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Goin' To Blackpool!
"Goin' to Blackpool" i always luv to tell that to the B&B ladies when they ask where i'm off to next. This usually provokes eyebrows being raised and a dubious look as to why the heck would this Yank be goin' to Blackpool?
One of my favorite places in the world i just luv Blackpool and all the great people watching and fun it provides. I'm gonna be talking about what Blackpool does for me and describe it thru my eyes. Stay tuned. I'm always interested in what others think of Blackpool - i'd luv your thoughts on this one-of-a-kind place! |
I would love to go to Blackpool!
I look forward to hearing about your trip and how much fun it was .. what a hoot :D |
Blackpool holds a special place in our family ... where m'mum met m'dad in 1943!
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Jean, I think that my parents also met at a war time dance in Blackpool! I also remember been driven through the illuminations every year as kids.
Unfortunately it's not realy my cup of tea these days - it's rather tacky and can be a bit rowdy at certain times with lots of "stag" and "hen" parties :( |
tacky yes that's why i love it i guess. Even on Coronation Street many of them turn their noses up when someone says they're going to Blackpool - it's the Cilla and Les batterby types who go there! Ken Baldwin probably never.
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My first introduction to Blackpool was in the film <b>Funnybones</b> with Oliver Platt and Lee Evans who I think is brilliant.
I loved it for being corny , tacky if you must call it that, and unsophisticated .. sometimes that is so much more refreshing than being ever so cool and hip :D |
Dreadful place OMG I would rather stay home.
MUuck |
I also LOVE Blackpool - that's where my grandfather was born & raised. We grew up in the beaches area of Toronto and when I visited Blackpool, I immediately saw the similarities. Yes, it may be a titch tacky but that is part of the charm.
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Blackpool? Two memories only. First one - driving down the seafront and seeing all the lights. It was a Humber Hawk and it must have had an open top - or at least that's how I remember it. Don't know whose car it was.
Fast forward about 30 years - and remember Neil Kinnock? Ee by gum, lad. |
Dreadful place with no redeeming features IMHO - the worst England has to offer. Think of a dirty beach, heavily polluted sea, litter and vomit covered pavements, inarticulate, rowdy, (often violent) youngsters.....Yep, I'd certainly choose a holiday there!
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I'm far from "cool and hip" Scarlett ;) I just like quieter places, scenery, etc, now I'm getting older.
I spent my childhood holidays at places like Blackpool and even New Brighton. Donkey rides on the beach, a trip up the tower and a few rides on the pleasure beach - that was as sophisticated as it got :D |
Fuzzylogic - you saw all the lights? Usually the kids were asleep in the back of the car by the time we got to the end. :D
I also remember the awful zoo in the tower with lions in small cages pacing up and down - thank goodness that has gone :( |
Maria H: You had a car? That's the trouble with this board. Too many bleedin' toffs.
The only way to see the Lights was from a Ribble bus. And I bet you never got a Wallasey Corporation bus from Seacombe for New Brighton (2d cheaper that way than the ferry). |
BTW:
Talking of seedy zoos, who can remember Belle Vue? You'd have thought it couldn't get any worse. But it's now - literally - gone to the dogs. |
Ken Baldwin?!?!?! I can see why PalQ might have made that Freudian elision, but I think he must have missed a few million episodes.
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Ken Barlow; Mike Baldwin - both wouldn't be caught dead in Blackpool; Baldwin maybe if there was a buck to me made! On one recent episode (about a year behind here on CBC) about some low-brow affair - Bet the old bartender who had been laying low in Blackpool - "Oh it's a Blackpool kind of thing"
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Flanneruk - my Dad had a succession of old bangers that he kept going with bits from the scrap yard. I think I remember breaking down one trip to the lights and being told "the big end has gone" :D
The highlight of a holiday in New Brighton was a trip on the "ferry cross the Mersey" and back. Yes, I remember Belle Vue Zoo and it's funfair too - I went with my older brother and sister and some family friends who promptly lost me - I was about 5 at the time. Nostalgia is not what it used to be, is it? :D |
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As a foreigner I find Blackpool so captivating - never seen a place like that - like Coney Island in its heyday. I especially love the Blackpool Lights - the display of Christmas lights and lit Christmas-themed neon light displays. These stretch for several miles along the boardwalk along the sea. They run from late August to mid November i believe. And as others have said the road along them is packed with cars stuffed with kids, tour buses and, along the road, the famous Blackpool trams, many of which are wonderfully illuminated themselves - some are in the shape of boats, etc. Some are double-deckers. The trams are a favorite way of seeing the lights it seems. The trams are another reason i love Blackpool - i love trains and trams and Blackpool's trams are an eclectic collection - some from Eastern Europe it seems, some old British double-deckers, but all different it seems. anyway during the Lights a sense of revelry reigns over the town - it must be a child's delight. Accommodations on weekends during the Lights can be very hard to get so book early even though Blackpool has a zillion B&Bs.
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Maria H: My mum and dad also met at a dance!!! My mother was an entertainer in a comedy/song/dance act with her father and brother, and the dance was on her night off. My dad was in the U.S. Navy stationed in Northern Ireland and in Blackpool on leave. My mother was on a date with another G.I., but my dad swept her off her feet! (And vice-versa. She was a babe!)
As far as I know, that was the one and only time they were in Blackpool, but my mother has told us about the illuminations. |
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