34 showbiz pictures of Coronation Street actors when they swapped the cobbles for the sand in Blackpool

The affinity between the two goes back to the 1960s with the fictional characters looking to Blackpool for holidays, days out, secret affairs and the times when their kids have run away to the bright lights of the seaside.

And we have seen highly emotive storylines such as Roy and Hayley’s trip to Blackpool after Hayley had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Who can forget possibly the most talked about scene of all – at least locally – when Alan Bradley was struck by a Blackpool tram after his wife Rita fled from his grasp? It was watched by than 27 million people.

ICYMI: 27 brilliant retro pics of Blackpool schools in the noughties from Mereside Primary to Collegiate

37 forgotten scenes which take you back through Blackpool time zones

41 evocative old pictures that cast back to how Blackpool was in bygone times - some 100 years old