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Blackpool Vanishes
This science fiction mystery, a first novel, covers a wide from poetry to the civil service, from childhood trauma to senile jealousy, from the philosophical significance of Rugby League to the possibility of colonisation by minute beings in flying saucers.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1979
About the author
Richard Francis
104 books2 followers The idea for writing TEAM came after the 9/11 attacks when
search and rescue dogs were used to find victims and possible survivors in the rubble. Why not have a dog help find the hostages and rescue them with his handler. On hikes and walks I would carry a note book and write down ideas for the story. And of course my inspiration and co-worker LT. has been to all my booksignings and also signs the book.
search and rescue dogs were used to find victims and possible survivors in the rubble. Why not have a dog help find the hostages and rescue them with his handler. On hikes and walks I would carry a note book and write down ideas for the story. And of course my inspiration and co-worker LT. has been to all my booksignings and also signs the book.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 30, 2026
It’s rewarding to discover a neglected novel, particularly one which had limited success on publication, and would stand well if it were to get a reissue. I’m only the third person to review it on GR, and the first positively. Mind, that may say more about me than the book itself..
Such is the case with Richard Francis’s first novel, published and set in the late 1970s, a time when UFOlogy was in its golden age.
When Stone first saw the flying saucers from the Promenade he assumed, as UFOlogists usually do, that they were large and high up, well above the Tower.But he soon realised that they were actually tiny, just over an inch across and flying three feet above his head. No one else noticed them and even when Stone pointed them out to his boss at work he was brushed off and told that they must be midges.
Of course, if anyone had believed Stone at the time, he might never have written a poem about the event, or the other sightings he went on to see in the next few years. If he hadn’t sent the poems to the Foreign Office, James Aldridge of the Alien Beings Section would not have had the vital clue to the sudden disappearance, in the summer of 1976, of the entire town of Blackpool.
Aldridge then becomes one of the most important men in the country, but no one can reach him. He is under arrest, suspected of the savage murder of Barnet, his head of department. Meanwhile, the only other man to know the secret of the Stone Report, the mysterious Marcroft, is lying dead in the reading room of his London club, seemingly killed by a telephone call.
The plot is one thing, humorous and ridiculous, science fiction of a kind, but the sheer quirkiness of Francis’s characters is the real reason to read and enjoy this novel. Quaint folk like like Tom Standish, Bill Caudle, and Miss Nym, who when needing to travel they board railway trains and find themselves in places called Boddington, written out in pansies on the station flower-bed, where the ticket collector wears a pocket watch. In a state of mild-mannered confusion they meander through the plot helplessly and doing very little, around the vacuum of nothing that once was Blackpool. Another favourite is Bill Wentworth, returning to the main set of Jeux Sans Frontières, on which he commentates for the BBC (as well as Rugby League), from a set in Ravenglass in the Lake District; a version of Eddie Waring perhaps.
I mentioned that the plot was of secondary importance, indeed nobody really takes much notice of the catastrophe. As they vanish, Blackpool's residents come over all queer for a bit; then, shaking their heads, turn back to their unfinished business. Later, when it's all over, they wander home to watch it on Nationwide.
It seems that a reason for its lack of success on release was that it was taken to literally. Fellow authors didn’t like it and nor did the science fiction community. Brian Aldiss even called it a ‘cosy catastrophe’. I think they missed the point, it is satirical and mocks the hysteria that the supposed sightings of the seventies caused.
It’s just really good fun..
Such is the case with Richard Francis’s first novel, published and set in the late 1970s, a time when UFOlogy was in its golden age.
When Stone first saw the flying saucers from the Promenade he assumed, as UFOlogists usually do, that they were large and high up, well above the Tower.But he soon realised that they were actually tiny, just over an inch across and flying three feet above his head. No one else noticed them and even when Stone pointed them out to his boss at work he was brushed off and told that they must be midges.
Of course, if anyone had believed Stone at the time, he might never have written a poem about the event, or the other sightings he went on to see in the next few years. If he hadn’t sent the poems to the Foreign Office, James Aldridge of the Alien Beings Section would not have had the vital clue to the sudden disappearance, in the summer of 1976, of the entire town of Blackpool.
Aldridge then becomes one of the most important men in the country, but no one can reach him. He is under arrest, suspected of the savage murder of Barnet, his head of department. Meanwhile, the only other man to know the secret of the Stone Report, the mysterious Marcroft, is lying dead in the reading room of his London club, seemingly killed by a telephone call.
The plot is one thing, humorous and ridiculous, science fiction of a kind, but the sheer quirkiness of Francis’s characters is the real reason to read and enjoy this novel. Quaint folk like like Tom Standish, Bill Caudle, and Miss Nym, who when needing to travel they board railway trains and find themselves in places called Boddington, written out in pansies on the station flower-bed, where the ticket collector wears a pocket watch. In a state of mild-mannered confusion they meander through the plot helplessly and doing very little, around the vacuum of nothing that once was Blackpool. Another favourite is Bill Wentworth, returning to the main set of Jeux Sans Frontières, on which he commentates for the BBC (as well as Rugby League), from a set in Ravenglass in the Lake District; a version of Eddie Waring perhaps.
I mentioned that the plot was of secondary importance, indeed nobody really takes much notice of the catastrophe. As they vanish, Blackpool's residents come over all queer for a bit; then, shaking their heads, turn back to their unfinished business. Later, when it's all over, they wander home to watch it on Nationwide.
It seems that a reason for its lack of success on release was that it was taken to literally. Fellow authors didn’t like it and nor did the science fiction community. Brian Aldiss even called it a ‘cosy catastrophe’. I think they missed the point, it is satirical and mocks the hysteria that the supposed sightings of the seventies caused.
It’s just really good fun..
January 23, 2015
There are some strange books sitting on my book shelves and this is one of them.
Principally a resident of Blackpool sends most of is life seeing tiny flying saucers and reporting them to the Foreign Office and then one day Blackpool disappears. Mixed with this are a variety of characters from holiday makers in Blackpool, to an out-posted staff of the Foreign Office in the countryside, who try to solve the disappearance and to a murder and the accompanying mystery.
Not sure about this book - The chapters see the story jump around and sometimes its easy to get lost as we jump from one place to another, one place to another. Still not sure what actual happened to the alien point of view, but if I say more that would be giving too many spoilers!! Hopefully I'll stick it away and try again in a few years.
Principally a resident of Blackpool sends most of is life seeing tiny flying saucers and reporting them to the Foreign Office and then one day Blackpool disappears. Mixed with this are a variety of characters from holiday makers in Blackpool, to an out-posted staff of the Foreign Office in the countryside, who try to solve the disappearance and to a murder and the accompanying mystery.
Not sure about this book - The chapters see the story jump around and sometimes its easy to get lost as we jump from one place to another, one place to another. Still not sure what actual happened to the alien point of view, but if I say more that would be giving too many spoilers!! Hopefully I'll stick it away and try again in a few years.
July 2, 2012
I started this a few years ago but did not get more than half way through. I thought this was strange, because it is a short book, at less than 200 pages, and the reviews in the blurb spoke eloquently about the vivid imagination and wit. Returning to it after a long gap, and starting all over again, I realised why it was difficult for me to engage with the narrative. The concept may be intriguing, and the mix of naturalism and sci-fi may be entertaining, but I found it hard work to connect with the characters. No sooner had an apparently key character appeared than they seemed to disappear again. The result was a broken flow without a compelling hook beyond the main theme. And the resolution turned out to have the feel of an anti-climax, too. All in all, flawed but worth dipping into.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews