A Long Time Ago.....

There was Blackpool - a long spit of shore separating St Annes and Fleetwood, an archaic pleasure-palace for the great masses and a place that, for a short while, I called my home. I would walk from Squires Gate to the South Shore in winter, when the place was deserted, to marvel at the power of the waves and, if I was lucky, witness sunsets like golden balls of fire erupting from a dark volcano on the horizon-line. Then everything went belly-up and Blackpool became too hot for me to live in, so I escaped.