Wonderful seaside traditions with Roy Edmonds

As regular readers may recall, I was off my rocker last week building a flat-pack garden rocking chair for She Who Knows. The Allen key is now back in a kitchen drawer and I’ve been enjoying rocking myself, in all the sunshine.
It was good, too, to hear that Blackpool is returning to its tradition of hired deckchairs along the Promenade.It was good, too, to hear that Blackpool is returning to its tradition of hired deckchairs along the Promenade.
It was good, too, to hear that Blackpool is returning to its tradition of hired deckchairs along the Promenade.

It was good, too, to hear that Blackpool is returning to its tradition of hired deckchairs along the Promenade. Tenders are out for an operator’s site by Central Pier. It’s a turnabout by the council, after getting rid of those familiar striped, fold-up chairs seven years ago.

Officials have noticed at last that there aren’t enough benches on the Prom, now people are returning to the English seaside. Also, those concrete or metal, anti-vandal ones aren’t comfortable. (Not everyone travels with their own cushion, as She Who Knows does.) What’s more, someone in corporation HQ, at Bickerstaffe Square, has at last realised there’s no beach to sit upon when the tide comes in . . .

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So, back to the fine seaside traditions we all remember and loved. I recall them from first arriving at this newspaper’s Victoria Street offices in the 1970s; amazed on my daytime strolls with a fast-melting ice-cream. Many visitors were in full dress, reclining to read newspapers and waiting for chip shops or pubs to open – or families seated, waiting for Dad to return from such establishments.

Of course, the circling, screeching gulls are still here, along with our three proud piers (if looking a little tired at times). In fact, there’s the whole razzmatazz many of us delighted in and which was celebrated in so many equally entertaining films.

Tower Circus elephants may no longer cross in line to Central Beach; nor the acrid Wallace the Lion smell rise into Bank Hey Street from basement cages, but we still have so many wonderful attractions, old and new.

Let’s all enjoy them, like summers of old.

(For Roy’s latest books visit royedmonds-blackpool.com.)

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