Bright lights. Illuminations. The Golden Mile. Arcades. The Pleasure Beach. Rock. Candy floss. The promenade. And Blackpool Tower; all 158m of it.
To the outsider, Blackpool may be fun, exciting and the perfect place for a quick and crazy weekend away. But to the local, it's just home and nothing more than a template awaiting stags and hens every week in their thousands.
Today, for the first time since the last, we walked down the promenade around central pier. If I'm truly honest, I'm speechless.
Visitors to our town see the promenade and everything else I mentioned above. The tourist attractions so to speak. And while the paint cracks off the front of buildings, the shutters of the seafront shops continue to rust and the abandoned shops deteriorate over the weeks, Blackpool is making a name for itself. Not a good one.
As we walked along the endless row of rock shops, my grandad began to reminisce about the good old days where he owned a rock stall. Everyday is another anecdote, or just a repeat of yesterday's, about the bustling seafront back when he was in his 20's and 30's having the time of his life. From what I can gather, piecing the various stories together, the seafront was the money maker. And not only because of the umpteen amusements. It was a community that people could only dream about being part of and everybody knew everybody. The best part is, they seemed to work together.
Walk down the promenade tomorrow and you'll find yourself amidst chavs in trackies. But the consolation is you'll win a stuffed toy you didn't even know you needed. So they promise. And if you're the lucky 1 in a million who does, good luck lugging that around for the day. Failing that, you'll squander a pocket full of change in the amusements and leave with a rusty keyring and sour face.
I'm from Blackpool. So I can say this.
Say a bad word about the place if you're not local...and it'll be the last thing you do.
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