18 September: Blackpool Illuminations

On this date, or possibly the 19th (my sources differ) in 1879 The famous Blackpool illuminations were switched on for the first time. Whichever date it was doesn't matter since the illuminations will be on by now - so it's still topical. For those who don't know, Blackpool Illuminations are 6 miles of electric lights and light displays along the promenade of Blackpool in Lancashire, England, lit for 66 days every Autumn.

1. In 1879 there were just eight large arc lights on the promenade. Thousands of people turned out to see the "artificial sunshine".
2. Things went quiet, or dark, for a while but then in 1912, 10,000 lights were put up for the opening of a new part of the promenade. Princess Louise performed the opening ceremony. This was in May. The event was so popular that Blackpool brought the lights back later in the year, and they've been lit every year since.
3. Apart from during the two world wars, and for three years after the second world war. Every year since 1949.
4. More than a million lights are used in the display which costs £2.4 million to stage. Why bother with such a costly enterprise? Because the 3.5 million visitors it attracts will spend more than £275 million.
5. The equipment, which is itself worth £10 million, weighs more than 711,000 kilograms which is equivalent to 350 Blackpool trams. To light up six miles, they use more than 100 miles of festoon strip and 200 miles of wiring.
6. It takes 22 weeks for 45 staff to put the displays and lights up and 14 weeks to take them down again.
7. Blackpool Tower isn't left out, either. It is illuminated too and since 2007 there has been a laser which can be seen from 30 miles away. The laser didn't prove popular with everyone. Astronomers, and notable Sir Patrick Moore, criticised it heavily because it caused too much light pollution.
8. There are displays which return every year, like the Teddy Bear's Picnic, but there is often also a topical theme and new displays. In 1970 the theme was space, because men had landed on the Moon the year before. Due to a technical hitch, though, the astronauts could only fly downwards. You're certain to see lots of animated Disney characters and Daleks.
9. The switching on ceremony is always a big event, with a celebrity doing the honours. As I write these things several weeks in advance, as I write this it hasn't been announced who will do the honours in 2017. The first person to do it was Lord Derby in 1934. Since then it's been done by Ken Dodd, Cannon and Ball, Les Dawson, Alan Carr, Keith Lemon, Peter Kay, George Formby, Status Quo, the Bee Gees, Westlife, Steps, Blue, Robbie Williams, Little Mix, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby, Gordon Banks and Frank Bruno to name but a few. In 2008 the presenters of Top Gear were to do it after a challenge to get to Blackpool from Switzerland on one tank of petrol. Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond made it, but while they were arguing about which of them should do it, The Stig stepped forward and hit the switch. One year, 1977, the lights were turned on by a Horse - Red Rum, who'd won the Grand National for the third time earlier that year.
10. The lights go off in November, to be replaced, almost immediately, by the Christmas Lights. The illuminations are turned on for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve before they are taken down.

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