From the very early days of beach hut changing facilities protecting our ancestor's modesty to the heydays of the 1976 heatwave, the piers, storms, Punch and Judy and everything in between, these photos capture the magic and appeal of our beach. Whenever I put a gallery of pictures together, it never ceases to amaze me how different things were, yet it is still all so familiar. And I can barely believe how many people packed on the beach back in the day!
In case you missed them: 37 incredible retro pictures of Blackpool in the 1980s, from the Golden Mile to town centre classics