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Tales from the Towers book

I'm in it :lol: Well, quoted anyway :)

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
 
I'm quoted from CF actually, something the author dug up out of an old thread. Or he asked my permission to use it, whether he does or not is a different matter :lol:

I've probably read about most of the stuff over the years (mostly from the same author :D ) and little of it will be new, but it's great to have it in a single source. So much I've found in passing and never come across again.

I think of all the parks (maybe even Disney), it has the most interesting history. The Towers themselves, the way they developed, John Broome (what a madman :lol: ) - just everything is really curious and interesting. It wasn't planned or designed to be like it is, it's incredibly organic and it's also kind of the history of the making of modern UK parks.

For years I think Alton was seen as this kind of leader in the Theme Park space, and it definitely created the Theme Park market we have today in Britain, but when you actually look into it and see how much was accidental, or just a fortunate twist of fate - it's brilliant and the perfect basis for a book.

So yeah, really looking forward to it in a much more "gossip" way than the "drier" other histories of the Towers about the building itself.
 
Nick Sim (author) sent me a preview copy the other week. I've enjoyed what I've read so far. They'll be a copy or two to give away on CF in the near future.
 
I wonder if this will be better than that Great British read, "Bollocks to Alton Towers"?

It had Blackgang Chine in it haha!
 
As far as "properly themed" goes, yes, Chessington is the "template park".

However, I don't think Tussauds would have invested in Chessington if Alton hadn't kickstarted the whole "Theme Park" thing. I can't find when they actually started calling themselves a "Theme Park" and I suspect it was probably post John Broome (so Tussauds).

However, if you look at Alton in the mid-80's, you could easily argue it was a "Theme Park". The area around the courtyard (Cloud Cuckoo Land and the now closed off Coaster Corner) had individually themed rides (things like Doom and Sons and Around the World in 80 Days). The Dinosaur area was themed too.

It's things like naming specific areas of the park though and creating a general theme in them that makes it like a modern Theme Park. If places like Kings Dominion today can class themselves as a "Theme Park", then Alton in the mid-80's absolutely could.

The basic blue-print was there and it was successful. It took several years for other attractions (such as Chessington, Drayton Manor, American Adventure, etc) to catch on that there was money to be made from a "leisure Park (to use Alton's terminology) after the disaster of in-land parks in the 70's. While everywhere else was closing, Alton was booming, and doing it by presenting not a "seaside park inland", but as a new kind of park, stolen right from the booming American Parks.

Actually, I'd argue Camelot was the first UK "Theme Park". They had Arthurian animatronics, rides named after famous Arthurian legends and a complete park "theme" very early. Though when I went in 1982 or so, I couldn't quite work out why they had a cowboy stunt show and American styled miniature railway :lol:

But yeah - we'll ignore that ;) Alton created the "market", but Chessington was the first park to really take the Theme Park concept and run with it in the UK.
 
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