A Swastika on top of Blackpool Tower
Apparently this is what Hitler wanted to do had he invaded Britain in 1940.
Could he not have made do with a paper flag on his sandcastle?
From the Plymouth Herald
But no, the German dictator, when he wasn’t marching into other people’s countries and exterminating races, dreamed of sticking his spade into the sand on the Lancashire coast.
Newly dug up documents show that he wanted to unfurl a swastika flag at the top of Blackpool tower and watch his troops goose-step down the Golden Mile.
We’re used to the idea of Germans putting out their towels to get the best specs around the hotel pool. But Hitler plotted taking the practice to the extreme. He fancied keeping Britain’s biggest holiday resort as a pleasure beach for him and his armies.
The files explain why the German air force spared Blackpool from the pounding it gave the likes of Plymouth – even though the town had a prime target, an RAF factory.
I can picture him now, a cheery Kiss Me Quick (Before I change My Mind and Shoot You) hat setting off his comedy moustache rather nicely as he soaks his feet in the waves while shaking some more salt on his fish and chips and remarking to his generals: “You know, they always taste better by the sea.”
I wonder about the reaction of Blackpool’s tourist bosses to being linked with a historical heavyweight.
Do they worry about guilt by association and ignore the marketing opportunity?
Or take the serious route with an Invasion Museum (”from seagulls to sieg heil – take a trip on the Fuhrer’s favourite ride”)?
Or deflect the attention by trying to find Bognor’s links with Mussolini?
Or laugh it off by making Adolf and his mistress the butt of a few cheeky postcards (”Hey, Eva, this costumes so tight it’s squashing my Goebbels.”)
In the light of Hitler’s fixation on the Lancashire resort, maybe we need to re-examine the motives behind other invasions in history, successful or no.
The Romans were into their roads and villas but obviously liked the idea of a marina at Margate and you can forget all those mottes and baileys: if Harold had just chilled a bit, William the Conqueror would have been satisfied with a beach hut at Hastings.
The Spanish Armada would have been a roaring success, but for the invaders’ insistence, before they landed near London, in first having a close look at the beaches of south Devon and consequently upsetting Sir Francis Drake, who had a chalet at Jennycliff.
Napoleon wasn’t put off by the might of Nelson’s navy – it was the temperature of the Channel and the price of parking in Bantham that made him think about leaving England to the English.
The more you think about it, the more the association between the seaside and political power stands up.
US presidential hopeful John Kerry blew his chances of making it to the White House in 2004 when he was photographed windsurfing off posh Nantucket, Maryland (too elitist a watersport for somebody hoping to bag the votes of bucket-and-spade, blue-collar Americans, so they say).
David Cameron made a point of being snapped with this toes in the sand on a Cornish beach last summer, but was less keen on being pictured on a posh yacht off Turkey where he spent his real holidays.
Gordon Brown really did holiday in Blighty, in Southwold, Suffolk – and a fat lot of good it did his image. To show that Britain’s economy was in great shape and we all have money to burn he should have splashed the cash and gone somewhere truly exotic and fabulously unaffordable, like north Cornwall.
But let’s finish where we started with a holiday lesson from history and an exclusive look from South West Tourism’s archives.
Pol Pot, surfer dude: When the Cambodian dictator had shot a few thousand in the killing fields he would hang ten at Polzeath.
Cleopatra, Salcombe chick: Given her love of bathing in milk, she would choose Britain’s dairy county and Devon’s poshest resort. If she fancied some exercise she would head for the South West Coastal Footpath… and walk like an Egyptian
Genghis Khan, street fighter: strictly a city-break kinda boy. After battling on the wide-open plains of central Asia all year he loved nothing more than a week or two in Plymouth and some unarmed combat on a lairy Saturday night in Union Street.
