Carry On Girls | 1973
By the early 70s, the enjoyably silly series was starting to get a bit limp, as ‘Women’s Libbers’ attempt to disrupt a seaside Beauty Contest in the fictitious seaside town of ‘Fircombe’.
The town is, of course, Brighton on the south coast of East Sussex, and the ‘Palace Hotel’ was Clarges, 115-119 Marine Parade, to the east of the town, which was for many years owned and run by the wonderful British comic actor Dora Bryan.
‘Fircombe Pier’ isn’t the current Brighton Pier (then known as the Palace Pier) but the old West Pier, which has since closed and fallen into a seemingly irreparable state of disrepair. Only the skeleton of the pier head remains, out to sea, opposite Regency Square. The once magnificent structure was the main setting for Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film of Oh! What A Lovely War.
Away from the seaside, ‘Fircombe's' town hall was Slough Town Hall, which came close to being demolished but has since been redeveloped to become Claycots School, Bath Road at Ledgers Road in Slough, Berkshire.
