Park People Q Lines BALPPA 75 YEARS OF FUN


This winter the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions (BALPPA) reached its 75th


anniversary. Following a celebratory dinner the night before, Park World editor Owen Ralph sat down at EAG Expo in London on January 24 day with a group of former/future BALPPA chairmen to share their reminiscences about the association and the British parks industry in general. Our panel includes


current BALPPA president John Collins OBE (ex- Barry Island Pleasure


Park/Tussauds Group), John Bollom (Mumbles Pier), Gary Smart (Harbour Park, Littlehampton) and


Marshall Hill (Funland, Hayling Island).


What would the industry in Great Britain have been like 75 years ago? John Bollom (JB) – It was very much families and individual members, not corporations. Marshall Hill (MH) – A lot of them were showmen operating at the seaside. John Bollom (JC) – Yeah, Billy Butlin was a showman wasn’t he? He had all the hoiday camps and was one of the founder members. JB – George Booth from our company Amusement Equipment was also a founder member and then when dad [Stan Bollom] took over the firm, he joined the BALPPA committee in about 1950, or the AAPP as it was in those days. Leonard Thompson from Blackpool Pleasure Beach was always the guiding light of it really; whatever he said went. My father received a phone call from Leonard: “Bollom, you don’t come to the meetings do you?” “Well no Mr Thompson, we are concessionaires of yours at Blackpool and we don’t think it’s right that the hare runs with the hounds,” dad replied. “Nonsense, you’ve got your own parks at Alexandra Palace and Southend. There’s a meeting tomorrow, come and pick me up at Claridge’s at 9 ‘o’ clock.” It was a bit of a scary meeting. The first item in the agenda was to elect a chair. Leonard Thompson said, “Well we’ve got Bollom here now; he’ll take the chair.” So the first ever meeting my father attended he was elected the chair! He actually became the association’s longest- serving member, and chairman twice, once in the ‘50s and then again the ‘70s


What were some of the early challenges for the association? JC – It was formed as a reaction to the government wanting to tax games of skill, midway games. JB – That’s right, they called it the “coconut tax”! There were big regional differences among prize payouts in those days. The idea was to create a single voice for the industry. JC – There were also huge problems in the early ‘50s during the Festival of Britain. Festival Gardens at Battersea was way behind schedule and the LCC [London County Council] appealed to the industry for help. Leslie Joseph came in from Porthcawl and really sorted it out; it opened on time and that ultimately is why Leslie was knighted, for saving the embarrassment of the government.


What are the benefits of BALPPA membership? JB – What’s great about this association is the exchange of information and knowledge. A lot of new members when they come in really don’t understand the openness between the members. From Merlin


24


down to a little guy like me in Mumbles, there’s always something you can learn from somebody else. MH – You’ve got to be in it to win it, and if you don’t go to any of the meetings you are not going to find anything out. I had a conversation with one of my partners and he said it’s a waste of money, so I told him we’d just got a £25,000 rebate on rates and planning. Where does he think I hear about these things? If it weren’t for us sharing information as members we would never know about all these issues. Gary Smart (GS) – Then there’s the trade associate members. On a summer meeting, a supplier gets to work a coach load of operators. They can sit and talk, and it’s just a nice relaxed way of meeting people over several days.


Why are piers a special part of the industry in Great Britain? GS – Piers are a great icon of the seaside, there’s a sort of British quirkiness about them. JC – Most of them were built at a time when Britain really set the standard for worldwide engineering, and they are very unique structures, whereas in North America many of them have been replaced with concrete jetties. MH – You don’t see many piers in mainland Europe do you? JB – Most British people have a soft spot for them, but we have been losing one or two piers a year in recent times. The exception to the rule was Weston-super- Mare and that was only because the individual involved had the wherewithal to do it.


Beyond parks and piers, how has BALPPA widened its membership over the years? JB – The only exclusion that we used to have was local authorities, although Southport Corporation was one of the founding members, presumably because they were operating Pleasureland.


In conversation (from left to right) are John Bollom, Owen Ralph, Marshall Hill and John Collins. Gary Smart has his back to the camera


MARCH 2012


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40