The Golden Mile

Dan Burn-Forti

Dan photographed The Golden Mile in Blackpool.

In Dan’s own words – ‘As I was bracing myself for the beast of a drive that is London to Glasgow, I decided to break the journey by making a little detour to see the sights and sounds of sunny Blackpool.  I’ve been there a few times over the years, but not for a while and not with my camera, so Pleasant Street it was.  The Golden Mile, as it’s otherwise known, is the seafront promenade where you go to see the Illuminations, ride the Big Wheel, drink warm beer and get pretty lairy but, although it is no doubt all very sex and drugs and fish and chips by night, by day it seemed to be more a mixture of families and pensioners soaking up the weak Lancastrian sun and feeding the scarily fearless seagulls.  I’m not sure if it’s a pandemic thing or something, but it didn’t look to me like people were having that much fun. Perhaps, after a year of being locked up indoors, the reality of the British seaside experience was not quite as ace as people remembered it.  Having said that, my two hour wander was great, but maybe two hours of Blackpool’s seaside charms is just about enough.’