Pier Pavilion Saga Rumbles On...

Another front page story in the North Wales Weekly News last week, about the continued failure of, well, anything to be done about the derelict site of the former Pier Pavilion Theatre on the front in Llandudno.

In case we need reminding, it is now sixteen years since the devastating fire that destroyed the iconic Grade II Listed Building. In that period, how many times have we heard of a breakthrough in progress with redeveloping the festering eyesore of a site - yet nothing has ever happened! At one point, the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) offered to use their Compulsory Purchase Powers but Conwy Council declined their offer!

Make no mistake, this is a landmark site in the resort of Llandudno and the only site of any size on the Promenade that would be suitable for the mixed use, all-weather leisure development that the town really needs (yes, it does rain in Wales occasionally!). The current owner, the ever elusive David Taylor of Worcester, seems to be dreaming of a 10 storey high apartment block on the site, netting him many millions of pounds profit. Sorry, Mr. Taylor, but it's never going to happen!

Unless Mr. Taylor accepts that residential development will never happen and sells the site to a Leisure Developer, then the only way forward is for CCBC/Welsh Assembly Government to carry out a Compulsory Purchase of the site and then pass it on to a Developer in order to recoup their money. As a Compulsory Purchase is carried out at a 'fair value', the price would reflect its current planning status as a leisure site and not some 'pie in the sky' residential site value. Thus, it would be a viable (not to say attractive) site for developers.

In conclusion, Llandudno would gain the all-weather attraction(s) that it desperately needs, jobs would be created for locals, taxes would be generated. for the Government...best of all, a sixteen year old embarrassment to the town removed once and for all!

The Glory Days... (Photo Credit)

Sixteen years of a derelict eyesore! (Photo Credit)

From Far & Wide...

I was just taking a look at the Statistics for the Blog and was pleased to see it's been attracting visitors from not just across the UK, but from all over the World. And not just from a wide range of individuals, what a wide range of organisations too. Employees of the BBC, Trinity Mirror Group, The Guardian, Oxford University, University of Wales, Conwy County Council, Anglesey County Council, Denbighshire County Council....the list goes on and on.

Of particular interest to visitors seems to be the Curious Case of Beatrice Blore-Browne - she figures very highly in the Google searches that bring people to the Blog. Unfortunately, I've come to a bit of a dead end as regards researching her, with several elements to her life still remaining a mystery. If anyone can fill in any of the blanks (or has a photo), please get in touch!

Also attracting high numbers of visitors are the articles on the late lamented Pier Pavilion, Llandudno and professional performance diver Professor Walter Beaumont.

I'm thrilled that the Blog seems to be appreciated - thanks to you all for visiting!

End of the Pier Show

With the nights drawing in now, I popped up to the end of the Pier in Llandudno to take this shot of the illuminated Pierhead Pavilion:

(Photo Credit)

An Interview With Alex Munro

Oh, they love it no end! Oh, they love it to death!
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALEX MUNRO - SEPTEMBER 22ND, 1974.

Alex Munro (Centre) & The cast of 'Startime'

The sea off the pier is a surly grey and the sleepless gulls swing crying against the towers of the Grand Hotel. The mountains, the sky, the promenade are grey and wet as Alex Munro stands outside the Pier Pavilion, calling people to ‘Startime’. “Seats available tonight - seats available. Lucky programme. Seats available inside.”

“Seats available, lucky programme tonight. Ah – good evening ladies. Have you been to the show before? Well, come inside: there’s no reason why you shouldn’t suffer like all the rest.”

Alex Munro wears a bow-tie, a white shirt-front and flowing white handkerchief; on the side of his head he wears a small trilby hat. He has little legs and dancing feet, and tips his hat when he speaks, or waltzes sidelong across the lighted stair, clapping his hands together.

He lifts his voice above the bumping of the Ghost Train next door.
“Seats available inside. Good evening ladies. Good evening to you, Sir.” “Where were you from, now?”
“Leicester.”
He claps his hands. “Leicester!”
The man, who carried a raincoat clutched his elbow and murmured confidentially, “Home of the RAF.”
“Good evening ladies, Good evening, Madam, take your time now. Give us your hand. There’s no more steps after this. Seats available inside.”

Pushed among the strolling crowd comes a figure in a wheelchair, which stops in front of the Pavilion, beside the sea wall. He trips down towards it, through the strolling, different crowd. In the wheelchair sits a clergyman in a beret and slippers, so old he seems to weep as if terribly touched; and in this way, somehow, the clergyman contrives to smile.
“We’re going down to see the boat come in.” his daughter said.
“Good luck to you Reverend, anyway. It was grand when you came in and saw the show.”
“He liked the chocolates you gave him, anyway.”
“Thank you Sir Alex,” the white lips trembled.
“Sir Alex? Why do you call me that Reverend?”
The lips moved again with the ghost of a joke.
“It’s your title.”

The 'Startime' Cast on the steps of the Pier Pavilion

Llandudno and the summer season were created as one. The town sprang fully-terraced from the Great Orme rock, the pier followed quickly, in 1876, incorporating the Grand Hotel’s teutonic fancies. All flourished by ministering to the great age of lower-class gentility – this was the resort chosen by Denry Machin for the wooing of Ruth Earp as ‘more stylish than Rhyl or Blackpool, and not dearer’. It thronged, in its heyday, with arch and aspiring promenaders, for the diversion of whom large theatres and concert-halls were erected along the North Wales coast.

That season is prolonged, for the gentility of Llandudno is miraculously prolonged. Its lofty boarding-houses offer a fastidious welcome, debating between themselves whether it is more prestigious to display in the parlour-window a card which says ‘Vacancies’ or a card which says ‘No Vacancies’. By an ancient ordinance, the long promenade flowing to the pier is kept free of all importuning or trading; from everything save intelligence of high water and the thrice-daily performance of ‘Professor Codman’s Wooden Headed Follies’. At night, the proletarian glow of Colwyn Bay may shine to the east around the Little Orme. Here a simpler communion prevails, between people seated under civic trees, people seated in deck chairs high and low, and the auditorium of the sea, from which a stiff wind blows.

In cutaway coat and silver tie, he trips beside the wet headland along the slippery boards of the pier. The great white gulls descent upon the rail and remain there, arrogant yet abstracted, as he passes by.

He lifts his trilby. He bows.
“Good morning ladies. Now have you been to see the show yet?” “Yes. Yes.” “And did you enjoy it?” “Yes. Very nice.” “Well, come again. I need the money.” “Oh well,” the ladies laughed, “we’ll give you three-halfpence.”

Alex Munro presents his ‘Startime’ in the Pier Pavilion from May to October, each night of the week excepting Sunday. Each afternoon excepting Saturday he presents another show in Happy Valley, an open-air theatre on the slopes of the Great Orme. His face, its trilby aslant, is to be seen all over town; it shines from handbill and hoarding; it hangs by coloured string in chip shops and gift-shops; it decorates the rear panels of the showman’s own mini-bus strategically parked on the road above the Grand Hotel. It promises ‘George Cormack and Irene Sharp, Scotland’s International Singing Stars’, ‘Benny Garcia, Television’s Dynamic Entertainer', ‘Billy Crockett, the Mad Musician from London’s Albert Hall’. It vouchsafes ‘melodious melodies, glamorous girls, clean comedy’ but, above all, the abundant personality of the man who is both star and licensee.

“I’m the last of what you call the old-time real showmen – there’s not many left like me. Do you want a piece of fudge? It’s just some fudge a lady handed up to me the other night; just a bit of fudge she’d made herself. She’s been in to the show two or three times. Because I present a family show. A real family show – no blue jokes; I don’t allow a ‘hell’ or a ‘damn’. And oh, they love it! Oh, they love it no end! Oh, they love it to death!”

John Morava (centre) and the Pier Orchestra in the 1950s.
This (1974) is his last season in Llandudno after 38 years of morning and evening concerts.

He has his competitors, nonetheless. There is still a repertory company in Llandudno, at the Grand on Mostyn Broadway, presenting it’s sequence of thrillers and comedies and comedy thrillers in a theatre founded by Irving. Until this summer there was a pier-orchestra, led by the elegant John Morava. At the other end of the promenade there is the Arcadia, a music-hall built in expectation of a second pier that never came. The arcadia presents a variety show of the same type as Alex, on the same nights of the week throughout the same protracted season. This rival show is called, not ‘Startime’ but ‘Showtime’.

‘Startime’ and ‘Showtime’ do not go in for big names. Their purpose, rather, is to appeal to people’s fondness, on holiday as everywhere, for regularity and routine. Each show advertises three changes of programme. Since the guest houses traditionally book from Saturday to Saturday – an arrangement suited to nobody but the guest houses – it is possible, during one week in Llandudno, to attend three different versions of ‘Startime’, or of ‘Showtime’. On Sundays, when the town is dry, there are orchestral concerts and occasional outbreaks of hymn-singing. Only Saturdays are curiously deserted and dull.

“I’m not a young man, but I can still stand on my hands.” He stood on his hands there and then, and his keys and lighter fell out of his waistcoat. His hat remained, however, on the side of his head.

“I used to be a professional acrobat. I was what they called top man. My brother and me, we were the Horsburgh Brothers; perch-acts they used to call ‘em. I’d be doing a handstand on top of the ladder on the other man’s shoulders. Oh it was a class act. We walked on in evening-dress with the orchestra playing ‘dee-dee o’clock in the morning’, and we played in front of Hitler in Germany. ‘Scottish Phlegmatics’ they called us there. Now, see, i’m really safe as top man. They’re not going to let me fall ‘cause if I damage mysel’, the whole act’s gone; but if I think they’re going to let me fall, I’m going to be cheery up there."

“I’ve been married, you know, a few times. Ssh!” he guffawed, looking at his young wife Marie in the box-office. “Ssh!, she’s looking; she knows what we’re saying.” He clapped his hands. “Five!"

“I do everything myself, you know, here, right down to the sweeping. If I want a packet of nails I’ve got to buy it myself’ because the Council don’t do anything here you know.” (His rival, the Arcadia, is Council-owned.) “I was up a ladder round here the other day and someone calls to me ‘Alex, you shouldn’t be up there’. I think to myself, ‘that’s right, I shouldn’t, i’m an old man.’ Then I thought, ‘well why shouldn’t I? If you haven’t got the confidence in yourself, where are you?’ This is a 2500-seater you know. Before I came here with a show, it died the death. It used to be a picture-house.”

He looked into his theatre. A small light burned in the orchestra pit. The stall seats, in their semi-circular expanse, were quiet, and the balcony seats piled up to the reassurance of the topmost exits. Under the dress-circle hangs a yellow screen. Behind the screen are further seats: as many unseen as exhibited, the linked iron and plush ascending, step by step, to a forgotten back row rounded like a stern of a ship. There are seats even beyond this, hidden through a wall of curtain; in alcoves and posterns and select little boxes, in threes and fives and twos and eights and fours, there are ‘seats available’.

The partnership between Alex Munro and Billy Crockett the Mad Musician has continued intermittently for 20 years since they met on the same bill at the Empire, Oldham. Alex summoned Billy this summer from Durban, where he was appearing in an ice-show.

The Mad Musician in private is small and circular and gentle. His dressing-room at the Pier Pavilion is filled with the music-props from his act: a miniature saxophone, some tiny harmonicas which he plays on his finger-ends, his makeup in cigar-boxes, sleighbells of varying pitches, and the bagpipes used, at the conclusion of his performance, to bow up a balloon.

He carries his life all in one suitcase. “I buy everything as I go along. Then I never have to wake up and think ‘what am I going to wear today?’ because i’ve only got two suits to choose from.”

Billy has no wife now. His daughter is married, and he wants to buy a piece of ground near Edinburgh for her to start a riding-school. “That’s the only trouble – you get so bored in these places where you happen to be. I’ve often read the paper my fish and chips are wrapped in,” Billy said, “or i’ll take the newspaper out of the drawers in the bedroom and read that.”

Alex holds court in the Stage Door café next to the Pavilion, where the sugar comes in a metal pudding basin and the girl behind the tea urns has purple wounds on her eye and cheek, having been set on and beaten by girls from Liverpool.

Billy is there, and Eddie Read the banjo-man and Benny Garcia, ‘Television’s Dynamic Entertainer’. Benny wears a blazer and plastic raincoat, and somewhat morosely, scans the Radio Times and TV Times for news from the front line of his profession. “I’d love to sleep late,” he said, “but I have to be up for nine where i’m staying or I miss breakfast.”

“They’re all getting good money,” Alex said as if these members of his company were not present. “Billy Crockett: class act, you know,” he murmured. “And it’s 22 weeks’ work” He guffawed. “Long as they can go without eating.”
“He pays you in electricity,” Billy Crockett said “The wages give you a shock.”
Eddie Read noted this down in the book where he notes down jokes that he hears.
“No, I pay them what they want,” Alex said. “I don’t try beat any of them down. Benny did I try beat you down?”
“Only a fiver,” Benny said; then he relented: “No.”

“And I won’t allow any blue jokes,” Alex said. “I won’t allow a ‘hell’ or ‘damn’. I can be in real trouble, mind you, when people come up on stage out of the audience, I tell them ‘No blue jokes now, this is a family show’’, then they go up to mike and they start, ‘I was sitting in the lavatory the other day…’ Oh my God!” He covered his eyes at the thought of these scatological time-bombs.

“And I do a thing with three men out of the audience and a gag with a basin, bowl and jug – I can be in real trouble there as well. Some of them make the most horrible overtures, you know, with that jug.”

A woman sitting at the next table turned to him and said “You must have been up in Happy Valley for about 15 years now, haven’t you? Before they used to have The Great Waldini up there.”
“That’s right. His name was Walley Bishop, the Great Waldini. I was following a legend. For the first three years I came they said to me ‘Scotchman go home’.”
“It must be 15 years,” the woman said, “because our Christine had a prize off him – she was eight then, she’s 23 now – she sang and our Philip played a musical instrument and they both got a prize.”
“Have you seen the show yet?”
“Yes – thoroughly enjoyed it. I cried for you last year,” the woman said, “when we heard about your Janet. You’d told us she was going to be in a film and we looked out for it. I cried for you when I heard. Tragedy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Alex said.

When Sal Thomas announced her intention of leaving The Alexandra, the pub where she was barmaid, in order to start a café, her employer refused to give her, her cards, so certain was the employer she would soon be back. In Llandudno, as along all the edges of the sea, people are always trying to start cafes. The failures stand numerous in every coastal town, as lonely and dank as mines after the gold-rush, though crowded still with customers who are the last to be informed of the disaster.

Sal Thomas started with the Floral Café, at the far end of the promenade in Craig-y-Don. Nowadays the Floral does scampi with its chips and has a little wooden bar with coloured bulbs in which, to serve the eccentric whim of Sal’s customers, can be obtained wine and Merrydown and mead and sometimes tequila.

A couple of streets away is the Grand Theatre. They say the Grand was built by Irving; and certainly Irving would be upset now to see the coldness of its galleries and vestibules, the incipient disintegration of its ravishing oval ceiling. Though the Grand backs right against the prosperous Arcadia, somehow, from the town, and its elegant verandahs look out on a piece of waste ground where sailing dinghies lie.

Each night after the play, in which they have to wear their own clothes, the Grand company go along to Sal’s. From Sal they receive the large gins which restore spirit and the baskets of chips which strengthen the resolve. Later, Sal puts the bolts on the café door and looks at photographs of other repertory actors she has boarded, with her two big, curly dogs, newly bathed, under her legs.

“That was Cathy Greenwood. She used to stand in her slip and wash panties in the kitchen while my mother was sat there, buttering bread. That was a boy called Michael Taylor. He used to go into the bathroom every morning, open the little window and shout ‘up periscope!’ ‘Divine morning’, he used to say, ‘what have you got for breakfast Sal darling?’ And nobody could make his bed as well as he could, as if it hadn’t been slept in for a week, and his pyjamas all folded beautifully along the crease."

“I always had the ambition to travel,” Sal said. “I couldn’t do, but I sometimes think that all the interesting people I dreamed of meeting have come here to see me.”
Her husband returned from his nightly bingo game and hung up his coat in the passage. Sal courteously inquired if he had won. He replied that he had.

The North Wales summer varies to the point of playfulness. It can be raining along the shore yet clear at the top of the Orme; while it keeps fine on the promenade, a deluge may fall upon the deck-chairs of the Happy Valley. It is not uncommon for Alex to move his show down to the Pier Pavilion, and then up into the open-air again, in the course of a single matinee. But this afternoon it seems as if it ought to keep fine. The sky is like a blue quilt with old grey clothes thrown over it. Slowly, in the little turf amphitheatre, the pink-and-white deck chairs are covered by people with raincoats covering their knees. The cable-cars pass quietly overhead to the top of the Orme. On the hill outside the wire perimeter, a second, non-paying crowd has also gathered.

Alex has a special and private love for Happy Valley, In 15 years he has lavished time and attention on it, increasing the lawn around the stone terraces, whitening the stones along the flowerbed, planting the purple flowers with the name which is uncertain. From the stage painted like the deck of a ship he can see the place where the plants grow irregularly despite their daily watering; he can see the slim, new plants which the water has encouraged. He feels that, perhaps the spirit of The Great Waldini has been exorcised. When he is dead, people will say ‘Alex Munro did that’, looking at the grass, the whitened stones, the purple flowers, the name of which he cannot recall.

Alex Munro in action at Happy Valley in the 1970s

An audience in the open is always unresponsive; how much more the audience established in deck-chairs? Desiring entertainment, they at once renounce it, for a deck-chair atrophies desire. His purpose is to show them that the entertainment lies in themselves and is the prize of anyone who will speak out. He proposes that, when he says ‘Hello Visitors’, they shall answer ‘Hello Alex’. He says ‘Hello Visitors’, then covers his face with his hands at the paucity of their response. He prevails on them to sing songs commemorating their town, the county or district of their origin. A cable-car passes overhead. A little rain rattles on the trees.

He places a box against the microphone for the use of competitors in the Junior Talent Contest who now stand, in irregular sizes, behind him. While the Junior Talent Contest is in progress, he jumps from the stage to ascertain that all is well with his wife Marie in the box-office. He dispatches two teenage assistants with collecting-boxes to ‘bottle’: to extract donations from the unofficial audience on the hill. Returning to the stage, he pretends, on a drum roll to fall on his nose. He picks himself up to direct some late arrivals into the mass of deck-chairs that are not yet occupied.

The Junior Talent Contest is still, somewhat inexorably, proceeding. A boy steps up on the box and delivers into the microphone a Tarzan yell of surprising brevity and force. Now there is a girl who does acrobatics. There is always a girl who does acrobatics. The professional acrobat is stirred. He snatches off his dinner-coat. He lies, in shirtsleeves and trilby, on the stage; she does a handstand on his arms.

“It’s wonderful to see Alex on the stage again,” said Mr Owen of the Advertiser. “We thought he was a goner last year, you know, after Janet died. He was unconscious for two days.”

He and Marie live in rather a large house in a rather select part of Llandudno. Billy Crockett has a flatlet in the next street. “Billy came round Sunday night,” Marie said. “He brought his own television with him so that he wouldn’t interfere with our programme. He said he didn’t want to be any trouble to us, so he brought his own tea-bag with him.”

In the lounge hangs a portrait of a girl with a strangely familiar face. Anna-Marie, their daughter, smiled and looked at her shoes. “That’s Janet,” she murmured.

When the evening show in the Pavilion is over, the lights go on and the performers come down from the stage. The drum-kit can be looked at, and the music-sheets on the 1931 Hammond organ. The artists and audience stand in groups along the stage as if they are discussing some topic of quiet mutual interest.

Alex stands in the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs, whither his last exit from the stage has taken him. Just as he greeted them when they came in, he says goodbye to them as they go out. They walk, arm-in-arm towards the darkened promenade. A thrill of silver light has been caught in a spectacle-frame. And a man has taken his wife’s fingers and stroked them with his own.

He shakes the last hand and scribbles the last autograph. He draws the heavy wooden door across the front of the Pier Pavilion and bolts it. “This is my last job tonight.” He goes into the empty auditorium. Behind the screen there are more seats and behind those, still more seats. He checks between the rows for the cigarette spark which could destroy all 2500 seats. “This is my last job tonight.”

In the dressing-room, with the Chelsea pensioner coat on the wall and the sea air coming in through the extractor, he splashes his face at the sink and dries it. He exchanges his evening trousers for another pair of evening trousers and his shiny patent shoes for some shoes which do not shine. He puts his trilby back on his head, fitting it perkily at the side.

His daughter was the film star Janet Munro. She started her career in Alex’s shows, sweeping up, singing and tearing tickets. She went to Hollywood and became a star for Walt Disney. She grew famous and fashionably-married; it was of her fame and fashionable marriage that, two years ago, she died. Her loss explains many small things in him. It explains his abhorrent of sleeping-pills; his refusal of all drink but apple-juice; the photo-albums at which, even now, he can scarcely bring himself to look. Five weeks before she died, she had come back to Llandudno and was sweeping up after the show.

Outside, the pier is all in lights, in braids and strings and archways of light trembling on the rainy sea. The lights along the promenade are out. He picks up some glasses and bottles left on the sea wall and carries them back to the Pavilion steps. “This is my last job tonight”.

“I’ve never believed in all that Bible stuff- ‘it’s more blessed to give than receive’, i’ve always thought that was a fallacy. But i’ve come to find out lately that it’s true. It is more blessed to give than receive.”

“Don’t you think it’s a shame that, when i’m gone there’ll be no one left doing my type of show? A simple man with a simple show. And oh, they love it. Oh, they love it no end. Oh, they love it to death.”

“Seats available - seats available inside.” “Seats available now. Lucky Programme.”

Alex and Billy under the next dark evening sky are calling the people to ‘Showtime’.

“Seats available. Good evening ladies. Have you been to the show yet? Well come inside: there’s no reason why you shouldn’t suffer like all the rest.”
“Seats available. Give me your hand, dear. Take your time now.”
“I’ve thought I was going to be late,” the lady said.
“No, you’re alright. Plenty of time yet,” Billy said.
“And anyway, you knew we wouldn’t start without you.”

(c) THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
All photos remain the copyright of their respective owners.

Exploration!

My apologies for another post on the Pier Pavilion Theatre, Llandudno but I'd thought I'd get them out of the way after finding a boxful of old programmes and newspaper clippings! This is my recollection of the time a friend and I explored the then semi-derelict theatre back in about 1990...

It began as just an idle chat in a lunch break...

We were in the old staff room on Llandudno Pier, close by to where the offices are. A fellow worker, Steve, mentioned that he had been doing some part-time security work for the pier's owners and had noticed that one of the doors on the Pier Pavilion's seaward balcony appeared to be open. “Fancy taking a look inside one evening?”, he said. Being as the vast and semi-derelict Pavilion building had fascinated me as long as I had worked on the Pier, I decided that this was an offer that could not be refused.

So, a date and time was set for our unofficial visit and, in the meantime, I decided to brush up on the history of the Pavilion building. Opened in 1886, the massive seaside theatre had played host to thousands of performers over the years, some still famous today, many now forgotten. Its original use as a venue for sedate orchestral concerts had given way in the 1930s to more raucous variety shows, until the theatrical tradition finally ended in 1984 with a Summer season show called 'Startime Follies', after a period of gentle decline in the 1980s. I also knew of the 'Llandudno Dungeon', a horror waxworks attraction that had operated in the basement of the theatre for several years in the late 1980s, and wondered what remnants remained of that underneath the theatre.

The day arrived and it was about 6pm as I studied the exterior of the Pavilion, waiting for Steve to return from his rounds of checking that the Pier's buildings were secured. I could see that were was a door ajar on the seaward balcony but couldn't quite see how we could get up onto the balcony.

Colour view of the Pavilion in the 1960s

Steve arrived back, grabbed a large torch from the pier offices, and we set off on our adventure. He said that the only way up onto the balcony was up the ornate exterior staircase (seen to right of above photo between Pavilion & Grand Hotel). Unfortunately, this was blocked with barbed wire to deter vandals, but we clambered up onto the roof of the newspaper kiosk by the Grand Hotel and then climbed over the balustrade onto the staircase.

Although it had been out of public use for many years, the cast-iron staircase was still in surprisingly good condition – it was only when we got to the balcony level that I could see that the wooden decking up there had not survived so well. Large holes were present in the rotten planking and it was obvious that we would have to tread very carefully. We made our way very cautiously along the balcony, eventually reaching the half-open door.

The door appeared to be firmly wedged open and we both had to breathe in hard to squeeze through the gap..and then we were inside!

The door we entered by is the white double door on the left-hand side of the
first floor balcony in this photo.

We emerged into what appeared to be a short disused corridor, situated at the side of the main interior grand staircase, with a set of doors at the end. There was a smell of decay, paint was peeling in large chunks from the walls and lumps of wet plaster littered the floor. A glance up revealed that the ceiling was in a poor state, with several large holes in it where the roof had been leaking.

We were still in daylight at this point (lit by the large windows above the main staircase) and as I looked down at the grand staircase, I could see the beautifully carved oak bannisters were still in good condition. The floor of the staircase, however, was also littered with debris from the rotting ceiling, and it was clear that there had been little in the way of maintenance carried out for several years.

We passed through the doors at the end of the corridor and entered almost total darkness. I could see a row of very indistinct shapes in front of us. Steve switched on his torch to reveal several rows of plush theatre seats at the balcony level of the theatre. We walked forward to take a closer look and Steve gave out a strangled cry as he had just missed putting his foot through a rotten floorboard. It was obvious that we were going to have to keep a careful eye on where we were putting our feet!

Steve then swept his torch across the vast auditorium. We could see the other balcony directly across from us and, below in the stalls area, row upon row of theatre seating. At one end was the outline of the proscenium arch, framing the large stage.

The Auditorium. The ornate balustrade at balcony level had been boxed in and the seats had been replaced by normal theatre style seating but apart from that it was virtually unchanged.

We decided to make our way right around the balcony and then head down into the stalls and stage area. Just as we had almost reached the back of the curved balcony, we almost jumped out of our skins as a stray cat jumped out of the theatre seat it had been sleeping in and ran for its life in front of us! We couldn't decide who was more shocked – the cat or us?!

At the very back of the balcony, we found a room had been partitioned off from the rest of the balcony and, peeking in through the door, we saw it housed a dusty old film projector. There was a also a couple of old film cases and reels on the floor. I'd heard rumours that the Pavilion had shown films at one time and here was the proof.

After leaving the projection room, we carried on walking round the balcony. Although the majority of the windows on the balcony level had been whitewashed over at some point, the ones in this area were still clear and it was an eerie sensation to be looking out at and hearing families walking past the building on Happy Valley Road, completely unaware of our existence.

After passing a small staircase down to the stalls level, we arrived at the inside of the main doors out onto Happy Valley Road. There was a small paybox situated at the side of them. As we looked around, I happened to glance down at the floor and noticed what looked like some form of pattern. Curious, I started brushing away the dirt and debris with my foot. After a minute's work, I had uncovered a large round mosaic set into the floor, with some form of logo/crest in the centre and the words 'Llandudno Pier Company' running around its edge. What a find!

But, interesting though this was, time was passing by quickly and we had to move on, as we still had a large area of the theatre to explore. So we headed down the small staircase and emerged in the stalls area, not far from the stage. Once again, there was row after row of once plush theatre seating – the auditorium was far larger than it appeared from the outside.

At the side of the stage, there was a small flight of steps leading up onto the stage, so we headed up. We stood in the middle of the stage as Steve shone his torch around to illuminate the hundreds of seats, realising that this was the same view that Alex Munro and many other famous performers and politicians had seen many times during the theatre's life. There was a trap door wide open in the middle of the stage and I realised this had been used by performers to enter/exit the stage during magic acts etc.

Stage & ornate Proscenium Arch - still fully intact when we visited.

At the back of the stage were hanging many backdrops, including a woodland scene, all ready to be lowered into position by the use of ropes. All of the equipment was still in full working order, almost as if the theatre was waiting for the performers to return. Indeed, the whole building gave the impression that it would one day spring back into life.

After a quick peek into what once was the Manager's office (all nicely wood panelled and with a large walk in safe), we headed backstage for a quick look before descending into the Dungeon. The backstage area consisted of a great many small rooms, most of which were filled with old furniture and other rubbish and with windows facing towards the Grand Hotel. I took it that these were all once dressing rooms.

As we headed out back into the Stalls area, I noticed a small area almost directly under the stage. I had to bend down in order to enter it. Inside on the floor were various bits of sound equipment, along with old posters and photographs. I selected a few of the posters and photos to take with me. There were also a great number of posters for the Pavilion's final Summer Season show, 'Startime Follies of 1984', scattered across the floor:


By now, Steve was getting impatient, so I gathered my treasures and we hurried over to the inside of the theatre's main entrance, a massive set of sliding double doors which opened directly onto the pier's walkway. In the lobby area was, unbeknown to most people who had visited the theatre, two doors set into the wooden panelling, which led down into the basement area of the building. We chose the left hand one and began our descent into the basement.

The huge basement area (originally built as the country's largest indoor swimming pool back in 1886 but which closed shortly afterwards due to problems with seawater quality) had been home over the years to a small amusement arcade called Tusons and, later, a ghost train ride and vintage car 'World Tour' ride. These were all cleared out to make way for the Llandudno Dungeon, a walk through horror waxworks exhibition, featuring scenes from the more gruesome aspects of human history, all built at a cost of over £100,000. Scenes depicted included a full size replica of a Victorian London street, complete with Sweeney Todd's barber shop and opium den, the 1665 Great Plague of London, body snatchers at work and a full size model of a guillotine.

Two short flights of steps later, we found ourselves walking along a large corridor. We passed an old paybox for the Dungeon exhibition (I looked inside and found the sound effects tape which I took for a souvenir), then the floor started sloping down and around to the right. I later learned that the floor sloped because it was used at once time as the track for the 'World Tour' car ride that ran through the basement.

At the bottom of the slope were the remains of two large exhibits. Having visited the Dungeon several times when it was open (being a pier worker, I got in for nothing!), I remembered that the pile of straw on the right was all that remained of the full size Guillotine, complete with severed aristocrat's head!

A set of double doors just in front of us led into the recreation of the Victorian London street. This was actually quite impressive, as the buildings on each side of the corridor were quite large, probably at least 20 feet high, with overhanging first floors. As we walked along, I saw that one of the shops was named 'Sweeney Todd's Barber Shop'. Sadly, all of the waxwork models had long been removed when the exhibition was sold and vandals had smashed some of the shop windows, but the whole street was in remarkably good order otherwise.

A 'lady of the night' in the first floor window along the Victorian London Street.
Image courtesy Marbles333 on Flickr.

Turning the corner to the right, we entered another corridor, this one was designed to represent an old gaol and had small viewing holes in the walls, for visitors to watch the prisoners being 'tortured'. I recalled that one of the waxwork prisoners had an iron mask fitted on his head, designed to slowly crush his skull! Once again, the exhibits had been removed back in 1990, when the exhibition closed.

We passed through a few more corridors and went up a small flight of steps, finding ourselves in what appeared to be a room once used for printing posters but I later learned was a maintenance workshop. The walls were covered with many old posters from the theatre's heyday.

After poking around in the room for a few minutes, we started to head back, but stopped at a large circular hole that had been knocked in the corridors brick wall. I stuck my head through and immediately felt that the air was much damper, with the noise of dripping water very evident. I persuaded Steve that we needed to explore this new area we had found and so we gingerly climbed through the hole, to find ourselves ankle deep in sea water!

Directly behind us was the long brick wall, complete with the gap we had climbed through and, in front, a cliff face. It was obvious that this area was the gap that had been left when the pavilion building had been built up against the original cliff. In my head, I found my bearings and decided that heading to the right would take us somewhere under the Grand Hotel.

As I peered into the gloom, I realised that it was getting darker. I turned to Steve to ask him to turn the torch towards me but saw to my horror that the torch had gone out, with only a pin prick of light remaining. Steve's torch took rechargeable batteries and, of course, we had taken so long exploring the theatre that the batteries had become exhausted.

So, our situation was - we were standing ankle deep in water, in absolute pitch black, approximately 30 feet underground and we needed to navigate a maze of corridors and rooms in order to get out of the building. Things were not looking particularly good, it had to be said!

I forced myself to remain calm and tried to recall the basement's layout in my mind. We climbed back though the hole in the wall and started to move slowly along the corridor, feeling our way along the cold brick walls. After a few feet, Steve remembered he had his cigarette lighter on him and so was able to light it for short intervals (until it got too hot to hold!), which assisted us greatly in navigating our way. Slowly, we made our way to the other sloping ramp that led back up to the other side of the theatre's lobby that we had entered the basement.

Confident that we were fine now, we laughed with relief, walked through a set of double doors and straight into a plastic skeleton that some kind soul had left hanging there! We jumped just a little!

Having made our way up the ramp, we re-entered the lobby and headed up the grand staircase (dodging the large pieces of plaster that littered the floor) to the balcony level, then through the disused corridor to the half-open door back out onto the exterior balcony. It was such a pleasure to be in the moonlight and see the lights of Llandudno along the promenade.

We gingerly made our way back along the rotten flooring and descended the iron staircase, once again climbing down over the newsagents roof to return to the pier walkway. We headed back to the pier offices and blinked as the bright fluorescent lights flickered on. “Think we've earned a coffee tonight!”, Steve said, as he switched on the kettle and then slumped back in his chair.

If anyone has any previously unseen photos of the Pavilion (especially interior shots), I would love to see them. Please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch.

'Mr Llandudno' Alex Munro

When thinking of Llandudno's long history of live entertainment, one name ranks higher than all the others - that of Alex Munro (seen here in a 1950's publicity shot):

At his peak, in the 1970s, he was running shows in three of Llandudno's theatres - he staged variety shows at the Pier Pavilion, orchestral concerts at the Pierhead Pavilion and his daily afternoon show at the Happy Valley Entertainers open air theatre in the Happy Valley. It's astonishing to think that his Open Air Show ran for 30 Summer seasons.

"Alex Munro presents his ‘Startime’ in the Pier Pavilion from May to October, each night of the week excepting Sunday. Each afternoon excepting Saturday he presents another show in Happy Valley, an open-air theatre on the slopes of the Great Orme. His face, its trilby aslant, is to be seen all over town; it shines from handbill and hoarding; it hangs by coloured string in chip shops and gift-shops; it decorates the rear panels of the showman’s own mini-bus strategically parked on the road above the Grand Hotel. It promises ‘George Cormack and Irene Sharp, Scotland’s International Singing Stars’, ‘Benny Garcia, Television’s Dynamic Entertainer, ‘Billy Crockett, the Mad Musician from London’s Albert Hall’. It vouchsafes ‘melodious melodies, glamorous girls, clean comedy’ but, above all, the abundant personality of the man who is both star and licensee." Sunday Times magazine article - September 22nd 1974.

Born as Alexander Horsburgh in Shettleston, Scotland on the 6th March 1911, he joined his brother Archie and sister June in an acrobatic act called The Star Trio. They later changed their name to The Horsburgh Brothers and Agnes and became part of Florrie Forde's music hall company with Flanagan and Allen.

During World War Two, Munro toured with the RAF show, Contact, and had his own BBC radio series 'The Size of It' (a title which was also his catchphrase). He appeared on the big screen in Holiday On The Buses (1973) and an early episode of Z Cars (1963). He headlined in a number of British variety theatres, before finally making his home in Llandudno. Besides his Open Air Show, he was given creative control of the Pier Pavilion Theatre by the Llandudno Pier Company in the 1970s and staged his popular variety shows there. In 1972, he staged the Pavilion's first ever Pantomime, 'Babes In The Wood'. Sadly, it was to be marred by tragedy - Alex's film star daughter, Janet Munro, who had been due to take a starring role in the production, was found dead at her London home several weeks before rehearsals were due to start. The show went on, of course, but it was a tremendous blow for Alex.

Alex carried on with his shows into the 1980s but the changing fortunes of the British seaside and the country's economic problems must have taken their toll on their popularity. Alex carried on regardless though, until 1985 when the onset of illness in the Autumn mean that it was to be his last Summer Season on 'Aberdeen Hill'.

“I’m the last of what you call the old-time real showmen – there’s not many left like me...don’t you think it’s a shame that, when I’m gone there’ll be no one left doing my type of show? A simple man with a simple show.” - Alex Munro

And, in the end, he was right. Alex Munro died on the 20th January 1986, aged 74. The Pier Pavilion's final show had taken place two years earlier. The orchestral concerts at the Pierhead Pavilion had by then long ceased and it had been converted into an amusement arcade. And the Open Air Theatre in Happy Valley, home for over 80 years to live shows, had become a vandalised wreck. It was finally demolished a few years later and the area landscaped. It really was the end of an era.

Isn't it about time the town marked Alex Munro's contribution to its fortunes? Surely a simple memorial plaque on the site of the Happy Valley Theatre is the least we can do?

If you spot an error, please let me know, and I will update this article.

The End...of the Pier Show

As mentioned in an earlier post, this is the Programme from the final Summer Season show at the Pier Pavilion, Llandudno, 'Startime Follies of 1984'. After 98 years of orchestral concerts, variety shows, guest stars...and the legendary Alex Munro, the theatre closed at the end of the 1984 season due to falling audiences, increased maintenance costs and fire regulations. The theatre remained unused and empty until it was destroyed by fire in 1994....apart from its basement (see below):


The basement? Well, that was turned into 'The Llandudno Dungeon', a walk through horror waxworks exhibition, featuring scenes from the more gruesome aspects of human history, all built at a cost of over £100,000. Scenes depicted included a full size replica of a Victorian London street, complete with Sweeney Todd's barber shop, Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop and an opium den, 'Horrors of the Rack', Execution of Charles I, the 1665 Great Plague of London, body snatchers at work and a full size model of a guillotine This novel attraction proved successful for a few years but closed at the end of 1990, when the entire exhibition was sold and shipped to France:


I went round the Dungeon a few times...and it was great fun! Does anyone else remember visiting it? I remember the man that ran in on behalf of the owner saying that it used to make a fair few pounds on a busy day.

Boeing Boeing!

Just The Ticket/Boeing Boeing

The covers of two of the Programmes I rescued from the basement of the derelict Pier Pavilion Theatre in Llandudno several years before it was destroyed by fire in 1994.

Dating back to the late 1960s, the gentleman on the left is Charlie Chester in 'Just The Ticket' (1968), whilst the gentleman on the right is Dave King in 'Boeing Boeing' (1967). Both shows were comedy farces. Chili Bouchier also appeared in both shows.

I also rescued lots of other programmes, including many from Alex Munro's time at the Pavilion, and a couple of autographed photos of unknown (to me anyway) actors. I also managed to bag a poster for the last show every to play at the theatre 'Startime Follies of 1984'.

Pier Pavilion emerges from the undergrowth....

Regular Llandudno watchers will be well aware of the long running (since 1994!) saga of the site of the former Pier Pavilion Theatre on Happy Valley Road. The full story is covered in a previous article I wrote for the blog here but, to summarise, since it was destroyed by fire in 1994, this very prominent site has remained derelict and overgrown - not to mention a favourite topic of conversation for visitors walking past the site.

Rumours abound as to why this valuable site was never redeveloped - the most common one is that the owner wishes to have a residential development and Conwy Council would never permit it.

The relevance to today's blog post is that I was enjoying a walk around Llandudno this afternoon and noticed that the site had been cleared of the years of undergrowth:


Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to clear the site - the question is who? Conwy Council? The Owner? Is something happening with the site? If you know anything....do tell.

Pier Pavilion Theatre, Llandudno

The Pier Pavilion Theatre site on Llandudno's North Shore must surely take the prize for being the town's longest running eyesore.

Derelict site of former Pier Pavilion Theatre - 2008

Of course, it didn't always look like this. From 1886 - 1994 it was the site of the Pier Pavilion theatre, a 2,000 seat three-storey structure, built in the typically flamboyant Victorian style, complete with a superbly detailed cast-iron veranda, running the length of the entire seaward side of the building.

The Directors of the Llandudno Pier Company had successfully opened the new pier in 1878 and were now looking to expand their business to take advantage of Llandudno's growing popularity as a seaside resort. The existing sundeck pavilion at the end of the pier was proving inadequate to cope with the demand for musical recitals, so the decision was taken to build a bigger and better pavilion near the promenade entrance to the pier extension then under construction.

The original Pavilion the day after its original roof was destroyed by a storm

Work started in 1881. The new pavilion was scheduled to open in the Spring of 1883 but a ferocious storm on the night of January 25th 1883 resulted in severe damage to the glass roof. Following a rethink of the roof's design (and much embarrassment to the building's architects, who were promptly dismissed by the pier company), the decision was taken to replace the original glass roof with a sturdy lead one, more suited to the demands of a North Wales location in winter. Extensive rebuilding work was required and the building did not open officially until September 1886.

The pavilion was unusual in that in had two main entrances, the first from the pier entering at Stall level and the another on Happy Valley Road, which emerged onto the Balcony. The building was 204ft long, with a width ranging from 84ft to 104ft. The canopy roof was 60ft across. One end of the building housed the Egyptian Hall, which featured hieroglyphics on its wall decorations. More unusually, the pavilion basement housed what was then the largest indoor swimming pool in Britain. Unfortunately for the pier company, problems with seawater quality (the pool was filled twice daily from the tides) meant that this novel idea did not prove successful and the pool was filled in shortly afterwards.

Pier Pavilion - Seaward facing facade

Closer look at the Pavilion's ornate cast-iron exterior veranda

Pier Pavilion - Original Interior

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davellandudno/683640475/
Buildings (from left to right) are Pier Pavilion (with original roof) (built 1884), Baths Hotel (built 1879), original Baths building (built 1855).

Under the leadership of Jules Rivière, the Orchestra at the Pavilion was a great success and was quickly trebled in size to symphony proportions. It contributed to the development of that great British summer entertainment, the promenade concert. The young Henry Wood came to Llandudno to observe the then elderly Rivière at work. Following Rivière, the locally renowned Arthur Payne held the baton for many years until 1925 when he was followed in 1926 by Malcolm Sargent for two notable seasons then by others from season to season including, as a guest conductor on several occasions, Sir Adrian Boult. The pier pavilion orchestra continued its summer seasons until 1936 when it gave way to variety shows, a victim of changing entertainment tastes. A small orchestra survived, this was taken over in 1938 by John Morava who maintained the pier's orchestral tradition to the very end in 1974, when the orchestra (by then confined to the pierhead pavilion) was finally disbanded.

Thus, in 1936, the pavilion prepared to enter its second era - that of variety entertainment. This was to be the theatre's golden age, with the Pavilion firmly on the tour list of every major artist. It also regularly hosted political rallies and conferences, with all the big names in British politics appearing there at Party Conferences during the 1930s-1960s.

In the decades following the war, the pavilion was as popular as ever with the thousands of holidaymakers returning to Llandudno year after year. It was not until the end of the 1960s that the popularity of the pavilion's variety shows began to flag - victims of the twin threats of television and cheap foreign holidays.

By the 1970s, the Golden Goose Entertainments building (1969) has been built to the left of the Pavilion Building.

A full programme of summer shows was carried on through the 1970s but the audiences were falling away steadily and the length of the summer season began to shorten. By now, the theatre was under the creative control of local impresario and comedian Alex Munro, who introduced new initiatives to bring back the audiences, including the pavilion's first pantomime in 1972, an event which was marred by the sad death of Munro's daughter Janet Munro, who died in tragic circumstances days before she was due to begin rehearsals for the show. In the late 1970s, local impressarios Robinson Cleaver & Clive Stock took over the management of the Pavilion, promoting shows with stars such as Bobby Crush.

On the 6th December 1983, the Llandudno Pier Company sold the pavilion for £10,000 to Llandudno Pavilion Ltd, a sister company of Uttoxeter Investments Ltd, a leisure company that already operated the Llandudno Cabin Lift. Despite the high quality of the Summer shows, the audiences were still falling and in 1984, it was decided that the theatre would close at the end of the summer season. The final show at the pavilion was 'Startime Follies', a variety show featuring Tommy Trafford, Lynda Lee Lewis, Kay Carman and the Marie Ashton Dancers, with performances at 8pm nightly and a high season only matinee at 3pm daily. Ticket prices ranged from £2 to £2.60. The lack of audiences, increasing costs of maintaining the old building and new fire regulations had finally put paid to the pavilion's theatrical tradition - 98 years after it had first opened.

Sadly, the decline of the Pier Pavilion mirrored the decline of the traditional British seaside resort in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The final show at the Pavilion was 'Startime Follies' in 1984. The pavilion's days as an entertainment venue were not entirely over, however. A few months before the theatre closed, a new attraction opened in the basement. The huge basement area (originally built as the country's largest indoor swimming pool back in 1886 but which closed shortly afterwards due to problems with water quality) had been home over the years to a small amusement arcade called Tusons and, later, a ghost train ride and vintage car 'round the world' ride. These were all cleared out to make way for the Llandudno Dungeon, a walk through horror waxworks exhibition, featuring scenes from the more gruesome aspects of human history, all built at a cost of over £100,000. Scenes depicted included a full size replica of a Victorian London street, complete with Sweeney Todd's barber shop and opium den, the Great Plague of London, body snatchers at work and a full size model of a guillotine. This novel attraction proved successful for a few years but closed at the end of 1990, when the entire exhibition was sold and shipped to France.

The Pier Pavilion after closure, about 1988

Lack of maintenance meant that the exterior of the building deteriorated rapidly but the interior remained in surprisingly good condition, with most of the original architectural and theatre features still in situ. January 1992 saw ownership of the building pass to the Worcester based Launchsign Ltd, which announced their intention to completely restore the building and introduce to the former theatre area. This £4million plan, billed as a 'Victorian Wonderland' and devised by L&R Leisure PLC/Lingard Styles, would have seen the Basement area used for a 'Victorian Wonderland' themed attraction, the Ground Floor used for a Covent Garden style indoor market and the First Floor used for a themed restaurant (with outdoor seating on the balcony) and retail/entertainment units.

Despite the grandiose plans, no effort was made to repair or even secure the theatre building, which became increasingly vandalised and a meeting place for local youths. The process of decay accelerated, until the almost inevitable arson attack in 1994 destroyed the main theatre building:

Pier Pavilion ablaze - February 13th, 1994

Aftermath - February 14th 1994

The alarm was raised on February 13th 1994 at 5.30pm and over 80 firemen attended. With the Pavilion already well alight, their priority was to stop the fire spreading into surrounding buildings, especially the Grand Hotel. The blaze was so fierce that cars parked on the road outside exploded and windows in hotels across the road shattered with the heat. The fire was under control by 6.30pm but firemen remained on site until 1am damping down the remains.

The following day, watched by hundreds of curious onlookers (including myself), a demolition team was sent in to demolish the remaining parts of the building, which were in a dangerous state. The Managing Director of Launchsign Limited, Ricky Taylor, said that his company had lost £100,000 as a result of the fire and the building was not properly insured.

And there the story ends...for now. The site has never been cleared properly and remains an eyesore until the present day. Attempts by Conwy County Council to redevelop the site have been constantly rebuffed by the current owner, a Worcester businessman called David Taylor. Rumours abound that the owner is holding on to the property in the hope of getting Planning Permission for some form of residential development - this seems very unlikely to be granted.

Comment: Given that the the Pavilion site has been derelict for the past 15 years, one wonder why Conwy Council have not taken more action to resolve such an eyesore in one of the most prominent sites in Llandudno? I'm sure that a similar eyesore in a seaside resort like Eastbourne would soon be dealt with!