Cllr David Owen says:
I am grateful to Robin Duke, entertainment columnist of the 'Evening Gazette' for his contribution to the debate on how we all deliver the "V & A at Blackpool" when he wrote the following piece for the paper on Saturday, 10th March 2007:
"duke's diary
"Our shrine to showbiz
"More years ago than I care to remember - well, actually more years ago than I am capable of remembering - I sat in the Blackpool Council chambers and listened to a surprising number of worthies who supported demolishing the Grand Theatre and replacing it with a cash cow multi-storey car park and a few shops.
"Thankfully reason won the day and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history. More than a quarter of a century later the resort still possesses one of the most beautiful theatres in the country.
"A couple of weeks ago I sat in the same council chambers at a public meeting explaining the benefits to Blackpool of shifting some or all of the Victoria & Alber Museum's vast collection of entertainment 'oop north' (presumably by road because they'd have to change trains at Preston). There were a dozen of us in attendance at the last of a handful of gatherings, which had also seen 'academics' and businesses given the same presentation. Of that dozen, three were familiar Grand Theatre faces and three were from the Civic Society. By my reckoning that left six of us - except I was there as much as part of The Gazette as I was an interested (although I am) party, and at least one other was a newcomer to the various arts and culture quangos sprouting up. That left four. And let's face it - that's not many. Which is a shame - because we stand a lot more chance of landing all or some of a collection which is languishing unloved and unseen in the bowels of the V & A, than we did of a certain other recent Great White Hope.
"And why do we stand more chance ? Well, basically because nowhere else has expressed much interest in housing over two million photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, costumes, scenic cloths, puppets, model theatres, music hall memorabilia and panto paraphernalia.
"Running a Museum of Entertainment in Covent Garden cost a fortune and not a lot of people went to it. In fact until it closed a lot of people didn't even know it was there. Sadly once it went, a few famous faces started twitching about it going somewhere else, especially to the heathen north. Well, tough on them. Blackpool deserves it. We've got entertainment in our blood, in our past and present and hopefully in our future, too. And we need all the destination venues we can get.
"Various movers and shakers in the council employ are fully behind it coming (which makes a change !) and thankfully for all of us, it hs the full support of that stalwart (and indeed portfolio holder, whatever that means) of art, culture, entertainment and the like - Councillor David Owen.
"He was there all those years ago prepared to tie himself to the first bulldozer which went anywhere near demolishing the Grand Theatre and, one gets the impression, he'll be there with the first shovel to dig the foundations for somewhere the V & A collection could be housed here.
"Although no one admits to confirming where it will go (new building, old building, town centre or suburbs ?) we should know by October if it's coming at all.
"But don't tell any Mancunians, they'll only put a bid in and quietly wait to win it."
"robin.duke@blackpoolgazette.co.uk"