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Morecambe’s Wild West End
Whenever anyone asks, “Are you from Morecambe”? I have to admit I’m not but I can’t help adding “I came here as a kid”. One of my most vivid childhood memories was getting home from school one Friday and being told to get ready for a weekend in Morecambe. My dad acquired a Ford Transit van and converted it into a motorised caravan. So off we set from Stafford, trundling up the M6 to Morecambe, pitching on one of the sites on Westgate. We then had all Saturday and most of Sunday to enjoy the beach and the arcades.
My childhood memories of Morecambe itself are fairly vague. I remember a pier, the Midland Hotel and trampolines on the Prom. Above all I remember having a wonderful time — not a bad memory to have. In 1996, as an adult, I experienced the Polo Tower and other rides at Frontierland and a land train that went up and down the Prom (not the one running now). Then just before I moved to Lancaster in 2004 I experienced a deserted Morecambe car park, greasy chips and a very run down sea front. As an outsider I saw Morecambe at its best and worst.
Between my visit in 1996 and coming to live in the West End in 2010, Morecambe saw a great deal of investment including the work in Poulton and the renovation of the Midland Hotel — and the shop fronts improved. Even the West End had its “Winning Back Morecambe’s West End” but unfortunately that came to an abrupt end when the…
