Blackpool for Beginners ! Juliette W Gregson

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Social media has a lot to answer for since the inception of Yahoo groups, MSN chat , My Space and of course Facebook. This in turn has created a positive effect with the local 'Past' groups for the local area's that we all live - I am very much guilty of this and admin on quite a few !  Six years ago , I created one for Blackpool with the idea that I was sick of reading rather negative remarks  about my home town and wanted to share my love of vintage photographs and local heritage and history. Even now with my Past group I still think it's me and about 30 friends in a room going ohhh do you remember this ! 


*Look up, down and around you Juliette ! * - words from my wise mother Kath Gregson , I do this today and have been known to wander off and see what lies behind a door or tunnel...

My father David Gregson has a great interest in aviation and camera's - this boded very well for me in later years , as he took many slides of the area on his flights around the Fylde coast this could be where my interest in heritage and photography began. This also enabled me sort and use various video's, postcards and photographs in magazine articles, newspaper's and TV research. 

I began by writing about the paranormal myths and legends around the Fylde coast and somehow managed to get noticed by a well known ghost programme! This then cascaded into helping with research for the TV programme , writing about the ghosts of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the Winter Gardens and Blackpool Tower. I was then asked to write for the BBC Lancashire website about the top 10 ghosts and myths of haunted Blackpool, and then I found that I needed a better camera to capture photographic evidence for my website
Investing in and buying a Nikon I began to move more into writing about the history and heritage of the Fylde coast and capturing the iconic images of my home town.


 I still go out and take *spooky shots* but they seem to appear more on my camera during the day rather than at night! There seem to be only so many ghost stories and myths that are about in the Fylde coast, so I thought what else can I record and began to move more into heritage photography.  I would give anything to get permission to explore the maze of tunnels that are underneath Blackpool Tower and the Winter Gardens – who knows what historical delights lay down there!

Through the years I have worked in many interesting places, one of which was helping my I was lucky to have access to the family photograph and ephemera archive from my late grandparents and parents who seemed to have the ‘hoarding’ gene, which was great for me with regards to seeing what Blackpool and the surround area looked like in times of a bygone era.
 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackpoolspast/

https://www.facebook.com/heritagejuliettephotography/

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