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So long JR!
Responsible for the day-to-day running and continued maintenance of Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s 145 rides and attractions, Jim Rowland retired at the end of December following 34 years with the company. Considered by many to be the “heart and soul” of the park, the former travelling showman even enjoyed a spell as a TV star as part of one of the UK’s first ever ‘fly on the wall’ documentary series. Here ‘JR’ reflects on his 34 years with Britain’s favourite, free tourist attraction.
Back in the early ‘70s, I was travelling on the fairs down in Cornwall and I went up to see some relations of mine who had an amusement set-up at Heyham Head, just outside Morecambe, but it wasn’t successful. I was thinking of going back on the road but then I saw this advert for manager of Morecamble Pleasure Park [then sister park to Blackpool Pleasure Beach] in the World’s Fair newspaper, so I applied for it.
I knew some people in the business that knew Geoffrey Thompson, and we just gelled. I obviously knew the business already, but I was also very fortunate that my mother sent me to private school in Liverpool, she believed in education. Geoffrey knew about that, which I think also helped; he knew that I knew the business, but that I had been well educated too.
I got the job and went from manger to the dizzy heights of general manager and then became a director of Morecambe Pleasure Park and really got involved in changing the park over to Frontierland. Geoffrey and I had been on a visit to Dollywood and we kind of decided there and then, and came back and did it.
I suppose one of the great things we did at Morecambe was to put in the pay-one-price system, the wristband, the first time it had ever been tried in the UK. In those days it was just a piece of cotton with a sticky piece of paper over it, because that was the best I could find at the time! It really put the place back on the map and brought more business to the park and to the town.
They’ve closed the park down since I left, but times changed and once the illuminations went, I was pretty sure the park would go too. What also happened was they wanted to build two big nuclear power stations and all the boarding houses took the workers in; there was no room for the holidaymakers. That was shorts-sighted really because once they had built the power station, the holidaymakers stopped coming.
Geoffrey came over to see me one day at Morecambe, about 16 years ago. We talked about a transfer, I said yes, and I came over to Blackpool towards the end of the illuminations that year. Then the next year we put in the 50p weekends, and they were very successful.
I came here as general manager and then moved to operations director, but it’s the same job really. Some of the workforce have been here longer than me, there’s fitters that have been there 40 years, it’s a kind of family and people stay here for a long time. Because we are open so much now during the year, we don’t really have so much seasonal staff anymore.
I think being here and overseeing the installation of the Big One was a major feat for me at Blackpol. The idea was already in Geoffrey’s head, he knew what he wanted, where he wanted it to go. He didn’t want to loose any rides, so it had to fit. I would have loved one day in my working life to be able to build a coaster on a green field site, it must be so easy. We never got that, it was always: “We don’t want to lose anything.“ It went through the rides, over the rides, under the roads and what you see now.
The wristbands put a lot of pressure on the bigger rides when we introduced them to Blackpool, because people think when they’ve got them on that they own the place. Security wise it becomes a bit of a problem with people trying to jump the queues and fences. We’ve controlled that now by raising the height of the fences a bit and throwing people off the park if they queue jump, the same as Disney.
I also put metal scanners in here; I had seen them in various places. Since we put them in the amount of crime on the Pleasure Beach, there wasn’t a lot but there was some, has gone down by 90 per cent. We confiscate metal knifes, and every year we have a ceremony where we bury the damn things in concrete. Also there are no drugs in the park, we’ve stopped all that too. All our car parks are manned, we’re fairly tight I reckon. The trouble in Blackpool is all at the other end of the town on Friday and Saturday evenings.
I think the future’s bright for the Pleasure Beach. I think it’s in damn good hands; we’ve got a hard working family that look after it. There’s been costs cut, that’s had to happen everywhere in the country whatever industry you are in. Southport just came to the end of the road I guess. It’s very sad, it’s very sad for those that work there, but it’s one of those things that had to be done and thankfully the family are strong enough to make the decision for the benefit of the business as a whole. I think they have made the right decisions and I see Blackpool going from strength to strength as a family park.
I now intend to spend my retirement playing lots of golf I hope and going on lots of holidays. I’m also buying a caravan so I can go down and see my family when they are travelling in the summer, but I will stay in Blackpool because I’ve got three children, five grandchildren and a very understanding wife here, which I’ve had to have for 35 years I can tell you. Fortunately she was born into the business as well: I’ve always said Blackpool’s a fun fair, but you don’t pull it down at the end, pack up the lorries and move it to the next place; you just close it and turn the key.
Jim Rowland was talking to Owen Ralph
