A Word In Your Ear - October 6, 2016

It’ll give young and old a chance to try, or relive, the lindy hop and jive, which are both growing popular again at dance venues, plus a mix of other dances. There’s even a Lancashire hot pot on offer, too, I notice.

It’s the sort of glittering but hearty affair that brings crowds to the coast, even out of summer.

Meanwhile, She Who Knows and myself have been putting our best feet forward elsewhere, at Fleetwood’s North Euston Hotel afternoon tea dances in their classic ballroom, or joining other lively events down the coast at St Annes.

There’s so much going on along our resort coastline, as highlighted in this paper’s What’s On pages.

The Fylde’s charm and variety helped draw me to Blackpool back in the 80s, when a former colleague asked me to help out on The Gazette over summer. I ended up staying. Perhaps it was the bright lights, our picturesque coast or the nearby countryside. Also, of course, there was She Who Knows...

It’s represented the happiest times of my life – though I’d travelled much of the world before working on ‘local’ papers.

In a forthcoming book I hope to pay tribute to the coast and its characters. It’s a humorous memoir made possible by semi-retirement a few years ago.

The title is Bright Lights & Pig Rustling. No, I didn’t venture out into Marton Moss piggeries in dead of night – but others did, under cover of sea frets.

Perhaps it takes me full circle as, when ‘now’t but a lad’ back in Manchester, my mother mentioned to me I had a famous cousin beside the seaside – a certain Reginald Dixon.

* For Roy’s books visit www.royedmonds-blackpool.