Blackpool's Squires Gate Holiday Camp was worth so much more

Memory Lane gets around.

As well as the print edition our articles have a thriving online readership. Always there to catch up!

But if you’re not a subscriber and you tap a local name into your computer or phone browser, you’re quite likely to see a Gazette article appear.

That’s how former Gazette man Stan Jenkinson was tipped off by his son about my articles on the founding of the Squires Gate Holiday Camp in the 1930s.

Stan’s father, businessman Stanley Jenkinson, became a director in 1946 and was chairman and managing director from 1949 to 1961.

Stanley senior will also be remembered by older readers for his Stanley’s Restaurant in Victoria Street, Blackpool.

My Gazette articles prompted 68-year-old Stan, of Ansdell, to look back on his father’s multi-faceted career.

Stanley, who died in 1962, was an engineer, musician, variety artist, operatic vocalist, stage producer and brass band conductor.

But he was equally successful in the local business world and was chairman of the RHO Hills department store as well as the Squires Gate Holiday Camp.

Stan tells us that his father was born in Bolton in 1882. As a young man he played the violin in a Bolton orchestra and became an articled engineer.

His talent led to a stage career, often appearing in Blackpool. He took vocal training as an operatic tenor and once appeared on the same bill as the Italian legend Enrico Caruso.

When World War One started he joined the Royal Flying Corps. After being wounded he came to the King’s Lancashire Military Convalescent Hospital at Squires Gate.

After the war he returned to the professional stage and settled in Blackpool in 1922, soon taking a job as manager of the local UCP restaurant. He was promoted to supervise other restaurants in the group.

Stan says: “However, he wanted to open his own business and bought an old auction room in Victoria Street. He engaged Chadwick’s, of Layton, to redevelop it into Stanley’s Café.”

Mr Chadwick then introduced him to a couple of directors of RHO Hills and he was invited to join the board.

Stanley continued his theatrical interests and produced shows for the Lyric Amateur Operatic Society at the Opera House and the Grand Theatre.

During World War Two he was a captain and officer commanding the Blackpool Battalion of the Home Guard.

He was the musical director of the Blackpool Associated Brass Band (later renamed Blackpool Town Band) and became president of the Lancashire Brass Band Association in 1947.

When he became chairman of the holiday camp in 1949, Stanley launched a summer show called the Squires Gate Follies, recruiting a fellow Boltonian, the light comedian Terry Wilson, to produce and star.

In 1952 Terry became godfather to Stan Jenkinson, our guide through this article.

Terry had a long record of Blackpool appearances, including eight summer seasons at the old Feldman’s Theatre.

The Squires Gate Follies ran for 13 summer seasons with Stanley senior becoming known in showbiz as “the Squire of Squires Gate.”

In 1959 he became a Companion of the Grand Order of Water Rats in recognition of his services to the performance industry.

“Young Stan,” a former Gazette newspaper sales and promotions manager, concludes our journey through his father’s remarkable career by saying that Stanley opposed the 1961 sale of the Squires Gate Holiday Camp to Fred Pontin for £360,000.

“He thought it was worth a lot more.”