Touring England with toddlers: day 19

Tag : grey pig iron

The last time I visited Blackpool was on a friend's stag. It wasduring the last World Cup and the town had been invaded by groupsof lads from rival cities in the North-West. Schooled in softyBuckinghamshire, my and my friends' idea of aggro was being told to"pipe down" in the Eagle pub in Old Amersham for singing too loudlyto a Kajagoogoo song.
That weekend we were shocked by the fighting and glass throwing,but most of all by the number of men our age with significant partsof their ears bitten off. In fact, we were so scared on that firstnight, dodging punches and pint glasses and stepping over bodies onthe way back to our hotel, that we decided rather than risk an earwhorl we'd order food and drink from room service and stay in thenext night.
Now I'm arriving in Blackpool with my family, this time ratherfittingly with our car and most of its occupants covered in vomitafter Phoebe was violently ill on the drive from Liverpool.Normally you'd worry about checking-in with your clothes caked inspew, but thankfully there's nowhere in the country that at middayyou can be seen swabbing sick off your shirt and feel more at homethan Blackpool.
Hotel staff at The Big Blue, unfazed by our request for papertowels and detergent before we'd even given our car registration,dish them out like check-out mints. Instead of repugnant stares,passers-by proffer knowing smiles as if to say, "That could soeasily have been me in Yates' yesterday."
We go for a wander, Dinah pointing out Coronation Street snippets("This is where Alan tried to push Rita under a tram"), anddiscover that years' of touting itself as a stag and hendestination has taken its toll. Blackpool has lost its cheerfulNorth-West charm and succumbed instead to a bawdy semi-lawlessnessthat introduces wariness into almost every personal exchange.
On the tram to Blackpool Tower we're curtly ordered to fold ourbuggy and before we've done so the tram lurches away. Dinah fallson top of Phoebe. There's no apology or help offered from theconductor; basically, you're assumed to be drunk and dangerous inBlackpool until proved otherwise, and why risk ear cartilage byopening your mouth to say "sorry"?
Blackpool's new concrete flood defences block out the sea views butwe have fun instead competing to find the tackiest advert on theseafront – "Slots of Fun," "Time Out Striptease" –although the winner is an invitation to take part in/watch/sponsoran organised Pot Noodle food fight.
Groups of men are dressed as women, and groups of women are dressedas cowboys. There are men all in the same coloured shirts, withtheir nicknames printed on their backs, inevitably including a "MadDog". There are hens in wedding veils struggling to lightcigarettes as the wind rips off the sea. And for some reason lotsof people are carrying five-foot long cuddly grey sharks undertheir arms.
Horse and carts clip along. Our tram rattles on. Donkeys walk frompier to pier in pink coats, almost as brashly dressed as the hensand stags. The garish Christmas-style lights above the streettransfix Phoebe.
"Look, I can see a pig. Look daddy, a cow!" She wants to go oneverything, even things that aren't things to go on.
"Phoebe, that's just an iron railing – wait until we get tothe Tower."
The Blackpool Tower is 318 feet high, and at the top The Walk ofFaith is a plate glass section of floor with views clear to streetlevel that only youngsters and men from Huddersfield seem keen todemonstrate their immortality by traversing.
A hidden gem here, however, is the basement circus. You see theornate feet of the tower in all four corners and its acts aresigned from all over the world. We're spellbound by MissElizabeth's aerial silk act, a lightshow, and Mooky the clown, whobecomes a running joke afterwards whenever Dinah and I attempt ajoke ("Alright Mooky, calm down - I get it").
It is here that we have one of those great moments this trip throwsup. It's Charlie's bottle time, only we don't want to missanything, so, Dinah, without leaving her seat, retrieves his flaskof hot milk from the bag and hands me the baby bottle. With Phoebein my lap, I unscrew the lid and hold out the bottle as Dinah, withCharlie in her lap, pours in the hot milk. Phoebe is wrigglingbecause she needs a wee and Charlie is thrashing around agitatedfor his milk. Yet somehow we decant the milk without a drop spilt.I retrieve the lid from my chin and screw it on, and then hand thebottle back to Dinah just as the Vavilov tumbling act reaches acrescendo with one man jumping onto the head of another. Our bellylaugh comes from Dinah and I having the same thought - that thegreat, bouncy fanfare of music that greets the tumblers and theloud applause that accompanies it is really for our act with thebottle, and that everyone in the crowd has been secretly watchingwith baited breath.
After a donkey ride on the beach that Phoebe loves, and a few rideson the Pleasure Beach which Charlie goes crazy for, we end up inRipley's Believe It or Not where we see, among other things, a4ft-wide ball of string that took nine years to make by children ina school in Georgia, a model of the world's tallest man, RobertWadlow at 8ft 11inches ("He ate a lot of vegetables, Daddy"), and atwo-headed calf.
In her bunk-bed that night Phoebe tells me Blackpool (Blackpooh shepronounces it, rather fittingly) is the best place "we've been sofar." Normally I agree with everything she says at bedtime to avoidconfrontation and bolster sleep. This time I beg to differ. "It'san interesting place," I tell her.
"A very interesting place," Phoebe tells me.
The next morning Charlie wakes at 5.45am but there's no-one in thekitchen to fetch his hot milk so I get dressed and hunt for some inthe emptied streets of Blackpool, where the only people up arelitter pickers and drunks staggering about the tram tracks withhalf-eaten burgers hanging from their mouths. I find a smallnewsagent, and, wandering back to the hotel, my last image of thetown is of someone actually being sick on a billboard which reads:"Blackpool - Building A better Community". The Big Blue Hotel: www.bigbluehotel.com Blackpool Tower: www.theblackpooltower.co.uk Blackpool Pleasure Beach: www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com