Morecambeology 370
In 1952, Morecambe hosted its first and last large-scale party political conference. That year’s Labour Party Conference was held in the Winter Gardens which, though a large theatre, proved too small, cramped and dimly lit for such a gathering.
Morecambe’s weather did the town no favours either – rain, wind and glowering skies closed in, creating a grey background above, not golden sands but uninviting mud. Posters advertising Morecambe’s own Albert Modley did little to lighten the mood.
Of Morecambe, MP Dick Crossman said ‘There is nothing to be said … except this view, which appeared at thirty hour intervals for a minute or two throughout the week’. Crossman went on, describing Morecambe as ‘a minor Blackpool, dumped down on mud flats.’
Post-war Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee was likewise unimpressed, ‘Architecturally (Morecambe) ranks a good second to Blackpool … Blackpool beats it in the atrocious ugliness of its buildings, but Morecambe pulls up on complete absence of planning.’
While the conditions outside the hall were stormy, they sometimes matched the mood inside as factions plotted in the seafront hotels. It became a conference only to be spoken of in hushed tones even 20 years on as Morecambe 1952 cast long political shadows. In the words of future Labour leader, Michael Foot, the Morecambe conference was ‘rowdy, convulsive, vulgar, splenetic, threatening at moments to collapse into an irretrievable brawl’. Trade Unions threatened to withdraw funds and there were open arguments between delegates. Even the traditional end-of-conference rendition of Auld Lang Syne can have done little to calm the choppy seas inside or out.
The 15,000 delegates, 5,000 observers and 300 press corps were deemed to require only 6 special constables while leader Clement Attlee could take an early morning stroll along the Prom almost uninterrupted aside from a reporter form The Visitor.
Among the press corps was a young reporter from an Adelaide newspaper, one Rupert Murdoch.