Chapter 12: Blackpool Rock
After our trip to Germany, we stayed with my in-laws until the end of our six months’ leave, apart from a fortnight spent with our very good friends and their children, as we do every leave. We stayed with these friends at St. Anne’s and went to Blackpool to see how Lancashire took its holidays. We had not been to Blackpool before, and it was an experience I would not have missed. The holiday people there enjoy themselves wholeheartedly. Everyone is busy, and life goes with a swing. The air is so bracing that our appetites were enormous—I felt that I could eat a policeman! We had huge meals frequently, but we were always ready for them.
The sea at Blackpool is not attractive; it looks dirty and far away, but there is a magnificent seawater swimming pool with all the modern attractions. The water is sparkling blue and continually refreshed. We went to the amusement park, of course. I should say that Blackpool holiday folk spend half their savings in the amusement park. It is amazing how they can keep it up, day after day, going in for everything: the boats, the swings, the joy wheel, the big dipper, and hundreds of other attractions. They go merrily from one to another, spending their sixpences and thruppences, getting full value for them. I envied them their robustness; the amount of seaside rock and other sweets they consume is incredible! Afterwards, they eat fish, chips and peas, as well as tripe, trotters, black puddings, and other things made from pig in the north of England. No wonder they don't notice the weather, or the smoke and fog during the winter. I wish them all the best — they deserve it!
Soon after we arrived, we were forced to be spectators as the children quickly emptied our pockets. In the evening, we went to see the Blackpool Tower. I felt sorry for the wild animals; they were brightly illuminated and stared at all evening. They looked very bored with life. I tried to picture what would happen if the lions and tigers had their own way for half an hour! I should not like to be in that crowd if that happened.
We watched the dancing. The ballroom has a wonderful red floor, and the dancing was very good; all the latest dances were performed expertly by the ordinary crowd of holidaymakers — nothing like the stereotyped foxtrot that we do on the ships and coastline. The clothes were very mixed; some wore tweed jackets or dress clothes, some had wonderful evening gowns and jewels, and others just wore jumpers and a skirt or a plain mackintosh. Everyone danced well, though. When the band played a veleta, we joined the dancers; it gives one's age away to be able to dance the veleta, but we enjoyed it.
We had left the children in bed at home, and as we were not in a hurry, our friends showed us around. While crossing a very busy thoroughfare, our car suddenly stopped; the policeman waved us on, but we couldn't move.
He came over and said, "Move up, love."
My husband replied, "I can't!"
"What’s wrong with the car, lad?"
"I don't know; it won't go."
"Come on, lad; we’ll push."
They pushed it aside and let the hundreds of impatient drivers pass. After an hour of trying everything, the car still would not start. We were getting very hungry, so we asked the policeman where we could find something to eat without walking far.
He said, "Ah, there's a nice place around the corner; you can get fish and chips and peas, and a cup of tea—a champion place!"
So we went, and sure enough, it was champion.
We sat in high-backed pews, and everything tasted delicious. The proprietress came to our table to apologise for the peas being a little overdone that night. We said we had not noticed and that they were very good, and our friend gave her sixpence. He said afterwards that she always did this if she thought customers would fall for it. We enjoyed the supper and went back to fix the car.
The policeman greeted us like long-lost friends. He asked where we garaged our car, and we told him it was in the lane behind our accommodation.
He said, "It’ll be those lads again with their pranks."
He explained that the latest joke among boys there was to put water in the petrol tanks of unwatched cars. We drained the water, the car started, we thanked the policeman, and went home. On the way, we had to stop several times to drain more water from the tank.
During that leave, we had to find a new school for Helen. Every time I mentioned sending her to boarding school, she cried; she remembered her first one in Bognor, where she was very unhappy. She said she would do anything for us except go to boarding school. I told her we would find a school so good that when she saw it, she would be anxious to go there and would count the days until the end of the holidays. She said she would never do that.
There was a widower in the village whose daughter was very happy at a school in Worthing. The widower and his sister had attended it before her. It was run by two very nice elderly sisters. We went to see the school and were favourably impressed. I told them Helen was very unwilling to go to boarding school, so they suggested I bring her to their speech-day concert. The children performed very well and looked so happy that on the way home, Helen asked if she could go to this school. We agreed, and by the end of the holidays, she was asking how soon she could go to her new school.