White City

[whitecityboy]

Just wondered how many members here actually remember White City, I have vague memories....can anyone remember what stalls were there.. I remember the Go Karts and the old wooden roller coaster.... I know there were loads of sideshows but I can only just about remember the layout of the place....

Reason I am asking is that I visited Botany Bay (In Lancs) the other day and stumbled across a copy of a book by Sue Dyson called....Fairfield Rose..... it is based on White City, very easy reading and it even has a character with my surname lol.

Did anyone you knew of actually work there? Was it just a seasonal place or open all year round....

 

Come and visit the White City Facebook Page link below

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20195&id=117763648238642&saved#!/pages/White-City-Onchan-Head-Isle-of-Man/117763648238642

[Deejay Denzel]

I vaguely remember bits of it, Some "hovercraft cars" which you had a lever each side of you to control but they weren't real as the wheels were just hidden by the bumper skirting around it.

Remember the slide, didn't that go to Summerland after it closed? they used it in the sports hall for a while then it went up to the play area when they got rid of all the arcade machines from up there.

I also remember a big window with remote controls in front of it, you put your 10p in the slot and controlled either boats or cars, can't remember but it maybe the system that Onchan park has for the remote control boats to this day.

Was only young and was too scared to go in the ghost train, but I do remember the place being a proper shit hole.

[Albert Tatlock]

Picture taken around 1927. I'm pretty sure I'm the one 5th in from the right.

 

Three years later (1930), two baboons escaped from their show cages on Onchan Head. One was shot on the pleasure ground, and the other in a bedroom in the Douglas Bray Hotel.

[Miss Roo]

I loved the big yellow slide it took me ages to pluck up the courage to go down, great fun and happy memories.

Would be great to see something similar built over here again.

[Max Power]

I can remember White City well from my school days. Used to get a bus outside Reeces snooker hall/Manx Radio/aquarium (another place that kept me amused during the summer) on the prom with a fare of 4d and spend ages blagging free or cheap rides on the roller coaster, go karts, canoes and dodgems. I remember Irish Sammy and his taller mate who seemed to be on the dodgems there for years but was probably more like two! I got the shock of my life when I found that he is actually Sam Mooney who used to be sales manager at Corkills Garage for many years! I never would have recognised him without his long hair and beard.

The karts were reasonably quick and controlled by some kind of radio device which cut the spark if you were deemed to be driving dangerously. You could hear the attendant shouting into his microphone 'BRAKE NOW..BRAKE NOW, standing on the opposite side of the bay on Douglas Head!

Yes, although it was a dump it was great fun to hang out there, I'm sure the owners name was Max Myers though.

[ThankU]

Yep I worked there too, remember little irish Sammy on the rifle range, Gavin on the boat and ghost train,Allan on the roller (think they were two brothers). Peter Ash on the Bingo who was killed by a shark while on Holiday in Oz. And Frenchy the handman what a grumpy old bastard. I was with the White City van when it was used to remove the boddies from the summerland fire.

 

http://www.mike-caine.com/isle-of-man/howstrake/3843365

[Manx Barge]

What is the theatre box on the beach?

[ThankU]

What is the theatre box on the beach?

 

 

SILENTBOBS HQ

[Whimsy]

 

The karts were reasonably quick and controlled by some kind of radio device which cut the spark if you were deemed to be driving dangerously. You could hear the attendant shouting into his microphone 'BRAKE NOW..BRAKE NOW, standing on the opposite side of the bay on Douglas Head!

 

 

 

That was Eddie Barrow - "Brake now, brake now, on the Red.... BRAKE NOW!

[The Agitator]

I loved the big yellow slide it took me ages to pluck up the courage to go down, great fun and happy memories.

Would be great to see something similar built over here again.

 

it was blue

[The Bastard]

 

The karts were reasonably quick and controlled by some kind of radio device which cut the spark if you were deemed to be driving dangerously. You could hear the attendant shouting into his microphone 'BRAKE NOW..BRAKE NOW, standing on the opposite side of the bay on Douglas Head!

 

 

 

That was Eddie Barrow - "Brake now, brake now, on the Red.... BRAKE NOW!

 

I worked for Eddie on the karts for one of his last summers, along with a very young Steve Colley, I think. He had the "Stop now, stop now, drive in slowly now and then stop" announcement on tape, which drove you mad after hearing it every five minutes for months. I can still hear Eddie's disinterested voice saying it now, as he sat in his seat of power ready to press the magic "off" button when a visitor found driving round an oval just that bit too complex. The sort of ones who'd arrive to a queue of people and karts going noisily round broadcasting lung-burning blue smoke with Eddie's dulcet tones blaring in the background, then ask if you were open today.

 

Mind you, the occasional visitor would ill-advisedly vault the barrier to ask the same question and immediately get pounced on by the three enormous territorial alsatians that Stewie the mechanic kept primed behind the door for savaging the really special ones, which kind of made up for it. I looked forward to that, even more than the bottle of "traditional lemonade" at lunchtime, usually drunk with a chip bap under the decaying "White City" sign whilst watching the active colony of lizards that basked on the rocks through the hot days of summer.

 

It was all falling apart then, but it was still sad to see it go for the incongruous "Spanish Style" apartments that faced out into the bleak "Manx Style" weather on Onchan Head. It was the time that I realised that the whole tourist era was over, something which still seems to have escaped the Government.

[Gladys]

Sad to say Bastard, the tourist era was clearly on the way out in the 70's; it had its last thrash in the 80's and what we have now is 'visitors' rather than 'tourists'.

 

White City was always a place of intrigue for me, but I was never allowed to go there (except under close supervision and only then rarely) and by the time I was old enough to go if I wanted the attractions were on the prom.

[The Bastard]

Yes, the last gasp for Manx Tourism must have been the original Summerland, which I can just about remember now. The horror of the fire put paid to the island, although the horror of the culture that sanctioned building it out of inflammable plastic was pretty grim in itself.

 

The demise of White City put an end to my youthful optimism that some benevolent, powerful someone was going to pull another rabbit out of the hat and fill the steps of the promenade guest houses once again. It was really over, and our fate really did lie in the hands of the chinless "Nigels" of the time, who'd failed in London and Hong Kong, and washed up here to snicker at the locals with the pockets of their cheap suits stuffed with dodgy money.

 

My generation was one of faded, threadbare, dusty, red velvet. A thing that seemed to be everywhere in the dark, empty corridors of morbid, echoing hotels, the musty seats of the empty old cinemas and the old dowager aunt that was the Villa. A generation that'd never seen the island at its height, but saw the last glimpses of what was once there. A generation with inbuilt wistfulness for things that had been. Even now I only have to climb up to the Little Switzerland chairlift to feel a little cheated, a little envious of the people that saw it all when it wasn't broken and faded, and still thronged with happy people loving the place.

[Theodolite]

Powerful words there, The Bastard. They hit home with me.

[Cret]

Yes, the last gasp for Manx Tourism must have been the original Summerland, which I can just about remember now. The horror of the fire put paid to the island, although the horror of the culture that sanctioned building it out of inflammable plastic was pretty grim in itself.

 

The demise of White City put an end to my youthful optimism that some benevolent, powerful someone was going to pull another rabbit out of the hat and fill the steps of the promenade guest houses once again. It was really over, and our fate really did lie in the hands of the chinless "Nigels" of the time, who'd failed in London and Hong Kong, and washed up here to snicker at the locals with the pockets of their cheap suits stuffed with dodgy money.

 

My generation was one of faded, threadbare, dusty, red velvet. A thing that seemed to be everywhere in the dark, empty corridors of morbid, echoing hotels, the musty seats of the empty old cinemas and the old dowager aunt that was the Villa. A generation that'd never seen the island at its height, but saw the last glimpses of what was once there. A generation with inbuilt wistfulness for things that had been. Even now I only have to climb up to the Little Switzerland chairlift to feel a little cheated, a little envious of the people that saw it all when it wasn't broken and faded, and still thronged with happy people loving the place.

 

That's a fantastic post.

 

I've felt similar things about a lot of the great things the island used to have, and have fleeting memories of places like white city and the old cinemas etc from when I was a youngster.

It's one of those things where I'd love to have a time machine to go and check it all out properly in its heyday, instead of just seeing the occasional grainy photo or bricked up entrance and wondering what it must all have been like. Then of course I'd go and do some nefarious stuff to ensure I'm rich now.