-We live on an island of more than a thousand beaches.

For many of us, they've been bringing fresh air, freedom, and fun for as long as we can remember.

But our beaches are also where Britain meets the outside world.

They're full of extraordinary stories and big events that have shaped our nation and helped to make us who we are.

I'll be uncovering those stories, meeting people with deep local knowledge... -She was saying a woman can beat a man's record.

-Is this her?

She looks like a superhero.

...enjoying pleasures on the beach...

I'll see you later.

I'm gonna swim the Channel now.

...diving into the world of work...

So these are for me to take to the hatchery?

-Yes.

-Are they going to bite me?

...and culture.

-They've come into this space, and it must have just felt otherworldly.

-I'll find historical gems... -We've got a 24-pounder cannon.

It's going to be absolutely devastating.

-...and reveal how those stories still resonate.

-Owain Glyndwr lived within these walls, and around these mountains, his name reverberates to this day.

-From the remote beaches of Cornwall to the white cliffs of Kent, from the wildness of Wales to the bustling resorts around Blackpool in the northwest.

This is the secret history of Britain's beaches.

♪ Today, I'm in the northwest, revisiting the glorious beaches I know from my childhood holidays.

A trip to the Lancashire coast is part of the Northern experience because there's nowhere else quite like it.

It has it all -- sea, sand, and fun by the bucketload, and it was designed to offer just that.

Pioneers and entrepreneurs spotted commercial opportunities and created playgrounds of pleasure for the workers of the industrial north.

And while I'm here, I'll be uncovering tales of innovation, of heroism, and the pure joy of being on the beach.

I'll be exploring the birth of the seaside resort... Oh, my God.

It's really getting high now.

...from a towering monument that reached for the sky... Oh, my.

-Don't look down.

-Do not look down.

...to the story of a dramatic sea rescue... -These men rode as far as they could, launching into the absolute abyss.

-...from the people who came here to make a better life... -He walked across Europe, over the Alps.

-He walked?

...to the extraordinary story of the beauty queens who took a unique opportunity to change their lives.

-Blackpool really was the Las Vegas of the north, and anything was possible.

-Welcome to the beaches of the Northwest.

♪ I'm beginning my journey in Blackpool, a seaside resort which attracts up to 18 million visitors a year, including my family.

I feel very nostalgic about Blackpool.

In 1976, my mum and dad came here on their honeymoon.

It was a day trip with the entire family, and ever since, we've been bringing guests to this very place, and you would know you'd arrived when you'd see the tower.

♪ I have so many wonderful memories of family holidays here.

But it wasn't just us.

Millions of people living and working in the Lancashire industrial heartland had been coming to this coast since the railways opened in 1846, initially because of the beautiful beaches, but soon there would be an even bigger reason to visit -- the Blackpool Tower.

Before it was opened in 1894, Blackpool was just one of a number of resorts along this coast that was vying for holidaymakers.

But the building of the tower marked a turn in fortune, and the story of the build is one of huge risk and ambition.

♪ To find out just how incredible this build was, I'm meeting curator Jill Carruthers.

-Could you get a more iconic structure?

-No, and I've seen it my entire life.

But what I don't know is why it's there, Jill.

What was the point of it?

-It was to get people up high, touching the sky, touching the heavens.

Victorians loved a thrill.

They were all about thrills, novelties, and getting high up and seeing amazing views.

♪ -The Tower was inspired by the commercial success of the most famous viewing platform in the world, the Eiffel Tower, which had opened in 1889.

A year later, a group of businessmen formed the Blackpool Tower Company.

Plans were drawn up for a 158-meter structure, and building began in 1891.

Very quickly, though, they ran into financial difficulty and faced collapse.

It fell to the local mayor and businessman John Bickerstaffe to save the project.

He risked not only £20,000 of his own money but his reputation to encourage other investors to back the project.

-It was John Bickerstaffe.

He had lots of connections.

He got more investors.

He drummed up excitement and press.

They mooted it as the Eiffel Tower of Blackpool, and he saw the potential, and it was down to his excitement to plug this project that it became a success.

-Bickerstaffe was a businessman, but he also had a flair for the flamboyant.

The tower was built on the site of an existing aquarium and menagerie housing, crocodiles, bears, lions, and tigers, something he used to his advantage.

♪ -Bickerstaffe was known for bringing a lion into shareholders meetings as a distraction technique.

-A distraction technique or an intimidation technique.

-Well, it was -- it -- [ Laughs ] Who knows?

But if things went south, he would wheel in the lion.

-"Bring on the lion!"

-Wallace, the lion.

-Yeah, I might try that.

-He was quite an interesting character.

♪ -Over four years, holidaymakers watched the spectacle from the beach as the tower slowly emerged from the ground.

Then, in 1894, Bickerstaffe's tower was ready to open.

He was Blackpool, through and through.

-He was known as Mr. Blackpool.

-Excellent.

The Mayor of Blackpool, Mr. Blackpool, built the tower.

I love that.

Shall we see if it's just as thrilling today?

-Yes.

-Come on, then.

I don't think I've ever been up the tower before.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Well, let's change that.

♪ -The hydraulic lifts that transported visitors to the top were also an engineering marvel, with a journey time of just 60 seconds.

I mean, fantastic.

Just breathtaking.

What a view.

Incredible now.

Imagine how they must have felt experiencing this for the first time.

-Absolutely.

-They would never have got this perspective ever from anywhere, would they?

-No.

This was the tallest manmade structure in Britain when it opened.

So coming up to the top of a structure like this would have been a real thrill.

-On the opening day in May 1894, 70,000 people came to see the tower, with 3,000 paying sixpence to go up to the viewing platform.

According to the Blackpool Gazette, they were blown away by what they saw.

-The Gazette quoted that one of the most commonly heard phrases on the opening day was "Ee!

They look like fleas!"

[ Both laugh ] Which is just brilliant.

You can imagine it said in the Lancashire accent, can't you?

-"Ee!

And they do look like fleas!"

-They do.

-Oh, my -- -Don't look down.

-Do not look down.

Why did I just do that, Jill?

-Has it made you feel a bit wobbly?

-Remind myself that I was standing on a glass floor.

♪ Bickerstaffe had a very specific market in mind for the tower -- the working classes.

During the Industrial Revolution, mills temporarily closed for a week for maintenance work, meaning workers had a week of unpaid leave.

It was the birth of the annual holiday as we know it.

♪ For Bickerstaffe, how important was it that he was offering this for the working people?

-Oh, it was very important.

I mean, he saw the potential that the tower had to Blackpool.

The mill workers were coming over from the various Lancashire towns when the mills were closed.

They saved up all year to come here and have fun and entertainment, and that's exactly what Blackpool was offering.

-Every week, a different Lancashire mill town closed down and new holidaymakers arrived.

♪ Bickerstaffe wanted the tower to be more than just a viewing platform.

Inspired by the Nouveau Cirque in Paris, he financed an exotic circus, as well as a tropical roof garden and zoo to keep holidaymakers coming back year after year.

Would Blackpool be Blackpool without the tower?

I don't think it would.

-No.

I think Bickerstaffe had a very strong vision for the tower, and I think Blackpool has to be so thankful for the effort that John Bickerstaffe put in to saving the project and making it what it is.

♪ -John Bickerstaffe -- what a visionary.

He changed the face of Blackpool.

He put it on the map, and he gave humans this experience.

And I actually don't think that the thrill of seeing a view and seeing the Earth from this perspective has changed much in all that time.

It's still awesome, isn't it?

♪ In 1899, five years after the tower opened, Bickerstaffe came up with an even more exciting and ambitious venture, one that's very close to my heart.

I couldn't be in the tower and not revisit where I had my "Strictly" experience, the most terrifying and most magical moment of my life.

It is possibly the most famous ballroom in the world.

♪ I really want to understand how it came to be built, so I'm meeting curator Rebecca Titone.

♪ It's magnificent, Rebecca.

I mean, there's just no two ways around it.

Every time I've been in it, it takes my breath away.

-Absolutely.

And I think it's not just the incredible visuals that you'll see in here.

You can almost sense all of those wonderful memories and stories that have been created, as well.

-And why did they have a ballroom in the tower?

So it actually all started on the piers in Blackpool, and the big attraction there was open-air dancing.

So, the masses would flock there to dance to live German bands.

And people in the know in Blackpool thought, "Well, here's an incredible opportunity.

Why don't we give the people what they want inside, in a beautiful venue, so they can dance all day, all night, and also in all weathers, as well?"

So it really put Blackpool on the map, but it also opened up ballroom dancing for everybody.

-That's so fascinating, isn't it?

Considering how much we love ballroom dancing right now.

We're definitely living in another resurgence of it, aren't we?

-Definitely.

-Bickerstaffe brought in acclaimed designer Frank Matcham to create this ornate and glamorous ballroom.

-Frank Matcham is credited with creating at least 80 theaters across Britain.

So you can actually see that theatrical style mirrored in this ballroom with its incredible plush velvet and gold and decorative elements.

-I'm just thinking about working in a mill all day, every day.

-They'll have been in a really smoky, noisy, dangerous environment.

They've got on the train, they've walked out of the station, and they've said, "Let's go dancing."

And they come into this space and look around them.

They'll never have seen anything like this before.

It was a playground of pleasure.

It was a real hotspot for entertainment.

It's total escapism, and it must have just felt otherworldly.

♪ This ballroom accommodates around 3,000 people, so you can imagine coming into contact with all different walks of life and meeting people here.

You could meet the love of your life.

-I love it so much.

As someone who loves to dance still, the thought of this was it.

This was the the biggest club that you'd turn up to to have a good boogie and pull.

Nothing's changed.

♪ There is something about people expressing themselves through dance, and particularly as a couple, that's just deeply romantic, isn't it?

-Yes, definitely.

And, again, I think you can feel the energy.

It just has that magical quality, doesn't it?

-Are you saying you want to dance, Rebecca?

-Not right now.

[ Both laugh ] ♪ -It's so wonderful just to be in this space, obviously, because I've danced here, but just watching couples who come in every day to have a tea dance.

And I'm looking around, my favorite detail that really does bring it into modern day has got to be the glitter ball.

♪ The tower and everything it offered drew workers from across the northwest.

But the pioneers who built it didn't stop there.

They had an even more ambitious idea, to create something else that wasn't just fun, it was utterly thrilling.

♪ The pioneers of the north didn't just stop with the tower.

They had a captive audience.

So what more could they do with them?

Then, in 1896, another entrepreneur saw an opportunity, and he changed the face of seaside resorts forever.

♪ That pioneer was William Bean, who bought a 42-acre plot of land right on the sand to create a pleasure beach packed with rides and attractions that had never been seen before.

Today, we take these for granted, but back then, this was revolutionary.

The ride that kicked it all off and opened here in 1904 was The Flying Machine.

Whoo-hoo!

Check it out.

[ Gasps ] Oh, my God.

I'm scared already.

♪ When William Bean first opened this place, his desire was to make adults feel like children.

I feel like a kid already.

♪ Whoo-hoo!

That is absolutely thrilling.

Just lovely.

To tell me more about The Flying Machine, I'm meeting operations manager and roller-coaster enthusiast Andy Hygate.

I survived!

-You all right?

You like it?

-Loved it, actually.

Took me back to being a kid again, which is what the whole point is, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-The oldest ride here.

-We think it's the oldest operating ride in Europe.

And if you think we opened in 1904, and 100 years plus later, they're still coming, still queuing up for it, still want to have that great experience, I mean, I think that's incredible.

-The date is significant, as it was just a year after the Wright brothers conducted their first-ever powered flight.

And the creator of The Flying Machine was Sir Hiram Maxim, an American-born inventor who'd moved to the U.K. to develop his ideas.

-He actually invented a whole load of different things, including mousetraps, and he claims to have invented the light bulb, but I think Edison argues with that one.

But, anyway, to fund his business, he built a number of these captive flying machines with the intention to give people that first experience of what flight would be like.

And they appeared at different locations across the U.K., including Southport, New Brighton and here at Blackpool.

And ours is the only one that's still in operation today.

♪ -The original hull of the Flying Machine has been updated, but the structure is still the same as it was back in 1904.

But this was just the start.

William Bean had his sights on bigger and better.

♪ So how did it build over time?

-So, William Bean went to Coney Island in America, and he basically wanted to replicate some of that in what he saw there.

And as things developed, he started adding new rides.

And we obviously had roller coasters, the miniature train, the ghost train, the very first ghost train in the world.

So lots of people feel very nostalgic about the Pleasure Beach for that reason.

- New attractions like Noah's Ark, Peter Pan's Parlor, and the Bowl Slide gave holidaymakers more and more to come back for.

But the origins of the Pleasure Beach were on the sand.

-Where we're standing now is originally on the beach, and I can show you a photo of the Flying Machine, where this whole area is actually all sandy.

But what the cool thing is, all the people that are visiting are all dressed, like, in their Sunday best and they're walking into here and seeing the same structure that you can see today.

And I just think that's an amazing thing.

♪ -These northern entrepreneurs weren't just building landmarks, they were creating experiences for the masses.

And it was here in sunny Blackpool that the holiday as an industry was born.

With rides costing between 30 pence and £2 in today's money, William Bean had made this a lucrative business.

The visitor numbers to Blackpool steadily increased after the First World War, and, by the early 1930s, had reached up to 7 million a year.

But the entrepreneurs of Blackpool couldn't stand still.

They had to find new ways to attract visitors.

When Bean died, he passed the Pleasure Beach on to his daughter, Doris, and her husband, Leonard.

With their architect, they took the very latest ideas from America and Europe to create a new, sleek, geometric modern environment.

Archivist Caroline Hall tells me more.

-Their plan was to create a unified look.

So the park had grown up kind of with a ride here, a ride there.

It bled off the beach.

There was no kind of border or perimeter as such.

They contained it.

They created a molded landscape.

They created a place where, as people entered, they were immersed into the whole experience.

And there was one vision, one look.

And that is new, that is new to the eyes of all the people coming to the park at the time.

And between really 33 and 39, they expanded and remodeled the park to that modernist fantasy land.

-This new design was a world away from the heavy, ornate Victorian and Edwardian architecture most people lived with in the Lancashire mill towns.

In Blackpool, they had even more modern ideas up their sleeve.

What do you do with your kids if you don't -- if you want to get rid of them for a few hours?

-Oh, there's the kiddies park.

I mean, Emberton designed a kiddies park and a creche.

In fact, the creche was one of the first things he built in its entirety when he arrived.

-He had a creche?

-He had a creche.

And it came at the recommendation of Doris Thompson.

She wanted something there.

And they employed Margaret Blundell, an illustrator, to cover the walls with beautiful children's illustrations.

- I mean, that is really forward thinking, isn't it, considering we're still fighting for those things now.

-Exactly.

-Doris and Leonard sound like my kind of people.

Love their ideas.

Who were they hanging out with?

-Well, they were obviously hanging out with all the designers and the engineers that they knew.

But there are stories that they met Walt Disney on several occasions and that Walt was influenced by what Leonard and Doris were doing in creating an immersive landscape.

And it is believed that that thinking could have influenced what he did with Disneyland.

-My goodness.

So just how special and unique was Blackpool then?

-It couldn't be rivaled.

The park was already successful, but this took it to a new level.

-Why Blackpool?

What is it about this place in particular, this beach, that made all of this happen?

-The coast is a really exceptional coast, where you've got the lakes to the north and the northwest, you've got the Pennines to the west, and you've got the Welsh hills to the south.

You could be surrounded by rain and clouds, but Blackpool can still be sunny -- windy but sunny.

-Caroline are you saying to me the sun always shines in Blackpool?

-Maybe not quite always shines in Blackpool, but it does shine a lot.

It does shine a lot, yeah.

♪ -I am so impressed with the level of thought and detail that went into the user experience, if you like, of Blackpool.

And why not?

Why shouldn't hard working people who have one holiday a year have access to the very best?

I love that there's this manmade structure dedicated to pleasure sitting side by side with nature's pleasure -- the beach, of course.

♪ Holidaymakers flooded to the attractions of Blackpool to escape their harsh working lives.

But this coastline also had the potential for danger for those who worked here all year round.

At the end of the 19th century, they would witness an extraordinary event that changed the world.

♪ I've come south a few miles down the coast.

In the late 1800s, while Blackpool had become a bustling holiday mecca, Lytham and St. Annes were smaller, more genteel resorts.

♪ The cotton industry was booming in the cities, but here, people also still worked in traditional ways, as farmers and fishermen.

The coastline, with its treacherous sandbanks stretching out across the sound, made it a notorious location for shipwrecks.

And this beach was the setting not for pleasure but for tragedy.

On the 10th of December, 1886, the fishing communities of Lytham and St. Annes would experience the worst ever RNLI lifeboat disaster in history.

This little-known story of immense bravery would transform how we as a nation respond to disasters.

Events unfolded on the evening of the 9th of December when the Mexico, a 200-foot German cargo ship with 12 crew had left Liverpool, bound for Ecuador.

But its sails were damaged off the Isle of Man, and high winds prevented the ship getting out to the Irish Sea.

It was forced into the estuary towards the sandbanks off Southport.

♪ I'm meeting David Forshaw of the RNLI at Lytham to discover what happened.

How treacherous can it get?

I mean, it's very breezy today.

-Yes.

-But probably much worse than this.

-It was far worse than this.

In fact, in the morning that she was wrecked, the winds had got up to hurricane force.

She started coming into the estuary, hit the sandbanks, and it was obvious there was no chance of getting out.

They put up distress signals.

No radios or anything like that, of course.

All they could do was climb up into the rigging of the last mast they left standing and wait and hope and pray.

-The distress signals were an oil lamp at the top of the mast and burning torches around the deck to show they were in trouble.

At around 9:00 p.m., these were seen by three RNLI stations along the coast, at St. Annes, Lytham, and Southport.

Each one launched as soon as they could and headed for the Mexico.

So, all three were sprung into action.

-Yes.

-Who got there first?

-Lytham got there first.

Simply the fact that the Lytham crew lived close by.

-So they could just launch from there straight into straight into the channel.

-Right.

-The lifeboats then, of course, were state of the art.

They were good boats.

But of course, again, no engines, no radios, nothing like that.

They were what were called pulling and sailing boats.

They used oars to propel themselves.

-It took over three hours to travel the 8 miles to the stranded vessel, and they battled with the appalling weather conditions.

-A huge squall came up the estuary and knocked them over on their side, and three of those were broken.

But the boat, which was brand-new, managed to right herself, and they continued on to the wreck.

They managed to get alongside and get all 12 crew off, and they brought them back to the island.

-Unbeknown to them, however, the Southport lifeboat was still heading to the Mexico.

They arrived just minutes after the Lytham boats had departed at around 1:00 a.m.

The distress lights had been left on the mast, so they had no idea the crew had already been rescued.

As they got closer, a huge wave engulfed their boat, and it capsized.

They were all washed ashore.

But of the 16 crew, only two survived.

And there was worse to come.

And what about the other boat from St. Annes?

-The St. Annes boat just went missing, insofar as there was no communication from them.

The hours went by.

The families were just waiting for them to come back, and they never did.

She was found next day on Southport Beach, and all her crew were lost.

-27 men lost their lives during the rescue of the Mexico and her crew, and it remains the worst RNLI disaster in British history.

But it wasn't just a local tragedy.

It went on to change the lives of many more people in the country in a way that no one expected.

I've come inside to talk to RNLI fundraiser Roy Turner.

It's so beautiful right now, Roy.

I mean, it's picture perfect looking out there today.

Very different to how it would have been on that dark December night in 1886.

-Very different, indeed.

-Yeah.

-And these men rowed as far as they could, launching into the absolute abyss to go and save somebody from a different country.

No connection whatsoever.

But that's what lifeboat men are all about.

-And we know that it was the crew from Lytham that were the only ones that were successful.

-That's right.

Yes.

Here we have a photograph of the Lytham lifeboat crew.

And in the background there, you can see the gentleman -- yep -- with the top hat is Captain Burmeister.

He's from the Mexico.

-Wow.

What an incredible photograph.

-The next photograph is the crew of the Southport.

And here we have the only two survivors.

-So H. Robinson and J. Jackson saved.

-Yep.

-And then if you look at the names, look.

Peters, Peters, Hodge, Hodge, Jackson, Jackson.

Brothers, fathers, sons?

-That's right.

So, the Mexico generated 16 widows and 50 orphans.

-And then you think of the impact of what that would have been for the community, you know, losing all those men.

-And in many instances, it was the only breadwinner.

♪ -The story had a massive impact when it was reported in the national press.

Queen Victoria sent a message of condolence to the community, and donations flooded in to help the families of the men who died.

But it went on to have an even bigger impact.

A local cotton magnate, Charles Macara, who was on the St Annes Lifeboat committee, realized that their funding was inadequate and decided to do something.

-He took the extraordinary measure of organizing through his contacts a street collection through the city of Manchester.

Not just a street collection, but you see the size and mass of this lifeboat.

-Mm.

-One was dragged through the streets of Manchester.

-Of Manchester?

-It must have been the equivalent of seeing a space shuttle being dragged through the streets of Manchester.

There were thousands of people lining the streets.

They actually took oars, and they attached purses to oars and held them up to windows, and people contributed.

-Charles Macara -- what a forward-thinking, open-hearted chap who obviously very good at convincing people to put their hands in their pockets, as well.

-Yeah, I mean, we think of these industrial giants as self-centered and all full of self-importance and developing wealth for themselves.

But here we have somebody who said grassroots.

-Yeah.

More than £450,000 was raised in today's money, and the event was so successful, it had an even bigger legacy.

-That actually started the world's first Flag Day, as we recognize it today.

So every single charity that collects money on a specific day owes that to the Mexico disaster.

-In those little boxes that we know and we just see everywhere now?

-That's right.

-That every charity uses.

-Every charity in the world have Flag Days because of what happened after the Mexico.

♪ -♪ And it's ready ♪ -♪ Aye, we're ready ♪ -♪ Away the lifeboats go ♪ ♪ As they join in the race to debark the Mexico ♪ -It's hard to imagine, particularly on a day like today, the immense tragedy that took place here and all those lives that were lost just out there.

But this story also reveals the best of humanity, the humanity of the men that risked their own lives to save those strangers on the Mexico and the generosity of the people here and the people of the Northwest who donated to the families of the bereaved and then later to the RNLI.

And that really resonates with us today, doesn't it?

Because when we see a disaster anywhere in the world, still our first instinct is, "What can I do to help?"

This extraordinary coastline was shaped by visionary businesspeople.

But it also provided an opportunity for ordinary, hardworking men and women to make money and change their fortunes.

And they did this in the Naples of the North.

♪ During the 1930s, while the masses flocked to Blackpool, further up the coast, Morecambe was carving out a very different holiday market.

I've come to beautiful Morecambe Bay with its golden crescent-shaped beach and stunning views out to the Lake District.

Entrepreneurs wanted to attract the wealthy middle classes and employed the best architects and designers to lure them in.

♪ Here, the art-deco style wasn't for roller coasters but for glamorous hotels like the Midland, with its sleek exterior and grand sweeping staircase.

Morecambe was dubbed the Naples of the North, and in the footsteps of the rich came working-class folk hoping to make their fortunes.

And they all mingled here on the beach.

To find out more, I'm meeting historian Dr. Michala Hulme.

So, what was happening on the beaches here?

You've got people coming in on the trains, staying at the Midland, spending their money.

But what was happening on the beach?

What other entertainment was there?

-So the beach was sort of the key place.

This is where everybody wanted to go, and they wanted to mingle.

But this is a different class to Blackpool.

These people have got money to spend.

And you've got entrepreneurs who are coming here thinking, "You know what?

I can make a few quid off these people."

So you couldn't walk down the beach without getting harassed, people trying to sell you things, palm readers, people trying to sell you rock, chiropodists, quack doctors coming along trying to sell you their latest potion, you know, that will make you live forever.

It was absolutely bedlam.

-I love that picture that you've just painted.

So these beaches would have been full of hawkers, people selling things, stallholders.

-Absolutely.

And what happened, the local council introduced licenses, so you couldn't then just go on the beach and sell stuff.

You had to basically bid for a pitch.

It was an auction.

£86 at the start of the 20th century would get you a pitch for the year.

-Wow.

I mean, £86.

I can imagine that would be a lot of money.

Probably the equivalent of thousands now, right?

-Absolutely.

And the most expensive pitches on the beaches were being sold to Italian ice cream sellers.

-From the mid 1800s, thousands of people migrated to the U.K. from the poor, rural regions of Italy where they worked in low-paid seasonal jobs.

Britain was the land of opportunity, particularly the booming cities of the north.

Many settled, working in factories or selling food to factory workers.

But as the holiday industry of the northwest coast began to thrive, they soon gravitated to resorts like Morecambe.

♪ -What you have here is a mass audience that are going to, you know, buy your ice cream.

The weather's nice.

It's quick and easy to make.

It's fairly cheap to make.

So there's big profit margins involved.

But then, as we get into the 20th century, they start to expand, and they start to move into empty premises, and they're no longer just selling ice cream.

They might be selling coffee, for example.

-And what did it do for a place like Morecambe when communities were moving in?

-It made it a thriving community.

So you've got the wealthy people who are coming here for medicinal purposes, obviously.

You know, to get the fresh air and the sea and the sand.

And you've also got communities that are making money off those.

-So this was a place of opportunity, then?

-Absolutely.

It was a place of opportunity and growth.

♪ -I'm on my way to meet members of the Brucciani family, whose ancestor, Luigi, seized the opportunities on offer and settled in Morecambe in the 1930s.

How many generations have you had an ice cream shop here in Morecambe?

-Well, I'm third generation.

Amelia's going to be fourth generation, obviously, and she's the only Brucciani going forward.

-Really?

So you're going to inherit it all?

-Yeah.

It's all mine.

-Lucky you.

Do you like ice cream?

-I'm actually allergic to it.

-No!

-I've got 16 food allergies.

-And ice cream's one of them.

-Dairy.

Dairy.

-What's going on?

-I know.

-Luigi will be turning in his grave.

-He would.

He would, indeed.

Yes.

-Should we take it back in time?

-I would love to know, how did an Italian family end up in Morecambe?

-Well, that's a bit of a journey.

So, Luigi Brucciani came from Italy at the age of 13.

He walked across Europe, over the Alps, and caught a fishing boat over to Scotland.

-He walked?

-Yes.

-At 13 years old?

-Yes.

-What year was this?

-Around 1893.

-And is this this guy here?

-It is, yes.

He was a farm worker, and he followed his brothers over to England to seek fame and fortune and make a better life for himself.

-Look at those eyes.

That's fantastic.

They are eyes full of hope, aren't they?

-Yes.

Yes.

♪ -For more than 30 years, Luigi and his brothers worked in Scotland selling fish and chips.

But by the 1930s, they were looking for new opportunities elsewhere.

And why Morecambe?

-Because seaside resorts were booming.

-So this was Morecambe at its prime, the heyday, 1930.

-It was, yes.

-And they came specifically because they'd heard there was opportunity.

-Yes.

Yes, they were.

-Do you know why ice cream?

-It was an easier life than making fish and chips, so they saw it as a better prospect.

-Before this shop, the Bruccianis went out onto the beach to sell their ice cream.

So, this is how they originally sold ice cream -- horse and cart?

-It is.

-The original ice cream van.

Isn't that fantastic?

Amelia, when you think about your family history, how does it make you feel?

-Proud.

Proud that I'm from such great people and such entrepreneurs.

-And how good is the ice cream?

-It's great.

-I want something elaborate.

I want something old fashioned.

I want something traditional.

I want something over-the-top that's going to make me feel sick.

-Knickerbocker Glory?

-Sounds good to me.

♪ ♪ I have loved hearing about Morecambe and the people that visited it.

We're so quick to jump on planes and go to sunnier climes now, aren't we?

But there is something incomparable about this.

Sun, sand, the threat of rain, and a Knickerbocker Glory.

Timeless.

♪ The resorts all along this coastline provided ordinary working people with the potential to make money and be a success.

Back in Blackpool, one event in particular gave women a unique chance to change their fortunes, and it started with the northwest's biggest industry, cotton.

To discover how, I'm heading to the beach with industrial historian John McGoldrick.

So, John, what links cotton to Blackpool Beach?

-Well, cotton was one of Britain's major export industries, but following the First World War, Britain started to find itself being rapidly caught up by countries like India and Japan who were tooling themselves up and really kind of giving Britain a run for its money, in terms of cotton production.

-And what was the great idea that they came up with?

-The scheme was to instigate a Cotton Queen quest.

So, a female cotton worker between the ages of 16 and 26 would be selected by the mill in each of the main mill towns in Lancashire.

And then the winner of that competition would go through to a grand final to be held in Blackpool in June of each year from 1930.

-The organizers wanted the contest to be a shot in the arm for the industry and increase sales by encouraging the public to buy British cotton.

-It's a fine show.

Very fine show.

-So, what would we have seen on the beach here?

-Well, associated with the Cotton Queen crowning was a major pageant, called the Pageant of Progress.

All told, there were about 250,000 people watching that event.

There were floats depicting various scenes from British history, from John of Gaunt to Henry V in the Battle of Agincourt to Charles II.

You had the history of the British cotton industry all done in very extravagant terms.

-And what happened?

How was she crowned?

-The ceremony itself was very, very ornate, very glitzy, but also quite serious and very much based on the proper royal coronations that you would have seen in Westminster Abbey.

You would have had numerous page boys, maids of honor, red carpets, and even a replica of the Westminster coronation throne.

-A new queen is crowned in Britain.

She rules over the world of cotton.

For the next year, she'll carry her smile from town to town and city to city, reminding the world that cotton is still one of Britain's greatest industries.

-John and I are heading to one of the best viewpoints the public would have watched this spectacle unfold from.

♪ So, who was the first Cotton Queen of 1930?

Who was given the honor?

-The first cotton queen of Great Britain was Frances Lockett.

She was a weaver from Hyde in Cheshire.

What had happened was that her father had submitted a photograph to the Daily Dispatch newspaper, and the first that she knew she'd been put forward as a potential Cotton Queen was when her little brother ran up the stairs to her bedroom to let her know that her photo was in the paper.

She was tall, and I think that kind of gave her that ability to kind of carry herself and wear beautiful dresses and just present herself in a very confident way.

-And was it a beauty contest?

-It was a bit of everything, really.

Most of the candidates were conventionally attractive, but that wasn't the only thing.

All the candidates had to be someone who worked in the industry.

So you couldn't be an office worker or an official.

You had to be someone who was working on the shop floor in the industry.

That was really important.

-So what did it do for her life?

How did it change?

-It transformed Frances's life.

She met prime ministers.

She met heads of the cotton industry.

She met lords and ladies.

And it just kind of introduced her to a whole new stratum of society.

She was attending fashion shows in Covent Garden.

In one particular fashion show, she arrived at midnight, on the stroke of midnight, almost in a kind of Cinderella style.

-So she knew how to arrive.

-She made a splash, yeah.

♪ -Young women like Frances were opened up to worlds they'd never experienced before.

And for many of the Cotton Queens, it completely changed their lives.

This was certainly the case for Britain's third Cotton Queen, Marjorie Knowles.

-She was born and raised in a very modest two up, two down terrace house in Burnley.

She started work as a machinist in a local warehouse mill, and she was a flamboyant, theatrical character, so she was really perfectly suited for the role.

She loved her year.

She milked it to the full, and she married an academic and moved to live in the United States of America.

-And, of course, then these were aspirational women for other young women in the area.

-They were.

And other young women would have seen them at local fetes, local events, when they opened a department store.

So -- and they were someone to look up to.

And they really were quite kind of charismatic figures.

They had a chauffeur.

So, you know, they had real oomph and real kind of gravitas.

-And the only place any of this could have really happened that would match the status of the Cotton Queen would be Blackpool.

-Yeah, Blackpool really was the Las Vegas of the North.

It was the happening, modern, vibrant place to be, and anything was possible.

♪ -This enterprising spirit defines this coastline.

Blackpool has never stood still.

Today, its attractions draw millions of people each year, even more than in the first half of the 20th century, when it felt like the center of the world.

I've got such happy memories of being on this beach, but now that I've understood the history, I've got a whole new perspective.

This Lancashire coastline was ahead of the curve.

It was the cutting edge of modernity.

They wanted the best of the best, regardless of your background, and I absolutely love that.

Whether you are a mill owner sipping a martini in the Midland Hotel or a mill worker being twirled around the Tower ballroom, if you worked hard, you needed somewhere to play hard, and where better than these beaches?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪