Our town has to get off its backside (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Our town has to get off its backside

2:08pm Tuesday 17th July 2012 in Opinion By Margo Grimshaw, Lancashire Telegraph columnist

THERE is always something going on in Ramsbottom.

The other Saturday, they were having a Forties weekend and I was impressed by how many visitors they’d attracted.

It got me thinking that if a small town like that can arrange such an event and attract so many people, why can’t we do something like that in Blackburn?

Church Street is the ideal focal point where local businesses could have kiosks or stalls for the day, letting folk from out of town know what they and the town have to offer.

As for attractions, we’ve the Cathedral. Its grounds are ideal for picnics; our museum, a great shopping mall and why not have a band playing in the Town Hall square?

Combine that with a buskers free for all and the town could be buzzing.

If it proved successful, then it could be repeated every few weeks. Yes. Blackburn needs to get off its backside and show that we are as good, if not better, than other Lancashire towns. But in order to do it, we have to get out there, telling and selling!

And while we are about it, our night life could do with a makeover.

I confess, I’ve been on the nostalgia trail again, talking about the way we were, recalling the Tuppeny Stall on the market, where my eldest brother Alfred would play the big man and say ‘Go on kid, I will buy whatever you want’, and when Woolworths was the Sixpenny Store, our Tom and I would go in on a Saturday with our week’s sixpence spending money and know that we could buy anything!

That was a powerful feeling, but it posed an agonising dilemma, to buy something for my mum, or buy that beautiful baby doll stretching out her arms, just for me. Years ago whilst working the market selling coats, I remember if a customer asked ‘How much? and didn’t flinch at the price, the boss would immediately say ‘But darling, in your size it would be another 10 shillings’.

Friday night brought back memories as I opened icandy, a new very smart night club in Accrington for Kath Hartley.