Blackpool has been lighting up people’s lives for generations

[WHEN CELEBRITY DESIGNER Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen threw the switch to turn on the Blackpool illuminations in September he was initiating a display that has more than 140 years of history behind it.

The Changing Rooms star professes a great deal of affection for the show and has collaborated with the Illuminations production team for a number of years, designing a number of spectacular features and installations. It includes creating a stretch of Art Deco-style features that will celebrate a golden age of 1930s glamour as part of a makeover of the famous Golden Mile.

‘The lights’ – as they are affectionately known by one-and-all – have been lighting up Blackpool since 1879, when Blackpool Council embarked on an experiment in street lighting, beginning with eight arc lamps on 60ft poles along the seafront. The installation cost £5,000 – a substantial sum in those days.

As the town’s tourist office, Visit Blackpool, explains: “In a time when residents were lighting their homes with candles, this installation left the public in wonderment, calling them ‘artificial sunshine’.”

The installation brought an influx of visitors eager to see the new technology at work, heralding the town’s status as a major tourist resort. In May 1912 the visit of Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, brought the first real illumination display. The promenade was decorated with around 10,000 lights and attracted thousands of visitors: the modern illuminations were born. The success was short lived, however, as the advent of World War One brought the show to a halt for 11 years. The return of the lights in 1925 marked the beginning of the expansion of the displays and the addition of tableaux. With the exception of a break from the beginning of World War Two to 1949 the illuminations have been an annual event ever since.

The resumption in 1949 also marked the start of the tradition of the celebrity Switch-On – performed on that occasion by actress Anna Neagle.

The latest innovation is the extension of the illumination period into the New Year, meaning even more visitors can witness the nation’s favourite light show. q