Blackpool Tower

Inside Blackpool Tower, 1998

Ok folks, get set for a trip around the famous Blackpool Tower. The date is 11 August 1998, a sunny day but a bit hazy for seeing far from the Tower top! Ok for looking straight down - unless you don't like heights in which case, skip the next page!

Depending on whether you enter from the Promenade or the rear of the building you may find you enter a dark and suitably eerie cavern. This is the Aquarium. I'm not going to say which entrance takes you there - it would spoil the fun! Many of the tanks are older than the Tower itself, which was built on the site of an existing aquarium.

The main attractions of the Aquarium are coming up next, but there are tanks of all sorts of fish from around the world.

We also came across a lobster who was peering at us from the bottom of his tank - or her tank... not sure how you tell with a lobster... Come to think of it - I'm not sure why I'd want to know...

There was a large tank with dabs and rays and other flat fish and I was starting to think of a nice portion of chips...

The stars of the Aquarium are a trio of turtles. Not the sort you keep in a small tank at home, but huge turtles that were easily three feet long.

I had to fight off the reflections of other lights in the glass to take these and have to admit "doctoring" some out with the computer - but it's all with your interests at heart, dear reader! You see how I look after you??? I left the reflections of a UV tube in this one so you could get some idea... The turtles have been moved to a new large tank in the centre of the aquarium. The last time I visited (a few years ago now) they were in a tank against the wall. Some of the old faithfuls have been moved to make room.

We didn't see any of the huge eels that I used to like watching. And the small tanks of tropical freshwater fish have disappeared. However the turtles now have much more room as befits creatures of such size and if you want to look at small freshwater fish, there's a pet shop in a little arcade between Talbot Road and Clifton Street.

See what a mine of information these pages are...? And not at all "useless" as someone has so cruelly said in the guestbook. Did I say "someone"??? It was Dawn Pinckard and she'll get a clout round the earhole next time I see her (hee hee!) Got to keep my readers in line here!

When the front of the Tower was refurbished a few years ago some mosaics were taken away. These can now be seen on this staircase landing.

There are 5 floors in the Tower building and although there are lifts, in a building of this age it is inevitable that some amount of climbing stairs is necessary to see everything.

Either by lift or by staircase, do not miss the magnificent ballroom. This breathtaking room was destroyed by fire in the 1950s and painstakingly rebuilt to the high standard seen today.

The dance floor sees fewer dancers than it used to when it was new, but there are people who travel many miles to Blackpool for the sole purpose of going in the Tower and dancing to the music in the Tower Ballroom. Major dance competitions are held here and the Ballroom has played host to several TV shows such as the National Lottery and (of course!) "Come Dancing"!

There is a bar at the rear of the dance floor and another at the rear of the first floor balcony. A second balcony gives a close view of the superb ceiling.

From the balcony you can get a sneaky view of the mighty Wurlitzer organ in its pit, as the stage trap moves aside to allow the organ to rise.

Whilst it does so, it is a safe bet that the organist will be playing "Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside", which remains a tradition, even if only a few bars are played!

Organist Reginald Dixon played this organ from 1930 to 1970 and is commemorated on a wall plaque to the right of the stage.

I took this photo just a second too late, as the organ has already started to rise - and the chap falling from the higher balcony has already passed me on his way down, with just his hand in view... (only kidding folks... the organ was on its way down too!!!)

After all the hectic flying around the Aquarium and dancing about in the Ballroom (they wouldn't let me play with the organ...) it's time for a sit down and a quick refresh before venturing a little higher to the top floor of the building and then a lot higher to the top of the Tower. (Women and children first, no fighting, no being sick in the lift and no throwing that loud child that seems to be controlling his parents overboard...)

Here I am in the refreshment area with my head in Mississippi... Every sort of fast food is available in addition to sandwiches, and a more formal restaurant.

Jungle Jim's play area. Jim himself was sadly absent, but there were plenty of youngsters having a whale of a time and plenty of exhausted adults, flopped around the tables and chairs provided.

This is the site of the Tower Zoo as it was when the Tower was first built and as such is the scene of the eating of young Albert by Wallace the lion as told in Stanley Holloway's famous monologue. For any foreign visitors who are not sure what a monologue is - just think of it as half a duologue, ok?

I also seem to remember there being caged monkeys around here in the 1970s and flamingoes wandering amid waterfalls and fountains. Now they are all gone and only the smell of dozens of shoeless feet bring them back to memory...