New Statesman: Class Conscious - memories of Blackpool, England

Blackpool may become the Las Vegas of England if restrictions on gambling are lessened. A company that has bought up half of the resort's Golden Mile hopes to build some sort of enormous casino with an ancient Egyptian theme.

Commentators have wondered whether this would ruin Blackpool, even though technically that is impossible. An enormous plastic pyramid would fit in very well with the town's culture and heritage -- especially if done in Day-Glo orange with a blinking beacon on the top.

I make these sarcastic remarks, it goes without saying, from the perspective of my relatively new-found and hard-won middle classness. However, as a kid growing up in York, I had a very different take on the town. I went to Blackpool for a holiday every year for five years, although I admit that it was usually our second holiday of the year--the first being a trip, via the Sealink ferry and overnight couchette, to Italy with the British Rail Touring Club.

But I think I preferred Blackpool to Lido di Jesolo. A waterborne ride called the Log Flume, situated on the pleasure beach, gave me more excitement than I had ever had up to that point in my life (and since, come to think of it); the sea was a glittering blue; our guest house was the Ritz somehow compressed into a terraced house; the top of Blackpool Tower was the highest place I had ever been to; and in the circus at the bottom of the Tower, I was mesmerised by a dwarf clown called "Little Billy" Merchant.

As I got older and posher, I realised that "Little Billy" -- who died this year in a nursing home in Skegness--was not to be called a dwarf. I did not mind that discovery. I also found out that the word "flume" amounts to a declaration of war on the English language; that the sea at Blackpool is the colour of Worcester sauce; that "tea-making facilities in all rooms" is no big deal in the hotel world; and that the totality of Blackpool Tower would fit comfortably under the arches of the Eiffel.

These last four discoveries I could honestly have done without.