Been there | Blackpool Profile

Deckchairs on Blackpool beach
Photo: Guardian

Seaside staple

SimonHoggart

Everybody's very rude about Blackpool – and with good reason, it can be absolutely awful, but on the other hand it's got a raw energy, a vitality that a lot of primmer seaside resorts don't have. It always seems to do well – if the economy is in a bad state, people who might have gone abroad go to Blackpool and if it's in a good state, people who wouldn't have had a holiday at all go to Blackpool.

What do they find there? A lot of fish and chips, the best amusement park in Britain – the Pleasure Beach – which has the leading rollercoaster in the country, the Pepsi Max Big One. We go on an annual formal press trip on it every year.

Blackpool's Illuminations are terrible, they're really bad. They're usually full of adverts for truck companies, lots of images of forgotten TV stars. It's quite clear that fewer people go these days, they're pretty wearisome, but in the old days you'd get people coming over on the ferry from Dublin just to see them.

Best ride

The Pepsi Max Big One

It begins with a very, very slow ride up a very steep hill, at which point you can see miles and miles of coast down to the Lake District, then it turns to the right and then it plunges to earth in the longest drop of any rollercoaster in Britain and one of the highest in the world. And while it's dropping it tilts to the right at an angle of 90 degrees. The climb reminds me of what they say about childbirth – if women didn't forget what it was actually like, no one would have any brothers or sisters. It really is a terrifying moment when you get to the top.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

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The northern institution

Yates Wine Lodge

I used be a great fan of the Yates Wine Lodge, a great northern tradition. It used to offer what they called 'champagne on draft', but it always seemed to come from a bottle as far as I could see. There was always something nice about going and having some of their champagne - which you could have used to top up your car battery, it wasn't one of the 'grandes marques' – and eat one of their famous Bosley beef sandwiches. An elderly man stood in front of a gigantic baron of beef and took a white roll, dipped the top of it in gravy, and took a great big slab of fat and gristle with some flecks of meat in it, put it on the lower part of the roll and slapped the slopping gravy-sodden roll on the top. There was enough sheer protein, energy and calories to see you through a long day at conference.

The Promenade

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