Interlude Four

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Blackpool Rock

I was a glamour puss when I was young.  I grew up in Blackpool and there were always handsome boys passing through with money in their pockets.  That was all we thought about, all of my teenage summers.  I’d hang around the pier with my friends every Saturday afternoon, eyeing up the new intake of holiday makers, seeking out the boys who didn’t have a girl with them.  I spent days on end sat on the beach in my shorts and bathing costume, rubbing oil onto my legs, trying to look like that Coco Chanel.  I saved up for Woolworths make up and jewellery to finish the look off.  Sometimes I even got bits bought for me if I’d managed to pick up a really generous boy.  It’s amazing what a couple of hours under the pier after dark got you the next day.  Those were the best days.

It was while I was inbetween boys that I had my little encounter with fame. All the faces came up for the summer season, you’d see them wandering along the prom sometimes but you hardly ever got near them – they all had their hangers on. George Formby was a regular of course, and he always had his missus with him.  She was a rum ‘un that Beryl Formby.  Nobody ever dared cross her, least of all George himself.  I think she was born before her time, she would have made a good Dynasty type – all shoulder pads and ball breaking or whatever it is.  Joan Collins, you know what I mean.

Well one day I was laid out on a rock at the far end of the beach, just soaking up the last drops of the sun.  I heard somebody shuffle past me and I looked up to see a bloke in a jacket and hat sitting himself down on a boulder nearby.  I could tell by the way that his shoulders were hunched that he was feeling fed up so I called out to him, asking if he was alright.  He turned round and bless me if it wasn’t George himself.  I invited him to come and sit by me and tell me his troubles – and he did!  He was ever so fed up of Beryl, she’d been laying down the law at him and not letting him alone and he’d run away from her.  Just for half an hour, he said, just to show her what was what.  Then we had a bit of a canoodle behind his boulder.  I promised not to tell but I suppose it’s alright now.  They’re both long gone.  He left me a little souvenir but I won’t say what that was.

George by @aitchteee