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The marvellous tale of Ken Barlow's Ancestors  Uploading ....Ken Barlow actor, William Roache's, great grandfather, James Waddicor, upped sticks from the industrial quarry town of Darwen and took the train to seek his fortune by the sea at Blackpool.
The town was the fastest growing seaside resort in Britain and the 1890s were a booming time.
The 1840s provided development for Blackpool with the railway expansion; now many people from the industrial areas around Blackpool could conveniently travel there. Afterwards Blackpool was no longer a coastal village but a booming town.
By investing in all sorts of street entertainments, including the Tower and the Pleasure Beach funfair which was finished in 1905, Blackpool was delivering everything the day tripping or weekending Briton could visualize for enjoyment.
As early as 1879 Blackpool was established as the first seaside resort to have permanent electric street lamps providing amazing entertainment in the form of the famous Blackpool Illuminations.
Entrepreneurial James started a small shop along the esplanade from which he earned a living as a medical electrician and phrenologist.
Electricity was fairly new but was used by doctors for the treatment of hysteria. Doctors would pass voltages through the bodies of their patients for an assortment of ailments.
James had a box with two metal handles for the patient to clutch and then he turned another handle to create the electricity. Having come to Blackpool to see the illuminations, to actually experience it in their bodies was very exhilarating and many forked out for the chance.
Phrenology was the assessment of lumps and bumps on the scalp, which were said to be consistent with different personality traits.
Blackpool Council were not happy about phrenology and palmistry being marketed along the esplanade and forbade both pretty fast.
So, whilst his son sold ice creams and soft drinks at the shop, James used his proceeds to invest in property. With interest in the town booming, there was massive demand for guest accommodation and James secured 4 or 5 properties in a small area in which he rented rooms.
Blackpool's cheap bed and breakfast hotels that are so famous today have their origins in the simple guesthouses of the kind that James set up all those years ago.
But, more significantly for James, the rapid explosion of the town's attraction meant that it was feasible to make a great deal of money in a very short time.
James died leaving an estate worth nearly 5,000 pounds sterling, which in today's money would be more like half a million pounds. This money allowed Zillah, James' daughter and William Roache's grandmother to start her own catering business at Alton Towers - recently in public hands after being sold by its aristocratic owners to pay death duties - and a young William enjoyed many happy days visiting his grandmother there.
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