The year I fell in love with this holiday destination, so much I returned the following year. Missed the next year but returned in 1990 and can only say I was mortified by the demise! Like all places that have their good and bad sides , I have visited recently on numerous occasions and glad to say that it has well and truly pulled its socks up. Not off the list of places for retirement which is ever growing closer. Love from the East Midlands!!
So sad about Rhyl Sun Centre. So many happy memories of that place - like waiting for the waves to start in the Lagoon pool with fear and excitement. From Liverpool.
I lived in Rhyl from 87-90. Lived on Fairfield Avenue. Loved my time in Rhyl. Worked at the Sun Centre as a life guard. Great to see all the old places again 😊 Fond memories ❤️ Great video 👍
Went there every year around this time. Spent my 50p a day pocket money on Operation wolf in the arcade at the Robin Hood Centre. I was rubbish so that 50p lasted about 2 mins. Great memories. Thanks for sharing the video.
Oh magical mate! I have fond memories of a primary school visit via train, from Bham, with my mother. Operation Wolf was reasonably fresh at the time, maybe this was about 87/88 at a guess. That recoil 😁
This made me so emotional! I was 7 years old and this is how I remember Rhyl! I left north Wales 10 years ago and it's heartbreaking to see what time has done to this once lovely place
I lived there 1982 to 1986 and still love the place. Often go back. Does anyone remember a Crossville bus rolling out of the depot and straight into Times furnishings shop window ? 1984 I think. Thank you for posting and thanks to the original film maker.
Absolutely fantastic. Watching this has made me remember how vibrant Rhyl was back in the day & the reason I still love it the way I do regardless of it's poor state.
And what government greed has done to fabulous established bus operators from back in the day. How do we know the cars they've piled on our roads aren't the cause of so many diseases
I was born in Rhyl in the mid 50’. It was a fantastic place to grow up. Unfortunately Rhyl started on the decline back when this was filmed but it was a hell of a lot better than it is today. The greedy councillors with their vision of what Rhyl should be has turned the place into a shit hole. If that’s progress then you can keep it. I’ll remember Rhyl as it used to be. Nice video. 🏴👍
What a great video. Lived here in the late 80's and this really takes me back. I no Rhyl gets a bad rep but i loved it there and will always have great memories.
Its all false copycat talk welsh lad 😷 lol. Lived here for years now! an the TIDE IS STILL ON TIME !!😂😅 "Gone Fishing" dwbee 🎵dwbee🎵 doo 🎶 🌞 (its like living on holliday 😍😎)
the good auld days..pullin out of that bus stop with a cone of chips from the flamingo after a day on the prom..notice the clock not there near the brighty...was a beltin place back in the day
it is nothing like it was with massive changes in the 90s early 2000s whereby money was used to replace what was good instead of focusing on things that needed attention but thats like most other places in the UK and now the high street is almost dead with large corperates taking over prety much everything. Yes its sad but think yourself lucky New Zealand is probably one of the most secure places to live in that public services havent been stripped to the bone. All thd best from Sunny Rhyl!
Wow... im watching this in 2017 as a 12 year old and im just amazed how beautiful rhyl used to be before they stopped funding it and the druggies invaded and i know all these roads so well!! OMFG
The blank canvas that was Rhyl seafront, so much space and opportunity back then. Now, sadly a mix of misguided developments, inferior replacements, loss, neglect, missed opportunities, and the occasional logical addition. The cinema and sealife centre made sense but are perhaps a little on the small side. The outdoor arena has little use throughout the year and perhaps would have been better as an indoor arena facility, this would have been especially good during winter. The tower is fine and looks nice all lit up, but I don't think you can go up it anymore, perhaps a restaurant could be developed at the tower base? The children's village is for me the biggest mistake. Its never delivered on the promise and is often like a ghost town. The underground car park was a huge waste of time and money and ruined the above landscape, creating a man-made elevation and the need for an unnecessary bridge. The threatre has always been underwhelming and nothing like what Rhyl had in the past. The new hotel is ok, a bit boxy looking but a welcome addition. Imagine if all the money that went into the children's village had been spent on a new pier. It could have lined up with the main high street and linked the shopping and entertainment together. Perhaps a traditional tram running the long length of the promenade and providing much needed transport. A scattering of prominent food outlets could have been good, as too would have been replacing the attractions that burnt down amongst the arcades. I've often thought that a big wheel, a smaller version of the London eye, would sit nicely somewhere on the prom. Personally what best sums up Rhyl today is what happened to my two favourite places. Rhyl prom used to be bookended by the original Sun Centre and the funfair, now sadly both gone. The Sun Centre was an amazing place to visit as a child, I can't get my head around why they demolished it for an inferior replacement down the road. The new SC2 looks like a flatpack waterpark in a big white box, no atmosphere or imagination. Why could they not invest the cost of the new into the old? As for the funfair.... that location is now occupied by an Aldi supermarket and other big box stores. Think about that, the funfair was replaced with a budget supermarket, is it any wonder Rhyl doesn't have as many visitors as it used to. The changes to Rhyl over the years have often felt more like vanity projects, they fail to capture or even understand what makes the British seaside experience unique and special, I'm at a loss to explain the thinking behind most of them. Preservation seems to be a big problem in Rhyl, so much of its history has been neglected. In fact, almost all of what's been done to Rhyl over the years is often neglected almost immediately. The pattern seems to be to do very little for a long time then suddenly spend huge amounts of money on new things, but the new things are never usually as good and sometimes terrible. The high street is no better, very run down and losing big names, M&S left for neighbouring Prestatyn years ago. Rhyl doesn't seem to have been very well looked after by the powers that be. Rhyl was the exciting place to go when I was a small child, I even briefly lived there. I'm 39 now and I still visit, a lot is still the same albeit often run down and seemingly dying. The changes during the past 30 years now seem like false dawns, I miss the parts that are gone or changed beyond recognition. Maybe it's my age but the hope and wonder I used to feel as a kid when visiting Rhyl are now replaced with a sense of loss and what if's. I wish for Rhyl to have a bright future but I doubt it will ever regain the magic it once had.
Yes the pronade with its older buildings were some of Rhyls best assets and even those that had fallen into disrepair like the enclosed gardens could have been easily fixed but instead it was decided the usefullness of money and grants would help specific business.....and benefit Rhyl! The childrens vilage was orgionally said to be buildings shaped like cakes and jellys almost like the beginings of an all American dream theme park but instead we lose the open coastal views to a massive wall!
No, Rhyl was in terrible decline by then, It was just a shadow of it's former self by 1988. Rhyl was at its best in the 50's, 60's & 70's. For me the beginning of the end was the destruction of the Pier in 1970 and the Pavilion Theatre in 1973. When I was a kid there was a lovely spectacle on the prom in the Autumn. The gardens that were beautifully kept were illuminated even the Pavilion roof was lit up. It was lovely. In the 1980's the left wing council thought it was a wonderful idea to have people fresh from prison and homeless come to the town and live in the many hotels and holiday flats. The result of that are plain to see today. Rhyl abetted by its own council committed suicide. Its always the left that destroys things even though they are full of good intent. I'm ashamed.
Im 15 and this is the year 2020 I live in rhyl and from what my mum and dad told me what rhyl used to be like and how much fun it was when they where kids I wish it would go back to them days becuse I'd realy love yo experience it
To me Rhyl is a bit like Blackpool but without the lights in its layout but considerably smaller I often take my bike on the train in the summer and start from here through a stop in Colwyn Bay for lunch and then along the coastal Cycle Path to Llandudno ,really your best bet is Llandudno in order to get where all the action is.
Blind ivestment will just see childrens village mk2 and the drug addicts are not visitors from outer space, no matter how much they say otherwise! These people are the product of our country and those we elected to rule that decided there was no such thing as society...we reap what we sow
Amazing video , why did they kill this town . Greedy hotel owners and a corrupt council. There was a hotel owner who’d keep the benefit accounts of residents who had been sent to stay there when these people had no where else to live . This town was killed with poverty
Used to go here as a kid I loved it then but over the years it's gone down hill so much I don't recognise it anymore! Lots of features gone but when the fair went near the iron bridge that was the nail in the coffin! Place looks like a bad car park now and run down building along the seafront a pity really because last thing you want to see when you arrive is a big concrete car park where the fair was and derelict buldings along the seafront (first impressions )
Spot the "modern" classic cars. Quite a lot of Ford Escorts, a Sierra, and what could be a Vauxhall Chevette. Would be worth quite alot of money now depending on the model, as well as an MGB. Anyone know what the white coloured car is parked between the Mini and convertible red Merc just as the bus turns right onto the first road? to me it looks like Reliant Rebel or Kitten 4 wheeler.
P@£s off bck to where u came from then!!!!! Why you staying there you pr#£@ck, worse places than Rhyl at least you got the sea u knobend bet you are there still 3 years l8ter +moanin
Just as I thought , Rhyl was a shithole back then and nothing has changed to the present day really. Depressing place and the smell of blocked drains everywhere you went. Thankfully I only had to work there as a young bobby back in the late 80s and early 90s.
