THE ONE AND ONLY BLACKPOOL

Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1920, Page 4

THE ONE AND ONLY BLACKPOOL

ts'-soit of llic iiu|iv§trial 'ijgrjj’h;' is_}ike seaside pirnpcs' 3fou nevey saw.\ To Hay. that it Brighton, Southend,', qpd YfiriiVoutb' a.ll iiico.pointed into one borough, or whatever the right word may be, is a poor corn parison. 1 L is like umyhere else 03 gartji. Last week-end, fpy' thp first firne in my life, 1 went to Blackpool. Had I been bo 11 jp Lancashire prob ably be gojpg - ,there again, fliis weekdpd. J*ust as all gohcl Mahomniecjaqs tiirfl tp l!(leeca, sp do pi} good Lancas: ■triads- take “(-(.'turns” to J|liii kjmql. \|prp tlupi a rpijirter of a niilljpn of them go there every week during the summer season. August is the ..great, month. They tell me that October is the iqqstrplcasant pile. | Thr.tpjvn bas a (-{widen}. 'population of less fjiajj 6Q,000, hnd/it is almost the sole husincss cf these people to provide accommodation, amusement, and foo.l for their millions of visitors. ■’ Tkiod'especially". It would be a gross ! thing to reveal how much food Bjacjrpool eats every week just now. It sure- | ]y has fhp biggesf appctitp pi..flip Brj-J tish Isles, judging'by what T was ex--, pec:ted to consume at every meal, ami ' also by the trade done by the restnu-' rants. Pies, whose - quantity shall he represented by a discreet'algebraic x—pies composed of potatoes and meat and peas—arp the pjipjce dish at Blackpool. The peas are all-important; they even eat. peas with their fried fish. To get some faint idea of‘how much Blackpool eats you have only .to walk about the streets between nine and ten o’clock in the evening and try to get near any of the eating shops. I say “only,” jijjt I must qualify that “Only’’ suggests that it is easy to walk about Blackpool,, lyhereas the reverse -is the fact. It is the most difficult place to walk about in that T- have-ever visited. The rule of the road as it is understood in London is of no account in Blackpool. If you go to the right, you are wrong; if you keep to the left, you are not right. Wherever you turn crowds of young men in caps and young women in the latest fashions of their part of the world slowly but firmly jostle you. Even when the tide is out as far as the pierhead most of the people stick faithfully to the parade. They are perfectly content to look at things from a distance; they arc as sparing of energy as they are of words. They gaze at the dirty, turbulent Irish Sea witli the curious eyes of those to whom so much water is a strange sight. Not that his is their main amusement. No seaside town in the world has a richer array of entertainments than Blackpool. At the Winter Gardens alone , there is almost everything that the holiday heart can desire. Here forty thousand people may. at one time, crowd the theatre, pack the music hall, fill the picture palace, populate the Palais' de Danse, and throng the rest of the joys offered. On one record day 57,000 people clicked through the Winter Gardens turnstiles. Blackpool is the only seaside town I know that has its own local revue—a production as big as a London spectacle which plays from July to October, and it is surely the only place where an ice cream “pitch” on the beach lets for £375 for the season.