20 replies to this topic

[Alan]

to Blackpool. Ellisons use to do em too. Your mam would pay so much weekly into a club and then come the big day you'd catch the coach by Queens Park at some ungodly hour for a full day of funfair, promenade, beach and candy-floss. Women use to make a bee-line for shops as if they didn't have any in St Helens

[Olliebeak]

Gavin Murray's did day trips to Blackpool and half-day trips to Southport. I'm sure they went to other places (maybe Rhyl or Morecambe) but we never seemed to go on those.

Southport was great cos you could see what the weather was like in the morning and then decide to check if they had any empty seats for the afternoon trip.

But Blackpool was the real treat. All looking out of the coach window to see who spotted the Tower first. All the kids used to get it confused with the millions of pylons all round the countryside as you approached Blackpool from Preston. There was always someone who would offer the kids sixpence to the first one to 'spot the tower'. I think it was meant to make us sit down and look out of the window quietly - but it never worked!!!!! Just the opposite, as we all started shouting 'There it is!'

Does anyone remember Mike Harding's little story of his day trip to Blackpool as a child? About the kid being sick on the galloping horses ........... (say no more!!).

Funnily enough, later in life, my dad got a job working for Gavin Murray's which was very handy as we lived in Lingholme Road. Couldn't get much closer.

Ollie

[Jules]

What about Websters Coaches, we used to go on them every year when we went on our Summer Holiday. Dad used to have to pile all the old suitcases onto the bus and we would travel to Toll Bar to wait for the coach. We used to go to see my Grandad who lived in Prestatyn, it would stop at a pub called The Halfway house that also had a sort of canteen for the drivers ( I think it was in Connahs Quay) I think the coach went as far as Llandudno.

[Alan]

We used to go on Websters coach to Prestatyn too Jules. We used to catch it by the old Savoy and we used to stay at Prestatyn Holiday Camp and sometimes Robin Hood Camp which was much more down market unless you could get one of the new chalets. The others were a mixture of old caravans, converted railway carriages and even converted buses.

I remember that Half-Way House at Connors Quay. You really felt you were well away from home when you got there and also Shotton Steel Works and an oil refinery with flames coming out of the chimney.

Do you remember how clean the sparrows looked in Prestatyn after the mucky sooty ones in St Helens?

[Olliebeak]

Alan
I've been on holiday for two weeks so am just catching up with all the messages from the last two weeks.

Noticed that you used to go to Prestatyn Holiday Camp. I went there twice 1962 and 1964. Not quite Butlins - but I had a brilliant time. Came third in a fancy dress competition and won a record carrier!!!!! Remember the tower in the middle that you could pay threepence to climb to the top for a good view (88 steps there were - we counted them).

Prestatyn Holiday Camp (as a sad, neglected ruin) was used in the TV programme 'The Last Train' a couple of years ago - and I recognised it straight away (even in the sorry state that it was in). Since then the site has been cleared and is now a new housing estate.

Ollie

[Alan]

Went to look for it last year after a weekend in Snowdonia. We took the coast road instead of going inland and stopped off at all the fifties holiday spots - Llandudno, Rhyl, Prestatyn etc. Perfect antidote for happiness.

[splus]

Quote

Llandudno, Rhyl, Prestatyn etc. Perfect antidote for happiness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

FOR happiness or TO happiness?

[Alan]

What I meant splus was that they are run-down, seedy places that I can't imagine were once charming seaside spots where us tellinsers were happy to spend a week every summer. However I suppose that compared to the grinding mucky poverty that we all lived amongst in those days, Rhyl must have seemed like the Garden of Eden

[Dane]

Don't forget Bridges on Fingerpost.

[Jules]

I just thought that I would raise a bit of a smile with this old photo of Websters coaches taken outside the Half Way House on the way to Prestatyn. It was taken in 1949 and shows my Dad carrying me with my Brother to his left. My Brother was dressed in his "best clothes" which happened to be his school uniform. Imagine asking a child today to go on holiday in their school uniform!! You may also be able to make out the writing on the bodywork of the coach which states the Max MPH - 30 But we still got there, the journey was looked forward to almost as much as the holiday B)


Edit : Having trouble attaching file !!!!

Edited by Jules, 05 October 2004 - 05:57 PM.

[Alan]

In the fifties I had a mate who lived in Eccleston whose dad used to get dressed up in stiff collar and bowler hat for the annual week's holiday to stay in a caravan at Talacre near Prestatyn

[SKYMAN]

am i correct in thinking one of the popular watering holes on the way to Blackpool,
was a pub managed by Pier Point the Hangsman,think the pub was called The Hangsman ,
it would have been at the half way mark prob.,in the Preston area,,,,,,,

[tessmop]

Our school outing every year was to Blackpool,the halfway house in the early sixties was in Preston,it wasn't a pub more of a huge cafe with a juke box.

[stephen nulty]

SKYMAN, on 11 December 2011 - 02:17 PM, said:

am i correct in thinking one of the popular watering holes on the way to Blackpool,
was a pub managed by Pier Point the Hangsman,think the pub was called The Hangsman ,
it would have been at the half way mark prob.,in the Preston area,,,,,,,

That's an interesting one. I checked Pierrepoint's entry on Wiki and found...

"....he and Anne took over a pub on Manchester Road, Hollinwood, between Oldham and Failsworth, named "Help the Poor Struggler". He later moved to another pub, the "Rose and Crown" at Much Hoole, near Preston"

Edited by stephen nulty, 12 December 2011 - 12:39 PM.