Remember The Beehive, The Top Ten, The Golden Nugget, The Roaring 20s or The Casa Romano?
These were just some of the coffee bars which were the places to be seen for teenagers growing up in Blackpool during the Sixties.
And now they are being mapped as part of Jukebox: The Teenage Revolution, a series of exciting events taking place on Lancashire’s seaside coast celebrating the music and teenage culture of Britain in the Fifties and Sixties.
These decades saw the growth of milk and coffee bars, most of them with jukeboxes, which provided an added attraction for teenagers keen to escape parental gaze and have the freedom to explore their own tastes in music, fashion and style.
And the Ditchburn Equipment company in Blackpool and Lytham St Annes was the birthplace of the distinctive British jukebox.
Jukebox: The Teenage Revolution is supported with a £50,904 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players. The project is also funded by Arts Council England, The Granada Foundation and the Garfield Weston Foundation.
During two mapping sessions at the Stanley Park Visitor Centre, people with memories of Blackpool’s many coffee bars aimed to identify their locations which will result in the publication of online and printed Blackpool coffee bar maps.
“It’s been great to have our enthusiastic participants share their memories and help us research the old Blackpool maps,” said Steve Fairclough, engagement officer with Mirador, the Lancashire-based arts and heritage charity running the project with Lancaster University Library.
“It was very interesting to hear stories of the Sixties coffee bars and how an outing would lead from one to another. Also how the trends of young people changed, through the music and the style of the coffee bars.”
Anyone with memories of being a teenager in the Fifties and Sixties or photographs from that era, please contact Mirador at: https://miradorarts.co.uk/get-in-touch
Further information
For more press details about Jukebox: The Teenage Revolution please contact Louise Bryning at louisebryningpr@gmail.com
About Lancaster University
Lancaster University is a collegiate university in the UK city of Lancaster and a member of the N8 Research Partnership: an association of the eight most research-intensive universities in the North of England.
Lancaster University is a highly ranked UK university with a global reputation for excellence in research and teaching. Lancaster is consistently ranked among the top 15 in all three major UK university league tables and continues to build a growing reputation both nationally and internationally.
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
As the largest dedicated funder of the UK’s heritage, The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033.
Over the next ten years, the Heritage Fund aims to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to bring about benefits for people, places and the natural environment.
The Heritage Fund helps protect, transform and share the things from the past that people care about, from popular museums and historic places, our natural environment and fragile species, to the languages and cultural traditions that celebrate who we are.
The Heritage Fund is passionate about heritage and committed to driving innovation and collaboration to make a positive difference to people’s lives today, while leaving a lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy.
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