The 47th Harry Brittain Fellowship
6 June to 14 July
The Mysterious Blackpool
By Alexander Rheeney (Papua New Guinea)
I had an eerie feeling when I checked in at Blackpool's Imperial Hotel
along the north promenade for a night before I began my job-attachment
two days later with the evening newspaper, the Blackpool Gazette.
Could it have being the reddish carpet in the corridors and rooms of
the hotel? Was it the Victorian architecture of the hotel or could it
have been the list of guests who slept there since it was built in the
1800s, which included English author Charles Dickens?
While I was not sure what it was, I was adamant the mysterious of the
hotel could not stop me from having a good sleep at the Paramount
Group of Hotels-owned hotel after a tiring four-hour Saturday
train-ride from London.
Alex flanked by Farhat and Mapula |
I awoke to a sunny Sunday, a hot cup of coffee, coupled with the BBC's
Weather Bulletin confident of a "beautiful day". I was not sure
whether the BBC knew that a Papua New Guinean journalist, who was
thousands of miles away from home, was gambling on their weather
predictions - to enable him to discover the foreign town.
Blackpool in England's Lancashire county is north of Preston and about
35 miles north-west of Manchester. Armed with seven miles of white
sandy beaches known as "pleasure beach" and a mini-Eiffel tower
rightly called "Blackpool Tower" - the town has been a tourist
attraction since the 18th century.
Locals say over 10 million people visit the resort every year and it
is still one of the United Kingdom's main tourist attractions.
Blackpool, in pursuit of the tourists' money over the years, has
built some of the weirdest buildings I have ever come across - these
include one shaped like the giant head of a mean-looking pirate!
Blackpool could also be the mini-Las Vegas, thanks to the
"illuminations", which were thousands of lamps and human-size plastic
statues covered with lights that hung from power lines between the
north and south Promenade - they have been switched on every autumn
since 1912.
There is also a theme park, home to one of the tallest and fastest
rollercoaster rides in the world - mainly for those who are
adventurous! For someone like me who dislikes speed and sometimes
height, I opted for a horse-drawn carriage ride! It felt good riding
around the resort town in style like a true Victorian!
I stayed in Blackpool for about a week, observing the operations of
respected regional evening newspaper The Gazette as well as enjoying
the delights the resort had to offer (weather permitting)!
I told myself that should I be given a chance in the future to choose
a UK holiday destination - it would definitely have to be Blackpool
and all its mysteries.
My thanks to the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) for giving me the
opportunity to live in Blackpool for a week and to get a feel of life
along the Fylde coast.
