DESPITE money being short that year as a trade depression dragged on for months, thousands of Blackburn folk still had enough put by to afford a day trip to Blackpool as the town's two-day September holiday began 80 years ago -- and, as the Northern Daily Telegraph reported, many others were able to splash out on a four-day booking there.

Staff at the railway station's ticket barriers were kept busy as long queues formed for the special trains, but many others travelled that Saturday, in 1921, by motor charabanc.

It was, said the NDT, a form of transport to which the "general public owed a debt of gratitude," for "though the roads were not much better than in the old coaching days and unsuited to rapid, modern travelling," the 'charry,' as it was dubbed, had opened up places to them that were previously out of reach and through its keen competition with the trains had speeded up a reduction in rail fares.

Present-day readers would look askance at the notion of bumping along unfit roads in a sold-tyred open vehicle at just 12 mph, with only a pram-type hood for protection if it rained, as ever being in the realm of "rapid, modern travelling." And despite its praise of charabanc transport, the NDT, had to admit the vehicles could not claim "satisfactory adaptation to the rigours of winter" so that "in the months that lie ahead much of the joyriding must necessarily go by the board."

Indeed, the newspaper also reported that, in the winter, many charabanc operators removed the bodies from their vehicles and turned them into lorries in order for them to earn their keep.

But if that September holiday exodus took thousands from East Lancashire to Blackpool, the charabanc traffic was not all one way. For this party was setting out from their works in the seaside resort and heading in the other direction -- for Whalley and a "picnic" at the village's Swan Hotel.