Like many children from the northern mill towns, I looked forward to going to Blackpool during the school summer holidays.
With seven miles of sand, piers, spectacular funfair, theaters and the iconic tower as a backdrop, this seaside town captured the very essence of the great British coast.
Not even the gray sky overhead could dampen my spirits as I headed to the Pleasure Beach amusement park with my cousins and friends.
While most would enjoy fish and chips and ice cream on the beach, our mothers would instead rise at dawn to prepare fresh kebab rolls, spicy omelettes, parathas (flat-fried flatbreads) and – for the adults – sweet, milky Pakistani tea poured into giant flasks for the adults.
After going on as many rides as we could handle at the Pleasure Beach theme park, we kids ran back to join the adults in the parking lot, having worked up an appetite. We must have been a sight, a dozen Asian people eating out of the trunk (and after talking to friends I know we weren’t the only Asian families to do it!).
Blackpool is well known throughout the UK as a popular seaside resort. Pictured: The resort in 2009
A typical street in the heart of the seaside resort of Blackpool. The picture in September 2021
Blackpool has previously ranked in an ONS survey as being one of the most deprived places in the UK. Pictured: A closed shop in 2019
Many shops (one pictured in 2019) have closed in recent years on the high street and promenade
Holidaymakers riding donkeys on the beach at Blackpool in July 1954
For working class families, Blackpool was value for money – and to some extent still is. The ‘Lancashire Riviera’ remains Britain’s most affordable seaside resort with 18 million visitors a year.
The Sex Pistols’ John Lydon recently recalled his own beach holidays with his parents.
John, best known by his stage name Johnny Rotten, said: ‘They used to be great places when I was a kid. Mom and Dad dragged us down there for what felt like hours in a traffic jam. But it was absolutely fantastic. It was working class people throwing sand at each other.’
The singer will include Blackpool in his UK-wide tour, which starts in May.
“A lot of this tour that I’m doing will be in coastal towns and they really show how run down Britain has become,” he said.
He is right. Blackpool today is not the one that Lydon and I visited as children.
Once a thriving holiday destination on the Irish Sea, Blackpool has become another struggling seaside community.
Part of the reason is because of cheap package holidays abroad. In May 1962, the first charter flight of the new British airline Euravia took off from Manchester to Spain’s Palma de Mallorca.
The resort has been a popular destination for decades. Pictured: Blackpool Tower and the beach in 1890
A general view of a roller coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in April 1980
A couple go into the sea on Blackpool beach on August 6, 2003 as the temperature reached 35.9C
With flights, hotels and transfers – not to mention guaranteed sunshine all year round – who wouldn’t prefer that to rainy England?
Then there is the poverty.
In 2013, a report issued by the Office for National Statistics named Blackpool as one of the worst-off coastal towns, along with Skegness, Clacton, Hastings and Ramsgate. Blackpool’s proportion of children in local authority care is the highest in the country.
What has also not helped matters are the major reductions in state funding for local services. Some areas of the city are so bad that their residents have compared them to war-torn Beirut, where children reportedly play outside without shoes or socks while drug addicts roam the streets.
Alarming new research shows that the northern regions and coastal areas of England experience a much higher mortality burden from alcohol, drugs and suicide, collectively described by the grim phrase ‘death of despair’.
Blackpool has the highest rate of these deaths at 83.8 for every 100,000 deaths. Compare that to the area with the lowest rate, Barnet in London, where the figure is 14.5 deaths per year. 100,000.
British veteran champion Norman Barrett MBE poses next to an interactive exhibition of himself at Showtown, Blackpool’s first ever permanent museum
An interactive exhibition at the new Blackpool Showtown Museum which captures the town’s history over decades
Blackpool-born actor and singer Alfie Boe OBE poses at the entrance to Blackpool’s Showtown Museum
Donkeys on the beach near the central pier on Blackpool Beach in Blackpool
Elderly couple enjoying the sun on Blackpool beach in August 2003
Crowds of people queuing outside Tower Circus, Blackpool in the 1930s
Man dives into an overcrowded swimming pool in Blackpool in August 1937
It is a far cry from when early 20th century commentator Thomas Luke celebrated Blackpool as ‘one of the wonders of the world’.
Still, efforts are underway to restore the city to its former glory. Last month the council was awarded £90m. in ‘Levelling Up’ funds to rebuild some of the most deprived areas.
Council leader Lyn Williams said communities needed better housing and investment.
“We want to create strong neighborhoods — stable, thriving and sustainable neighborhoods that have access to things like health care, decent jobs, quality housing, schools and recreational activities,” she explained. ‘We want people to love where they live.’
Then there is the long-awaited opening of Blackpool’s first ever permanent museum.
Open to the public from Friday, the £13 million Showtown museum is located behind the resort’s now-faded seafront, on the site of one of its many former pleasure houses, The Palace nightclub.
Exhibits include Strictly Come Dancing costumes, comedian Peter Kay’s purple suit and Stan Laurel’s hat. Visitors can also see the Blackpool police cell that Harry Houdini escaped from in 1905, an Orville the Duck doll and a toilet seat harp made by Charlie Cairoli, Blackpool’s famous clown.
Street lights are seen in the traditional holiday destination of Blackpool at night on October 5, 2005
Crowds of holidaymakers and kiosks offering tea, coffee, ice cream, puppies and cockles and prawns on Blackpool beach in August 1983
Orville the Duck doll and a toilet seat harp made by Charlie Cairoli, Blackpool’s famous clown.
The V&A Museum in London has lent 28 items, including a lion tamer, Tommy Cooper’s trademark fez and Sooty and Sweep dolls. The characters became children’s TV favorites after Harry Corbett bought Sooty from a joke shop on Blackpool’s North Pier in 1948.
Almost 10 years in the making, Showtown has been made possible thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, various government and council grants, plus charities including the Ken Dodd Foundation.
Managing director Liz Moss wants the museum to focus on the city’s place in the entertainment industry. “We hope it will help as part of this rejuvenation of Blackpool,” she said.
If anywhere needs a bit of rejuvenation, it’s Blackpool. And it is a sign that the seaside resort is not quite ready to give up. But it will take more than just cashing in on nostalgia to make Blackpool thrive again.