LIFE GOES ON: NOV 2018

Above: 1956 advert for Prince's Water Phantasy at the council-owned Open-Air Bathing Pool ('The Baths') on the prom, featuring exhibition divers, swimmers and novelty acts: Tarzan and his mate, The Famous Lambert Trio, Prince Zahoor the 'brilliant Indian balancing star', and The Water Phantasettes.
When these performers were out of the way you could go and have a dip. The location was roughly where the Events Arena is now.

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During November 2018 the following posts were updated:

Electrip Records, letter from Italy -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2015/11/quiz-answer-115.html

Grand Theatre, ‘A Little Bit Of Fluff’ -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2016/10/grand-times.html

Gronant, more old pix -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2016/05/quiz-answer-135.html

Hovercraft, another pic -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-to-drawing-board-2.html

J.A. Elliott-Jones, artist -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2016/02/quiz-answer-127.html

Jasper Maskelyne in Rhyl -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2009/10/cinderella-49.html

Monorail 1980 -
https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2009/03/monorail.html

Pont y Ddraig aka Dragon Bridge, Foryd -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2015/08/quiz-answer-105_23.html

Promenade ‘walking photos’, another pic -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2009/07/toms-story.html

Rhuddlan, vintage pic of High Street -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2017/10/rhuddlan-request.html

St. John’s Church, Wellington Road -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2017/11/flashback-31.html

Westcliffe Hotel, West Parade -

https://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2009/06/western-front.html

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RECAP ON THE QUEENS

Earlier this month, Denbighshire County Council announced a £5 million redevelopment plan that targets the run-down Queens Indoor Market which has entrances in West Parade, High Street and Sussex Street.

Queens Market (established 1960) was previously Queens Ballroom which was established in 1920s. The splendid dance floor was taken up and sold at the time of conversion. Queens Theatre upstairs closed shortly after the ballroom.

Queens Theatre & Ballroom were preceded by the Grand Theatre upstairs with indoor roller skating rink below. Early film shows started at the rink and then moved upstairs to the theatre which operated off-season under the name Futurist Cinema.

Grand Theatre and the skating rink comprised a redevelopment of the Queen's Palace i.e. palace of varieties, which included theatre, ballroom, exhibitions and novelty sideshows. Queen's Palace opened in 1902, was open only in summer seasons, and closed down after a fire in 1907.

[Note for romantics: For two or three seasons Queen's Palace had in its basement a 'Little Venice' exhibition which included a gondola ride. This was taken out a couple of years before the fire and was nothing special in that day and age.]

A lot of genuine history is associated with the building and, up to 5 or 6 years ago, I would have thought it worth preserving if enough public money could be found. But since then the town centre has nose-dived and is in urgent need of something new.

At this point in its history Rhyl needs something new more than it needs something old.

Also in the proposed new scheme is Queens Market's next-door neighbour in West Parade, the Savoy Enterprises' building at Nos. 7-13. For a long time until fairly recently this was owned by the Trehearn family and operated under the name Vern's Amusements.
Readers may remember its corner of Queen Street as The Bistro night club (originally Savoy Cafe).

At present Denbighshire Council is seeking match-funding from Welsh Government for the proposed scheme and has not yet announced what it would intend to create on these sites.

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Above: I like the idea of a tobacconist named Mr. Stubbs . . . and indeed a sprinter named Mr. Bolt!

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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TUCK IN

London-based publishers Raphael Tuck & Sons started producing picture postcards in 1900 and continued for more than half a century. The Tuck company lost a lot of its original material during World War 2 and merged with other companies in 1959.

The following are Rhyl examples of Tuck cards - Foryd harbour, the pier, Open Air Bathing Pool ('The Baths') and sandhills opposite East Parade. The photos would have been taken circa 1950.

From the same source and of a similar date are these shots of Palin's Ideal Holiday Camp, Towyn near Abergele:

The camp certainly looks a lot different now and has been renamed Palin's Holiday Park:
http://www.palinsholidaypark.co.uk/

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WED 26th JUL 2017 UPDATE:  Here is a rare aerial shot of Palin's:

And for good measure, an undated postcard of Cambria Holiday Camp in Towyn, with intriguing reference to Radio Cycles bottom left:

This camp is still operating as Cambria Caravan Park:
http://cambriacaravanpark.com/

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WATERPARK

Yesterday, Denbighshire councillors agreed to a new attraction for Rhyl described as a Waterpark, This is to be sited near the Skytower as shown in the designs above (which are not precise in every detail).

The Waterpark is a kind of replacement for the Sun Centre. Jamie Glover, one of Denbighshire's unelected officers, says the Sun Centre ". . . didn't really provide a significant economic return to the town given it was far removed from the town centre."

Hmmmm. That's not what shopkeepers were telling me when it closed. Prestatyn's Nova Centre is being hailed as a success after a £4-and-a-half million makeover – not exactly in Prestatyn town centre, is it?

Anyway the fun and games at Rhyl's new Waterpark should pull in the crowds at least while the attraction remains a novelty. I welcome it with open arms; Rhyl needs to be refreshed by something new.

The Sun Centre cost just over £4 million in 1991 (not much more than £6 million in today's money). The new water park is estimated at £15 million. I wonder how Denbighshire is going to pay for it.

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FRI 3rd MAR 2017 UPDATE: The official name of the project is Rhyl Waterpark and Leisure Attraction (RWLA) aka Aquatic Centre. For our purposes Waterpark will do.
As for the cost, Rhyl Town Council has put £2 million in the kitty, and there will be £800k from the Tourism Investment Support Scheme (TISS) operated by Welsh Government. Denbighshire County Council will borrow the remainder of the required £15.4 million.
Cost of relocating the present skateboard park is included in calculations. Even so, the Waterpark will by far the most expensive item in the history of Rhyl. I hope that councillors have compared costs with other waterparks to ensure that we are not getting ripped off.
There are more than a dozen waterparks in UK and the number is steadily increasing. By the time ours opens in 2019 it will not have much in the way of novelty value.
Failure to attract a sufficient number of users will put Denbighshire’s budget under strain, so let’s cross our fingers and hope for a big success.

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SAT 21st OCT 2017 UPDATE: Further to Mr. Glover's comment about the Sun Centre being "far removed from the town centre", this postcard is a reminder of how near/far it actually was - the roundabout on your left is at top of High Street.

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RHYL SCHOOLS

Ysgol Llywelyn is spelt Llywelyn so I have corrected previous mentions in this blog that referred to it as Llewelyn. The confusion arises because Ysgol Llywelyn is in Trellewelyn Road. 

Occasionally, spellings can cause confusion. The former school in Vaughan Street was Christ Church (2 words); the current one is Christchurch.

Recently the primary schools Llywelyn, Emmanuel & Bryn Hedydd were in the highest possible grade of Welsh Government rankings.
Da iawn!

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I SHOULD COCOA

Recently on Internet this coin-shaped token came up for sale. It appears to be made of a soft material such as cardboard. The face bears the name Rhyl Cocoa House Company Limited, and the back bears the number 1.

According to Rhyl History Club's Maggi Blythin there were two cocoa houses under different ownership. The first was in High Street (opened 1878) and the second was on a corner of Bodfor Street and Kinmel Street (opened 1885).

That corner may have been 34 Bodfor Street where the Imperial Hotel is now, because the location has a track record in catering. Before the Imp there was a cafe run by the Bracchi family who may well have utilised former Cocoa House premises.

The cocoa would have been a type of drinking chocolate. Not long ago an offshoot of the Cadbury company tried unsuccessfully to revive the idea of cocoa houses. See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Cocoa_House

As for the token, what was it for? A loyalty token? A gaming chip? Your guess would be as good as mine.

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While on subject of catering, here is another 1930s view of the art deco style cafe at Open Air Swimming Pool ('The Baths') on prom:

The cafe is sometimes referred to as Osborne's.

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FUNNY GAME, POLITICS

If you have never thought there might be something creepy about Nigel Farage, this picture of him with US Presidential candidate Donald Trump would be a good place to start. They have in common that they wish to destroy the way we live.

As for the EU referendum, I see that our right-wing newspapers are trying to justify the Leave vote by saying that the predicted big fall in the UK economy has not happened. Of course it hasn’t. We have not left.

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TOPPING UP THE LAKE

Rhyl's Marine Lake opened in 1895 having been created artificially as an ornamental boating lake. In this blog much has been said already about the site, its fun fair and miniature railway, but the images in this post have not appeared here before.

Above is a card posted 1908. Pictured would be the east shore (nearest to town) where most activity has taken place because of the wider space. In the background are hints of Westbourne Avenue.

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

Below is a card postmarked 1907. At a very early stage swimming had been introduced on the south shore. The water was muddy!

The most enduring aspect of the lake is its miniature steam railway based in the north east corner. The first card below is likely to be circa 1912 and the colourised version would be later:

Marine Lake Fun Fair was Rhyl's first permanent fairground and it drew big crowds between the two world wars:

Here are a couple of my favourites from later times, featuring the Marine Lake train Joan against a backdrop of Ocean Beach Fun Fair: 

And here are the pedal boats called Splash-Cats on a card postmarked 1976 when the new Rhuddlan Borough Council was making a serious attempt to breathe new life into the place:

The trouble with water is that it looks inhospitable on cold dark days. The final shot was taken on Ist January 2016 by Fred Burns with your intrepid blogger in attendance:

For a long time the site has been little more than a mildly-interesting dog toilet, and maintenance by council is expensive, so the challenge must be how to make it more cost effective.

Rhyl people would not be short of ideas if anybody bothered to ask.

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QUIZ ANSWER # 117

Last Sunday I posted the following photo which was taken not long ago. It shows an exterior wall plaque dated 1855. The question: Where in Rhyl would you find this plaque?
The answer: Grange Hotel.
To be precise, on the east wing of the derelict Grange Hotel, East Parade. Thanks to Dave Williams for the photo.

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Also I posted a slightly-masked image of a cafe that is no longer with us. The question: Where in Rhyl would you have found this cafe?

The answer: Open Air Bathing Pool aka 'The Baths' on the prom.
The cafe (Osborne's) was at the end nearest to the pier. Nice piece of 1930s art deco. Pity it did not survive. Here is the image un-masked:

The picture is from Flintshire Record Office.

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Scoring 1 win by getting the correct answers to both questions are The Great Gareth, and George Owen MBE who is making his debut in this series of the quiz. For George the Grange question was easy because one of his ancestors, a Mr. Griffiths, lived there when it was a house named Bod Dounan.

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QUELLE SURPRISE

Last Friday evening in Paris supporters of Islamic State (IS) killed more than 120 people. President Hollande described it as an act of war. I don’t know what he would describe his country’s recent bombing of IS in Syria as an act of.

France and Britain have in common that they are countries that used to have an empire. In the past they were able to carry out acts of extreme military aggression in faraway countries without suffering retaliation, but not anymore.

When leaders of France, UK and other EU countries take sides in conflicts further afield, they should be aware that we, their citizens – and possibly our future generations – become targets for revenge.

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This week Jones Towers received quite a varied batch of correspondence including an email about a Parliamentary child trafficking ring‏ of the 1990s and a Christmas card. Life goes on.

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RARITIES

On the subject of skating, some years ago in a previous post I wrote, “Before World War 2 there was a large skating rink on the south side of Wellington Road, quite far down towards Marine Lake; this one seems poorly documented – I have never seen a picture of it.”

This advert below reveals the place to be Olympia Skating Rink in Wellington Road. The advert is from Rhyl Journal (9th June 1934) and is part of the Glyn Rees collection. Glyn has added a note saying the rink was opposite Sandringham Avenue:

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Regarding swimming, a few years back in a previous post there appeared some info and pictures relating to the indoor Sussex Street Baths. The building stood where Peacocks store is now.

Only recently the following image of the interior of the baths came to hand; it is a postcard presumed to be circa 1920.

Click on any picture to see a bigger version.

Something else new to this blog: a notebook that a lady would have carried around at a dance, writing in the names of men who wished to dance with her:

It is often described as a dance card or programme du bal, and this 1932 example is from Queens Hotel, West Parade, Rhyl.

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

See my Rhyl videos on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RhylTime

Only the videos marked RhylTime are mine!

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EVE IN WONDERLAND

Eve Gilkes (was Eve Hubbard) writes, “During WW2 my family moved to Rhyl. We lived in 5 Knowles Avenue.

     “My brother Lynden Hubbard went to Pendyffryn House School. My elder sister Lynne went to Southlawn School in Brighton Road until I started at Christ Church school in Vaughan Street, then she came with me to Christ Church School.
     “The above photo of me was taken in 1941 on Rhyl seafront by a street photographer. They would take your photo without you asking; they just took it as you walked along, and then ask if you wanted it. My Mum must have been with me and bought it from him. 

"Mum used to take us to Marine Lake Fun Fair and Ffrith Beach for picnics, and to Prestatyn where we climbed the mountain and had picnics there too. We used to catch the bus. This was in the 1940's
     "In Rhyl the swimming baths on the prom were fantastic. American servicemen, G.I.s used to hang out there.The above photo was taken in 1942 at the baths.
     "I am kneeling in the centre with Lynden on your right of me and Wynne on left. Nearest to the camera is my younger sister Judy.
     "On right of the picture, looking at the camera, is Rita Booth. She was the daughter of our next door neighbour in Knowles Avenue.
     "Those hand knitted bathing costumes looked good whilst you were dry, but once wet in the pool became heavy and almost fell off with the weight of the water!"

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Just for good measure Eve throws in the above snap taken in Llandudno on the Great Orme, outside Randy's Bar part-owned by champion boxer Randolph Turpin who was the licensee from 1952 to 1961.

Thanks for sharing family memories Eve, and thanks to Dilys Bagnall for the booklet from which the following images were taken:

If you wish to read about Randy Turpin in Wikipedia please click here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Turpin

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SAT 15th JUL 2017 UPDATE: Origin of Randy's Bar - Telegraph Hotel, Gt. Orme's Head, Llandudno on a card postmarked 1910.

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THE LOVELIES

This cartoon appeared in 1948 in Rhyl Leader newspaper.

Some readers may find the concept of female glamour and beauty contests offensive but it is part of the social history of seaside resorts such as Rhyl and many other towns, and we can’t ignore it.

The late Glyn Rees left a few files on the subject of Miss Rhyl and similar events. Dipping into them at random, I found the following which shows Miss Rhyl 1934 (Edna Howard) with her clothes on:

Here from 1936 is a typical parade at Open-Air Bathing Pool ('The Baths') on the promenade:

Click on any picture to see a bigger version.

The following is circa 1942, during World War 2. I bet it boosted the morale of the forces:

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Eventually the whole bathing beauty idea became more commercialised. Some entrants were semi-professional photographic/fashion models.

They travelled from town to town picking up contest prize money which at times could be substantial. Their life was not all fun. Look out for the film ‘The Beauty Jungle’ (1964) starring Janette Scott and Ian Hendry, directed by Val Guest.

By contrast, the following is definitely fun. It is an undated photo showing a retro parade of early swimsuit styles:

Here is a 1979 newspaper cutting about Debbie Dean, Miss Chamber of Trade, who won several beauty titles and married the footballer Mike Thomas. I don’t think we have a Chamber of Trade these days, do we? Further info on this point, and on Debbie and Mike, would be welcome:

And for good measure, here is Miss Rhyl 1980 (Anita Campini):

Perhaps we should have a Miss Rhyl Life competition. As an elderly gentleman – 70 next year – I had better restrict it to a small number of ladies of a certain age. Wouldn’t do to get over-excited.

All illustrations above are from the collection of the late Glyn Rees.

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6720. Additional image added in July 2020:

Plenty of activity on show in this card, postmarked 1947, including on your right a beauty parade.

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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IN THE SWIM # 1

The black-and-white pictures above are from Gaynor Williams. They show 'Rhyl Swimming Bath' otherwise known as Sussex Street Baths. This facility opened in 1905 for public bathing in tepid sea water. It was a small place with rather basic facilities and became less popular after the Open-Air Bathing Pool opened on the prom in 1930.

Sussex Street Baths closed in 1939 and the building was used as a storage place by the Army during WW2. After the war it reopened as an indoor market which eventually became known as The Old Market to distinguish it from the newer Queens Market across the road.

The colour photo was taken in 2009 by Yours Truly and shows the present use of the site: the shops Savers and Peacocks.

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MON 5th FEB 2018 UPDATE: Recently to hand is this postcard of a kind that is believed to have been sold to customers on the premises at Sussex Street Baths:

The postmark is indistinct but could be 1922. The illustration seems to me to be rather good. Sadly, the artist/cartoonist is not identified. The caption Alfred Huxley Walsall refers to the company that built the baths.

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SUN 8th APR 2018 UPDATE: Indoor baths had been quite a fad in Victorian times. A popular one in mid to late 1800s in Rhyl was Vaughan's at 15 High Street where a gent could get a haircut and shave as well as an invigorating dip in hot or cold water.
Presuming High Street has not been renumbered, Vaughan's was probably the rear part of the former Goldsmiths jewellers shop opposite McDonalds.
     Another notable baths of the period was Astle's, Queen Street (now the Victory Club).

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IN THE SWIM # 2

These photographs are from Gaynor Williams. The postcards at the top are from early 1930s and depict an unusually large crowd at the promenade’s Open-Air Bathing Pool (or 'The Baths' if you like). The event may have been the opening day in 1930. Swimming outdoors in unheated water was not the only self-inflicted punishment on offer; the other photos show a Keep Fit class there, the lower picture is a detail of the one above.

Love those costumes.

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SAT 25th NOV 2017 UPDATE: Also staged there - exhibition diving. The following card postmarked 1956 captures one such event nicely.

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