Helter Skelter may also seem familiar as a Beatles track on their White Album, but the first kids’ attraction was built, not in Liverpool like The Fab Four, but further north on Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1906, yet the two words, helter-skelter go back to 1600 as yet another William Shakespeare offering meaning abject confusion. Surprisingly, the next giant helter-skelter after Blackpool was built further south on the end of The Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth, a strange location. The ends of piers normally have low-lying buildings such as a lifeboat station, a café, fortune teller or small theatre, so the tall attraction at Great Yarmouth must have raised a few eyebrows when it opened and kids spun downwards towards the ocean without wearing lifejackets.
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