wonderful entrance gates.  My Great-Grandfather was a major shareholder in the company and we have his will, a huge scripted document on parchment with a wax seal.  The description of assets held is strange reading and is better left for another audience. It was a very long time ago.

Today I want to take you on a walk around the Blackpool of my childhood. The year is 1969.  We arrive in Blackpool on the Ribble 158: A double decker, red bus that travels hourly from Preston via Kirkham and Weeton along Preston New Road to the Oxford. Thomas Motors and The Oxford Pub are situated here.  We turn right into Whitegate Drive, passing a building that I am sad to say was called The Spastic Society, then Elmslie Girl's Grammar School on the right.  Whitegate Drive is lined by elegant houses and attractive shops. We pass The Heatlth Centre, an imposing red brick building that was formerly a hospital, then on to Devonshire Square. The Number Three is here, (so called because it was the third stop on the original coaching route to Preston) and we journey along to Devonshire Road Hospital at the corner of Talbot Road. There are bus depots here and Talbot Road bus station.  As usual it is busy. At least ten buses stop here at one time. People queue under shelter but it is vast and cold.

The walk down to Queen Street is not unpleasant.  The tiled, Art Deco, Odeon Cinema is just along on Dixon Road but we turn left to pass the Central Library and Grundy Art Gallery. This is a very select part of town.  There are two furriers, Springs and Gladys Whittaker, several gown shops including Chez Elle and Diana Warren, Harts the Silversmith, Lawley's china shop and The Capo di Monte Centre. There is a card shop, a lingerie shop, a bag shop and Data Furniture. Cave's Corner is there too as we turn onto Maybelle  Avenue.  Here on the left is MacFisheries and a sewing machine shop. Opposite is a tiny chocolate shop, where I buy a single Cote D'or bouchee with my pocket money.  Abingdon Street is lovely.  The Post Office, curtain fabric shop, jewellers and Hunters outfitters on the corner of Clifton Street, with a man on horseback jumping a fence.

We will walk down here toward the Tivoli cinema: It is my favourite thing to do.  There is a pet shop in the arcade that leads back onto Talbot Road and a wooden native American Indian stands on the pavement outside The Smoker's Choice. On the opposite side is The Oyster Catcher.  Beneath The Tivoli is The Bossley Grill steakhouse. So we cross the road, past the Town Hall and there is Edwald's fabric shop and on the right, upstairs, opposite British Home Stores, my parent's favourite Lobster Pot Restaurant. Onto Bank Hey Street now, near the Tower.  Lewis's on the right, Chelsea girl on the left, then RHO Hills and then a large corner, Marks & Spencer and the biggest Woolworths. There is another on Talbot Road.

No time for fish and chips at Hesketh's today. So we turn onto Victoria Street. On the left is Charisse, a very chic children's clothing shop, The Little Vic pub (that should have been saved). On the right, Collette's boutique, then the Gazette building with its imposing tower and useful clock. We nip through to the Grand Theatre entrance and nip into the UCP for a pot of tea and toasted teacake. As we walk up Church Street, I can see the giant teddy bear in Timpson's shoe shop, Laura Lynn on the right and Dolcis on the corner. Orry's school outfitters, Brown & Mallilieu luxury cars, then Vernon Humpage and The Danish Kitchen.  We have to run for the bus now, along King street passing the ABC cinema, Ardron's hardware and St John's indoor market hall.

Quite a trip wasn't it? The streets of Blackpool were clean, classy and beautiful. This week, I have written a poem about a building that was intentionally pulled down in the early 1990's, despite public opinion.  Built in 1939, it was a National treasure, a public asset and its loss was felt by local people for many years.

 

Demolition Derby

It was a National disgrace.

An act of near-sightedness,
The crushing of civic pride,
to a 'just-for-profit' mess 

An Olympian building crumbled

Under the wrecking ball

And after the dust cloud settled
Nothing remained at all. 

Elegant Art Deco Styling,

Tiling of Ocean Blue,

A towering treasure for leisure,
with sensational promenade view.

The pool was a full eighty meters,

Divided in swimming lanes,

with springboards and high diving platforms
attracting the top sporting names.  

They hosted the National Champions,

And Wiesmuller summered a show.

Yes Tarzan was here for a season,
everyone packed in, row on row.   

And each year, The Interschool’s Gala,

Would echo to raucous degree,

With colour block scarves and blazers, 
Arnold, Queen Mary, Montgomery.   

And I would be there in purple and gold,

Cheering my peers in the heats,

As the frenzy arose in the final,
We'd be screaming and standing on seats.  

It stood sixty years from the thirties,

They said it was past its prime,

The Derby Baths was forgotten,

The memory faded with time. 

They gave us an ugly Sandcastle

At South Shore, by the sea,

Not a pool where kids could exercise,

Just a mammoth monstrosity. 

Now all that we have is a wave pool

That bobs with obese bums and thighs.

No swimming lanes or high boards:

Just loads of blubber-filled slides.

The demolition of Derby Baths,
Began Blackpool’s unhealthy demise,

How could councillors look to the future

with pound signs clouding their eyes? 

 

Thank  you for reading. Adele

 

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Lost Blackpool

I was born just after World War II and lived just off Westcliffe Drive in Little Layton

The joke amongst conductors on the Corporation buses which travelled to Bispham & Cleveleys, or to Victoria Hospital or to the new (then) council estate at Grange Park was that Layton was “The Dead Centre of Blackpool”: beside Layton Square was one of the town’s cemeteries.  Slightly further inland next door to Layton Institute is still today the town’s Jewish Cemetery.

So those are two things which remain from my '40s and '50s childhood, but what I remember my parents talking about were the tram services from North Station to Layton, and I experienced myself trams from North Station to Gynn Square along Dickson Road, as well as the route from Talbot Square up Clifton Street towards what was then the General Post Office, turning briefly right along Abingdon Street, then left and out of the town centre along Church Street to Devonshire Square where the line headed along Whitegate Drive as far as Oxford Square before turning along Waterloo Road until it joined Lytham Road near South (railway) Station and what was then The Palladium Cinema.  At that junction the line from Manchester Square to Starr Gate led south with a branch at Station Road to South Pier.

I cannot remember precisely when the inland tram routes ceased to exist, but it must have been in the early 1960s as I remember using a tram along Dickson Road to attend a Town Schools Swimming Gala at Derby Baths (another lost local treasure) in the early 1960s.

I’m glad that unlike so many towns and cities Blackpool did not entirely scrap its “old-fashioned” tramway as we have still the Promenade route at least with swish modern carriages which glide so silently along from Starr Gate to the ferry terminal at Fleetwood.

And that’s a further loss – the Song of The Trams – squeaks, clangs and rumbles.

Thanks for reading, Christo.

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Talking Funny

Some coincidence, given this week's theme of dialects, that we have just been paying our last respects to Stanley Holgate, local Lancashire dialect poet, who died earlier in February in his eightieth year.

Affectionately known as Stan the Man (or 'Stanza Man' if you read the Blackpool Gazette), Stanley Holgate only began writing poetry in 2011 after the death of his wife Marlene. They had been together for over fifty years. Although he had a large extended family and was never on his own, he said there was a profound sense of loneliness in the aftermath of Marlene's passing and he just took to writing as a solace. "A poem appeared and then another and it progressed from there."

Stan joined a number of local writers' groups and found himself attending four poetry classes a month. "I can have a poem rattling around in my head and it just keeps me sharp. I just enjoy it so much." In a little over four years he amassed a body of 700 poems, a good number of which were written - and performed - in Lancashire dialect; fascinating for a southerner like me to hear for the first time after my arrival in Blackpool.

He built up a deserved reputation for his poems in local dialect and was invited to join the Lancashire Authors' Association - a whole group of people talking funny and working creatively to keep the unique dialect and idioms of Lancashire's oral tradition alive (much of which, to these outside ears, sounds to be derived from French - not implausible given that the Poultons, local dynasts, arrived with the Norman conquest).

The poem below, which is best read out loud if you can manage it, won Stan the Lancashire Authors' Association Writer of the Year award in 2015.

The lad fared grand as owt. Go Stan!

Somebody What's Special
What sooart a thing is looanliness?
It's not summat tha con touch.
It 'ovvers aw rewnd th'eawse at neet,
Ah wound'd mind so much
If that's weer id ended,
Bud id follas thi like a gooast
An' comes an' sits beside thi
When tha least expects id mooast.

Like when tha'r in a busy street,
Er ridin' on a bus,
Er in a café full a fooak
Id still comes after us.
It's geet nowt to do wi' creawded shops
Aw't faces tha con see.
It's when somebody what's special
Is  no longer theer wi thee.

                                   Stanley Holgate 2014

Thanks for reading. Have a brisk one, S ;-)

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Dialects. Use them - or lose them.

Th'all 'ave to forgive me Lanky dialect today.  Tha' knows I'm a sandgrown 'un wi' watter in me boots but lately, I've bin a bit of a clothead, forgettin' me Lanky roots. I was fair havin' kittens about writin' t'blog terday but t'penny dropped yesterday, 'bout heawf an hour after I got 'ome. I was spittin' feathers and dyin' fer a reet gradely cup a tae by't time I geet 'indoers, tha knows.  I'd been at the crem' seeing off a fellow poet and Grand Lancashire lad and it were fair bucketin' down.  I looked like a dreawned rat.  Anyway, I put wood in'th'ole and it suddenly dawned on me, that I am a native Lanky speaker an' all.

Enough of that for now.  Don't want to lose you all. I need to explain.  I was born in Blackpool, the daughter of a publican, who moved us first to St Helen's when I was four and a year later to the outskirts of Liverpool where we lived until I was eleven. I had developed a soft, scouse accent by then but as any true city born Liverpudlian would tell you, with rising intonation and a rolled 'r', 'Maghull is in the country!"  Unfortunately, arriving back in Blackpool to attend Elmslie Girls Grammar School, with any degree of Liverpool accent was never going to win me house points. The emphasis on the 'ck' in 'Blackpool' went down like a French kiss at a family reunion. 

To add to the 'scouse' twang, Dad had taken a pub in a small village and most of the locals used a lot of Lancashire dialect.  Expressions rolled out of them like a foreign language. 'It'll be reet' or 'es in'th elbow room', would send me in to fits of laughter. The girls in the kitchen and a couple of the bar staff spoke in this strange dialect and I thought it was hilarious.  My two older brothers called them, 'woolly backs.'

In the village was a small, 'sells everything' shop.  They had the most clutter I had ever seen in my life. The owner, Mary Smith was a Lancashire dialect poet and was also the proud holder of the title, 'Worst Singer in The World', for several years running. Mary posted some of her poems on the shop door.  I recall one that was intended to stop people dropping litter, although I doubt that anyone reading it would really get the message. So here I was, a sort of Liverpool girl, living in a Lancashire village, attending a posh girl's school where only 'received pronunciation' would do. The solution.  Electrocution lessons: Worked a treat! 

The poem this week was commissioned by The Imperial Hotel, Blackpool, for a pamphlet entitled, Visitors in Verse.' It is a work to celebrate some of the many famous characters who have stayed in the hotel. There is a George Formby convention here every year.  So here's a tribute from a Lanky Lass to a very cheeky Lanky Lad.

Ooh Mother It’s George Formby

A cheeky little chappie,

‘A Lad fra’ Lancasheer’,

Strummed his banjolele,

Buck-toothed for ear to ear.  

Leaning on a lamp-post,

A little lady walking by,

A beauty known as Beryl.

By ‘eck she caught his eye.  

She became his missus

And managed his career,

He was soon the Nation’s favourite,

The ‘Chaplin over ‘ere.’ 

He made a good few movies,

Some at Ealing studios,

Singing ‘bout what he could see

When he was cleaning windows.  

With his little stick of Blackpool rock,

He said he liked to stroll,

Along the promenade,

‘Cause he was such a happy soul.

And when the wind was bracin’

He was often heard to say

To anybody listenin’

As he went on his way.  

“Turned out nice again then, hasn’t it?” 

 

Thanks for reading.  Adele

                                                                      

 

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