Welcome to ARMCHAIRGEDDON

In Blackpool old sofas and armchairs spend their last days in the sunshine. Their last chance for usefulness is outside on the street. Al fresco sitting for shoppers and holiday makers. They stay for a few days but then mysteriously go. Where and who takes them? No-one seems to know and no-one seems to

As the fashions change it is possible to observe what's no longer in vogue. 2020 marked the end for the black leather sets. A leaflet must have been distributed - please change your sofas now, with instructions to leave the non 'on point' offending chairs out on the street for collection by the Feng Shui fashion police. Maybe these sofas, like old Manchester United and Barcelona football shirts find their way to developing African nations? Maybe somewhere in the Congo these chairs find a new lease of life? Wherever they go their owners seem unable to bring themselves to take them to the tip.

Like many Northerners my memories of Blackpool were day trips on a coach to the Pleasure Beach and then, later, , home through the ‘lights’. One of my of memories of Blackpool as a child is seeing a fight spill out from a pub on the Golden Mile and having to be grabbed by my dad to avoid being knocked over by the drunken fight.

It was always a town of contradictions. Buses and buses come and deposit excited people from those sleeping in prams, who would remember nothing, to pensioners who were living with their memories. In the midst of this holiday excitement, a promenade of lights, gaudy plastic toys, smutty postcards and novelty hats, where the notion of a holiday resort is maintained. But just behind, a few steps away in the streets immediately behind the prom is a very different world. Here are the people sleeping in doorways, the spice statues, the empty shops whose names reflect the hopeful dreams of those that wanted to be their own bosses only to discover their dreams ending when the money ran out.

Imagine if L.S. Lowry had lived in Southport or Lytham St. Annes instead of Salford. What would he have painted instead of factory chimneys and terraced houses?

These photographs show matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs (maybe not cats) walking, playing, flying kites and playing football on the sands.

Taken over a prolonged period, starting during the first Covid lockdown in March 2020. From warm summer days to cold, miserable winter ones. Fresh air and outdoor space became more important than ever and as life returned to normal people flocked back to the seaside.