Category: Blackburn

Have you noticed how annoying it is trying to walk through Blackburn Shopping Mall?

As you try to go past certain places, people want to shove cards in your hands.  These annoying harpies infringe the Mall’s walkways, barging right into the middle in some cases.  This is to try and entice you into certain shops.  But there are also temporary stalls which keep springing up, gobbling up space on parts of your route.  These cordon off bits of the walkway with chairs and tables, despite the growing number of empty premises throughout the Mall.

Many Blackburn people must like shopping in the Mall.  The sheer numbers passing through indicates decent footfall, whether they’re buying anything is a different matter.  But to some of us shopping is an unpleasant ordeal.  Things are not helped by approaching bodies trying to shove business cards into your palms.  It’s a bit like something out of ‘Logan’s Run’.  We’re runners being pursued by sandmen.

Efforts to avoid them often prove fruitless.  As you try to walk past them an annoying smile appears on their face and they ask you how you’re doing?  Like it’s any of their business!   This is after you try to avoid eye contact and start body swerving across to the other side of the walkway, trying to give them as a wide a berth as possible.

On occasions your luck can be in.  Some other poor person obscures their view and becomes the prey rather than you.  It’s a bit like being a zebra at the watering hole in Africa.  You just hope you’re the one the lion or the crocodile doesn’t get their teeth into.

On the subject of luck, walking through Blackburn Mall is becoming like the seafront at Tenerife with people trying to stop you.  They might as well try their luck bending your ear into buying raffle tickets.  ‘Lucky Lucky’ (Looky Looky, if you prefer) Men could try their luck selling timeshares in empty shops in the Mall.  You always win with these tickets and you could be offered a free rent timeshare for one of the empty shops.

In July 2024 I poked fun at Morrisons for doing something similar by expanding into their walkways:

https://www.rovingmick.com/2024/07/03/blackburn-morris-expanding-into-its-walkways/    

Like the Mall, they have an optician’s in their superstore, with more annoying people stood outside who keep stopping you to try and get you to use their services.  What with beggars and chuggers harassing you in the town centre, it doesn’t make for a happy shopping experience in Blackburn at the moment.

Plans are afoot to use Blackburn’s large Corporation Park Lake as a salmon hatchery.

During recent storms which hit the British Isles, damage was done to some Scottish fish farms, leading to their enclosures being breached.  This led to an escape of thousands of juvenile salmon into the surrounding seas.  Concerns were raised over possibilities of disease spreading from these farmed fish to their wild counterparts.  This has led to not only calls for greater security across fish farms, but also more environmentally friendly ways of carrying out this breeding process.

What the Department of the Environment, Fisheries and Food (DEFRA) would like to do is have greener kinds of salmon farming rather than enormous fisheries.  This would stop the spread of disease coming into the wild and immediate countryside.  Their way around this is to try and create more local fish farms.  They also want these to be on a much smaller scale than are currently in use.  It would also be very handy to create new ones which could be put into use on a commercial basis.

Blackburn’s Corporation Park has two lakes, known as the Big Can and the Little Can.  The larger of the two was originally used as Blackburn Corporation’s water supply reservoir.  This originally was put into use in 1772.  It used to use wooden pipes to take water from the reservoir.  These lakes were called Big and Little Cans due to people collecting water from them using cans.

Eventually this area became Corporation Park, which we know today, in 1855.  The area which became the park was originally known as Pemberton Clough.  A stream which flowed through was dammed to create a reservoir.  This had an outlet which flowed through the park and went into Snig Brook, a tributary of Blackburn’s River Blakewater.  This latter river, from which our town gets its name, then flowed into the River Darwen and subsequently River Ribble to the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

Juvenile salmon have various names.  In their early stage they are known as Alevin.  Once they have eaten their yoke sacks, they become Fry.  In their next stage of development they are known as Parr.  And when they are ready to head for the ocean, they become Smolt.  At least it’s a downhill all the way from Blackburn.

Navigating returning salmon from the Atlantic Ocean to spawn in Corporation Park Lake will be no mean feat.  Various adaptions will have to be placed on the stream flowing from the lake in the park.  One of these will have to be some kind of salmon ladder or maybe a wheel to get through its dam holding this lake’s water back.  No doubt thoughtful planning is already taking place for the Big Can’s new residents homecoming.

Some people have suggested a Blackburn man’s deceased father is trying to contact him from the dead, through his old electric shaver.

When his dad passed away, the man spent a lot of time clearing out his parents’ house.  This included giving away most of their furniture and possessions to various charitable institutions.  But some items were in such good condition, he decided to keep them for his own personal use.  One of these was his dad’s old electric shaver, which was relatively new and still in good working order.

His own shaver had reached the end of its tether, to the point of scratching and cutting his face.  So he saw no reason not use his dad’s appliance instead.  At first there was nothing wrong with using this electric shaver, but after a few days strange sounds began to emanate from this machine.  What started out as crackling and buzzing soon became discernible sounds.

At first the buzzing seemed to follow a pattern, like Morse Code.  His dad had been in the Royal Corps of Signals while serving in the army.  So this seemed uncanny.  Could this series of crackling sounds be a form of ghostly communication,  perhaps a message from beyond the grave?

It needed looking into.  Although a sceptic, he was open minded enough to try and resolve this unusual situation.  After all, there have been all sorts of reports and stories over the years of odd noises in pipework, or electrical equipment doing strange things, such as flashing and crackling.

Word soon got out regarding his ‘haunted’ shaver, leading to an appearance in the local media.  It garnered a lot of interest, especially from across the Atlantic Ocean.  This led to suggestions calling for the shaver to be exorcised.  Not even a clairvoyant could have predicted this.

And so a seance was arranged, which took place in the studio of a local radio station.  It was a sensation, gaining world-wide reaction.  The radio  station switchboard was jammed with callers ringing in  with their theories.  They proclaimed it to be a miracle, poltergeist activity and even contact from aliens.

But to the owner of this so-called haunted electric shaver, it was just a load of snap crackle and pop.  He ended up selling his dad’s electric shaver for a princely sum to a rich client with deep pockets.  This was after being made an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Not bad for an intermittent fault, or a loose wire.

There are certain mysteries in life which beguile us, but we tend not to pursue their meaning.

One of these is what is that little pocket inside a pair of jeans, above the front right hand one for?  Another is the black diamond mark on those annoying metal tape measures.  The tape nearly cuts your hand when you let it return on its own after trying to measure your height.

But one of the strangest mysteries of all are these obscure carved signs which appear on some of our older buildings.  At first they look like the sign of the ancient Carthaginians, before the Romans finished them off.  But on closer inspection, the sign looks more like a three legged stool.

These are known as ‘Benchmarks’.  They are used as a way of measuring height above sea level and are placed there by the Ordnance Survey.  Many of us are familiar with maps from this government agency.  Some of us even understand what the symbols mean, such as a church with a spire, or a tower, or even a triangulation (trig) point.  But Benchmarks are a different kettle of fish altogether.

Some of these chiselled signs, usually a line with an arrow underneath, can date back as far as the early 19^th century.  The Ordnance Survey started to use them during mapping and surveying projects.  They were used to define a precise height above sea level.  This process was carried out using spirit leveling.  The horizontal marks were used to support a stable ‘bench’ for a leveling stave to rest on – hence ‘benchmarks’.  This design ensured that a stave could be accurately repositioned in the future and that all marks were uniform.

Unfortunately to many of us, this process sounds a bit complicated.  So it was probably a good idea leaving it to the surveyors and stone masons to carry out the work of calculating how far above sea level these buildings where.  At least we were safe in the knowledge Blackburn was too high up to be deluged by the sea.

There were over 500,000 benchmarks created, but this number is diminishing as roads change and buildings are demolished.  The advent of Global Positioning System (GPS) has replaced Benchmarks due to its highly accurate way of measuring and coordinating height above sea level anywhere in the world.  It has become the international standard for mapping and surveying.

Benchmarks may now have been consigned to the history books and old mapping archives.  As is the way of all technology, there’s always something approaching round the corner to replace the current norm.  But they played a valuable part in the surveying of our country and helped the Ordnance Survey to produce much needed accurate maps.

Blackburn still has a few public clocks in its town centre.  Not all of them tell the time correctly, or even at all.

Due to most people these days wearing watches, or using their mobile phones, finding the correct time is now at your fingertips or in your handbag or pocket.  But a couple of clocks not only tell the time, but let you know all about it.  Best one to start with is Blackburn Cathedral, which makes a big noise about its timekeeping.  Its three dials all tell the same time and it’s always correct.  Although its near neighbour, in Morrisons, chimes the same time a bit later.  Whether it’s the lamb or the lion which meets the pips, is up for debate.

Unfortunately the triangle which makes up Cathedral Square has another clock.  This one is high up on Blackburn Railway Station.  It stays as quiet as a mouse when its neighbours sound off.  Its fingers don’t seem to have moved for years, a bit like trains on a strike day.  Fortunately for travellers, this clock doesn’t determine what times trains are running.

As well as the aforementioned timepieces, Blackburn’s most well-known public clock must be its tower one on King William Street.  Sadly, only one of its dials tells the correct time.  Though the other couple do so twice a day.  This must be Blackburn’s most confusing clock.

Many Blackburners don’t realise there are more public clocks to be discovered in our town centre.  If you look across from St John’s Church on Victoria Street, you will see a clock on the building at the side of a local solicitors.  This timepiece always seems to be running and keeping good time.  Being connected to a law firm, it should know all about doing time.

Perhaps the most mysterious public clock in our town centre is the one at Sudell Cross.  It actually used to be based in one of Bradford’s railway stations.  There is a plaque next to the dial which says:  ‘Bought and erected in 1984 by J.H. Cartwright for the people of Blackburn’.  It’s worth remembering how standard time came about due to the advent of Britain’s railways.  Like the one at Blackburn Station, this tyke clock doesn’t seem to keep time on this side of the Pennines.

Time is one of those few things most of us want to believe to be accurate.  But like the news, it often gets distorted.  Maybe there are more public clocks ticking around Blackburn town centre?  Finding them just takes a bit of time, but don’t let it wind you up.

Britain’s secret intelligence service wants to set up a northern college.  Blackburn has been mentioned as a possible location.

Spying, the second oldest profession in the world, is as relevant today as it ever was and new recruits are always very much sought after.  But this is not a simple process.  They must have at least a decade of work experience, so cannot join straight from school, college or university.  There is a very long painstaking application form, which includes potentially embarrassing questions on both the application form and during the job interview.

Candidates will also have to go through a stringent vetting procedure.  This can not only include yourself, but close family members too.  Advice here is don’t put on Facebook that you’re applying for a job with British Intelligence.  All previous convictions for misdemeanours must also be declared.  Being the intelligence service, they will find anything on your record – or not declared – no matter how far back or so trivial, you don’t mention it.

Our town has been suggested as a venue for the spy academy due to its reputation for having an amiable local population.  Blackburners are known for being friendly, some may say even nosy.  This could make it a good place to test intelligence gathering skills.  These would include dead letter drops, microdots, bugs and the use of invisible ink.

This spy academy, by its very nature, will wish to keep its location as secret as possible, like the MI6 building at Albert Embankment in London.  One form of this secrecy will be the college having a ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ style entrance to its premises.  This is where a laundry acted as a front in this hit American spy TV series.  It then led through secure corridors to a covert operations unit.  Something similar was done in the British series ‘UFO’, were the spies came from outer space.

Hopefully any such facility in Blackburn could turn out to be a national asset and its administrators will learn from mistakes made in the past at similar facilities.  On one such occasion a team of trainees were supposed to follow an alleged spy into a pub.  This exercise went horribly wrong when the trainees paid for drinks and a meal.  But by the time they sat down to their meal and drinks, their target upped and left the hostelry.  They said:  “Sod him” and got stuck into their food and drink instead and ended up having right a good knees up in the boozer.  Nothing like that should be expected in Blackburn.

Blackburn College is interested in taking part in a scheme to bring back extinct animals using the latest DNA technology.

Under a partnership between different learning facilities, Blackburn has been pencilled in for an attempt at bringing back the Dodo.  Some may say they look to have drawn the short straw here.  This unfortunate bird is certainly not glamorous, but more of a sign of pity.  It is a symbol of man’s ill treatment of our fellow earthly creatures and perhaps history’s most famous example of this.  The phrase:  ‘As dead as a Dodo’ is about a real creature, unlike the other about a doornail.

Dodos lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.  It was only discovered by Dutch sailors in 1598 and this association with our fellow human beings only lasted 64 years before this poor bird’s demise.  There were no natural predators on Mauritius, but that all changed with its discovery by explorers from Europe.  Not only was it human beings finding an ungainly and slow flightless bird, easily captured and eaten, but their fellow nautical travellers:  dogs, cats, pigs and especially rats, finished off the Dodo.

Sadly, all we have left of the Dodo are illustrations taken by naturalists and a few specimens in museums.  No complete bird was saved, although a head and other soft tissue remains are housed in Oxford University Natural History Museum.  These remains are the only specimens which have potential to release DNA.

Bringing this bird back from the dead is no mean feat.  Despite it looking like a cross between a turkey and a buzzard, it is actually a member of the pigeon family and its nearest living relative is the Nicobar Pigeon.  Although scientists believe a Dodo could be bred using either a chicken or a turkey.  If all else fails, maybe we could end up with a hybrid eating bird, with large eggs thrown in.

Another spin-off from Blackburn College working on the Dodo’s revival is recognition it would bring Blackburn.  A lot of people say our nightlife is dead and needs reviving.  The Dodo could  become a symbol of rejuvenation of our town.  Where there was extinction, there could be life.  Blackburn’s phoenix from the ashes could be a Dodo from a test tube.

Blackburn with Darwen Council could show recognition here with a new coat of arms for our borough, incorporating the Dodo.  Instead of a horn and bee, symbolising Blackburn’s first MP WH Hornby, we could use a Dodo and the Latin phrase ‘Sicut mortuus est dodo’.

Due to current overcrowding in British prisons, people on bail in Blackburn are to be given a choice of either being fitted with a normal leg tag monitor or receiving earlier release by taking part in an experiment which uses a robot dog to monitor their activities.

Some years ago, my girlfriend and I were sat in one of Blackburn’s town centre pubs having a beer.  Then a lad came in wearing shorts, despite it being the middle of winter.  Sylvia pointed out that along with a sheepish grin, he was wearing a tag on his leg.  With my usual naivety, I thought he was wearing his watch on his leg.  After all, this is Blackburn and some people like to do strange things in this town.

He walked around the bar making sure everyone could see what he was wearing.  This didn’t go down well with some customers, they questioned whether or not he should be served.  But having a bail hostel in our town centre, he wouldn’t be on his own.

Due to huge demands on Britain’s spiralling prison population, ways are being looked at to ease overcrowding and reduce this situation.  One of these ways is to reduce prisoner’s sentences or let them out earlier than their initial release date.  This is where today’s world of high technology comes in.  Tags are very handy and have proved useful in the past.  But they tend to draw attention to individuals wearing them, which sometimes isn’t such a good idea.

Many of us will have seen these nature programmes on TV which utilise ‘spy’ animals.  The animatronic creatures featured have proved very effective infiltrating habitats and filming animals they are modelled upon.  These TV programmes have not gone unnoticed by prison and probation services.

Due to adverse reaction from the public over wearing of tags, a suggestion has been put forward for something completely different and more pleasing to the eye for most people.  What could be better than man’s best friend?

Perhaps a surveillance dog could be the answer.  Those on bail would be fitted with a lead connected to an artificial spy dog and be able to frequent places away from their home.  This spy dog would also keep a record of their ‘master’s’ movements.  They could even take their animatronic companion into pubs which allow dogs.  After all, this kind of dog won’t be peeing on any carpet or crapping on the doormat.

We are a nation of dog lovers, certainly more than we are of surveillance tags.  But it could be considered most of us have our own form of tag anyway.  The word ‘cellular’ even sounds like it belongs in a prison.

Morri’s surprised many people in Blackburn when they pulled out of their move across the road to the old Thwaites’ Brewery site.  But maybe an alternative had already been found within their current premises.

Over a period of time a strange phenomenon has begun to take place in this superstore.  Tables started appearing in the walkways with assorted items on sale.  These started off with bakery products, including fruit pies, cakes and bread.  Then various other items started springing up in more places around the superstore walkways, the latest item to be on sale is garden and other furniture.

Going off on a tangent in relation to the instillation of furniture sales, what was very annoying was Morri’s removing their benches from where you entered the superstore from Railway Road.  They were a nice place to have a sit down after finishing your shopping, or before starting it.

With so many older and infirm people shopping in this superstore, it was nice to have somewhere where you could have a sit down to catch your breath and recuperate.  Sadly, they may have been seen as taking up too much room and another sales outlet could be installed there in the future.

This use of walkways as shopping aisles has raised murmurs about access for disabled users, especially those who use wheelchairs, along with people pushing prams and pushchairs.  Although there does seem to be enough room for users of various wheeled conveyances.  After all, plenty of similar sized shopping trolleys are pushed around the superstore every day.

Today’s retail industry is very cut-throat and competitive, particularly amongst the largest supermarket groups.  No doubt any opportunity to maximise profits through not spending money on building new premises can be seen by some as good business sense.  With the rise of online shopping and home delivery expected to keep on growing, some retail outlets are more likely to downsize than expand.

As one of Britain’s major supermarket groups, Morri’s is bound to tick all the boxes as regards health & safety and being disabled friendly.  But it’s addition of new sales outlets in its walkways may lead to the superstore starting to feel claustrophobic in certain places.

This cannot be conducive to improving their customers’ overall shopping experience. But then again it doesn’t take people long to get used to new shopping practices.  Shoplifters certainly do and will be all in favour of these new sales outlets in the walkways.

Blackburn town centre used to have a clock, built in 1848,  which was the pride and joy to many of our fellow townsfolk.

When it was demolished, due to town centre redevelopment, some people thought it was the end of the world.  Unfortunately these modernist styles used on its replacement didn’t go down very well with many folk.  It did look very tacky, not giving a good impression of our town.  It reflected the concrete jungle our town centre had become.

But laws of averages say you have to get it right eventually.  This has led to the current version of our clock tower, which dates from 2009, being given a grudging acceptance by most Blackburners.  This structure really serves two purposes, one is access to the Mall’s multi storey car park, the other is for its primary function.  The main problem of this purpose is doing what it was built for – telling the time!  But only one of its three clock faces ever has the correct time.  A similar situation plagued previous versions of our clock.

In May a note was made of each of the dial’s times in comparison to my mobile phone time.  At 11.35am on my phone it was this time on the dial looking down King William Street towards the Old Town Hall.  Sadly you can’t see what time it is from there due to a tall leafy tree in its way.  But the dial facing New Market Street was nearly an hour behind, stating a time of 10.40am.  The remaining dial, facing the Mall went back even further, giving a time of 9.25am.

If you came from the Azores, then walking down New Market Street towards the clock would make you feel at home, especially if you’d forgotten to put your watch forward by an hour.  Someone from Greenland coming from the Mall might feel the same way, with the remaining dial being two hours behind.

Unfortunately this means we have a very confusing situation – a clock which has three different times – and nobody can put their finger on it.  Civic Time website reported in 2010:  ‘The clock has three faces electronically locked so they always tell the correct time’.

Sadly, their statement has proved to be rather inaccurate.  What makes things worse is the length of time this has been going on for.  Even more surprising is how long this clock has been on the scene in Blackburn town centre by now.  Doesn’t time fly!