ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses mementos bought at the seaside, particularly at Blackpool, and brought home as gifts, mainly to the industrial north of England, roughly between the 1880s and the 1950s. Buying ceramic ornaments at Blackpool was a feature of 'Wakes Week' holidays. The town's emergence as the UK's premier proletarian holiday resort was rapid. By 1857 Porter's Guide to Blackpool was able to list one column of 'Hotels and Inns' as against 10 of 'Lodging Houses'. The vast majority of crested china sold in Blackpool, however, was far removed from the high minded ideals of Goss, and for the most part, was made of lower quality pottery. Goss's marketing of symbolic capital, so shrewdly targeted at the socially aspirant did not appeal to Blackpool's consumers. 'Souvenir-gifts', it will be argued, being more than just souvenirs and more than just gifts contain elements of each and offer understandings that transcend both.
