Blackpool & the Beatles

Enjoying a rare day in the sun in 1963

There we were in 1963 on Blackpool beach with Janet, Gillian & John (Paul came next year), everybody was just lazing around enjoying the one day of Lancashire sun, a rarity in those days.

The kids built sand castles and we all paddled in the sea, younger people in swim suites (costumes as they were called then ) and older men in suites and ties and ladies with long heavy skirts.

Some even wore a knotted handkerchief on their head to keep off the sun.

Gillian & John building a huge sandcastle

Suddenly the volume on hundreds of portable radios was cranked up and a sound I’ll never forget the Local lads from Liverpool singing “Please please me”. Almost everybody joined in accompanying the Beatles who just the year before had started to become famous.

Later we bought the kids a toffee apple each to keep them happy on the train journey home, toffee apples that later stuck to my shirt as the kids fell asleep on my lap.

Janet in the sea

Happy memories

That was then, but could the scene on the beach happen now? Modern technology has separated everyone with earphones and Ipods, and constant texting.
Radio programs then were multigenerational now everything is specialised to age.

Sad that!
J