Interviews

J: How long have you been working here?

L: Forty years up and down the Promenade. First of all I worked with my grandmother on the beach. She had a tent on the beach. And I was only young then, just moved to Blackpool then, I’d be about 5 or 6 and I used sell little charms. She used to tell the fortunes, and then she got that place (photo), she was there for years, and me mother worked with her. And then my mother got her own place, so then there was two places, okay, and I used go in between the two of them, and work between the two of them. Okay, but in those days it was all little private stalls and little private buildings and little side shows, and candy floss and photographers and you know, you don’t get any of that now. Its not the same. Its all big companies right now there are probably three massve companies that own the whole of Blackpool right now. And that’s when it really changed.

J: When did that happen?

L: Well, about, let me see. When they built this Coral Island, okay, that was all sideshows and it was a station, there was a station here.

J: Where the toilets are?

L: Central Station, yeah. And this area here where I am wasn’t built. This roadway wasn’t built. There was a big public house here. And, if you went--if you started here, start at the Tower, and you walked down, and it was all little stalls, and little shops and little sideshows and little kiddies rides, and you know little mini Pleasure Beaches. But it was nearly all privately owned in those days. And then Carls, the bookmakers, first of all, bought the site here, because they moved the station up to North shore, got rid of the station here. They did that twenty-five years ago I think, and what they did was they knocked everything down, so this Coral Island building for about three years was like a building site and it had little…places like me around it, you know like temporary huts. And even that was good, but then they built another arcade next door and lower down and then lower down again, and the Pleasure Beach started to get bigger. Now, the Pleasure Beach is owned is just by one man, John Thompson, a family. Okay. But then the Tower was bought by EMI, you know the big record people. And then First Leisure bought all the piers. And then Coral Island bought some other things, you know, Carl the bookmakers bought some other things. Then it turned Bass Leisure, the brewery, took it off Carls, and they they bought some—ugh… so yeah, basically nearly the whole of Blackpool, apart from Pleasure Beach is owned by that—EMI, the brewery, and who else is there? First Leisure, they’re a leisure company, they have places all over the world. Yeah, so it’s those three.

J: So you’re a hold out?

L: There’s no character now. And it’s not going to come back. It’s not going to come back. It’s not going to come back the way it was. And it’s had it now, it’s died. We’ll end up like Morecomb.

J: So you think, I mean the plans for the casinos and all, it’s just not going to--

L: No, well what that will do is it will only bring the type of customers in that we already have. And the customers that we already have, okay, are daytrippers, weekend stag and hen parties, which there’s nothing wrong with that. But, Blackpool, when people starting going abroad, Blackpool didn’t cater for families anymore. And its cheaper to go abroad now, anyway. But they just didn’t cater for it. They decided when people started to go abroad and didn’t come here for a week or a fortnight like they used to do, the main holidays, it was a big—working class people—okay. But then working class people could go abroad. So what they needed to do was to keep it as it was, keep it very reasonable, cause it always was reasonable. Blackpool was always value for money. Okay. A few more facilities for them, but we always had plenty. We’ve always had the Pleasure Beach, since God knows how long. We’ve always had the Tower. We’ve always had the piers. So there was always entertainment for them. We didn’t really need a load more arcades. You know, cause we had little ones and sideshows. But it changed, you see, so we don’t get the families anymore. So then they thought “we don’t get the families, we’ll have to change it to cater for something else. Which they cater for, you know—no disrespect, okay? –and I’m certainly not sexist or racist, I can’t afford to be when I’m a gypsy—but there really is a very very large gay community. Basil, Basil came in to town and he took over all, you know—we’ve got gay hotels. Well, that’s great. Made us busy. But only made us busy at the weekend. With gays or drunks. So now we’re just going to get weekend gamblers. It will bring a little bit more money in for workers, you know, there will be a few more jobs I should think, but…