Tuesday, September 27, 2005
What's wrong with Blackpool?
I spent last week at the Liberal Democrat conference in Blackpool. As I live in Lancaster I decided to commute each day. Blackpool has of course a bad reputation among many people. I guess I am one of them. So what were my impressions?
If I may pay Blackpool a backhanded compliment, I found the town less easy to dislike than I had supposed - away from the seafront it is bland even if unbecoming. The commuting from Lancaster, though extremely tiring, worked tolerably well, and the train journeys themselves were an enjoyable limbo. But considering Blackpool as a place to hold a conference everything - the conference hall, its environs and the fringe venues - was unutterably depressing. This is not attributable to any one characteristic, but rather to what they lacked. What they lacked was any ability to stimulate that joie de vivre which a political conference should have, that sense that, taken away briefly from the gritty round of campaigning, we may in good company contemplate our ideology plain, and that it is an inspiring thing to contemplate.
Simon Titley observes that Large resorts such as Brighton and Bournemouth have adapted and continue to thrive. Blackpool is stuck in a time warp. This is true. Neither Brighton nor Bournemouth are among my favourite towns; I would not normally visit them for any purpose except attending a conference. But both have the ability to bring thant joie de vivre. But while Simon Titley is right about the reasons for Blackpool's decline - essentially that the industrial workers who once went there no longer exist, and their sucessors have higher standards - I do not believe that it could ever have created that mingled peace and arousal to new political action which I seek at conference. Some of the physical concomitants of this state of mind are stucco and bay windows, and sheer lack of clutter - an urban bucolic.
You may remember the scene in Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger where Edwin, having grown rich through the family printing business, stays at an expensive hotel in Brighton in pursuit of Hilda Lessways. That episode could not satisfactorily have been set in Blackpool. On the other hand Stan Barstow's B Movie, a thriller set in Blackpool at its 1950s peak, could have been set in Brighton, or at least something with similar artistic aims could. In short Brighton could and still can do everything Blackpool did in its heyday and a great deal more besides. That is why it has adapted.
If I may pay Blackpool a backhanded compliment, I found the town less easy to dislike than I had supposed - away from the seafront it is bland even if unbecoming. The commuting from Lancaster, though extremely tiring, worked tolerably well, and the train journeys themselves were an enjoyable limbo. But considering Blackpool as a place to hold a conference everything - the conference hall, its environs and the fringe venues - was unutterably depressing. This is not attributable to any one characteristic, but rather to what they lacked. What they lacked was any ability to stimulate that joie de vivre which a political conference should have, that sense that, taken away briefly from the gritty round of campaigning, we may in good company contemplate our ideology plain, and that it is an inspiring thing to contemplate.
Simon Titley observes that Large resorts such as Brighton and Bournemouth have adapted and continue to thrive. Blackpool is stuck in a time warp. This is true. Neither Brighton nor Bournemouth are among my favourite towns; I would not normally visit them for any purpose except attending a conference. But both have the ability to bring thant joie de vivre. But while Simon Titley is right about the reasons for Blackpool's decline - essentially that the industrial workers who once went there no longer exist, and their sucessors have higher standards - I do not believe that it could ever have created that mingled peace and arousal to new political action which I seek at conference. Some of the physical concomitants of this state of mind are stucco and bay windows, and sheer lack of clutter - an urban bucolic.
You may remember the scene in Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger where Edwin, having grown rich through the family printing business, stays at an expensive hotel in Brighton in pursuit of Hilda Lessways. That episode could not satisfactorily have been set in Blackpool. On the other hand Stan Barstow's B Movie, a thriller set in Blackpool at its 1950s peak, could have been set in Brighton, or at least something with similar artistic aims could. In short Brighton could and still can do everything Blackpool did in its heyday and a great deal more besides. That is why it has adapted.
