Saying goodbye to The Corkscrew

The Corkscrew, The Black Hole, The Beast. I recently watched a YouTube video about old rides at Alton Towers. It talked through what was once great about them, and why they were eventually dismantled. These were legendary roller coasters I’d ridden multiple times in my youth. And I loved every last one of them.

We lived close to the theme park in Alton, Staffordshire. We’d go every year. Sometimes up to five times. Bank holidays. Long summer days. Halloween specials. School trips came, too. I’ll never forget the time I accidentally dropped ketchup on Donna Ward’s skirt, and she got her revenge by smearing a huge dollop of the red stuff on my pristine Tammy Girl top (I had to live with that stain for the rest of the day). Or that time we tricked some girls we didn’t like into going on The Swans, then jumped off and left them to it. Side note: it was a slow and dull ride.

I still get butterflies about the place. It makes me sad to think of all the rides that no longer exist.

Alton Towers was right to shut those old attractions. It wasn’t that the rides had got worse; it’s that everything around them had moved on. Because if I’m honest, The Corkscrew – as much as it was charming – was rickety and from another time. Bigger and better rides were popping up elsewhere, and the park owners had no choice but to modernise.

The mad thing is, you couldn’t see it at the time. Even after they introduced Nemesis, Air and Smiler, you still mourn their loss. But seeing those old rides again, you get why they had to do something new.

It can’t have been easy, though. The rides were popular. People adored them. They generated millions. Why change a thing? The Corkscrew alone carried an estimated 43.5 million riders over 28 years, and it was only retired because the hardware was reaching the end of its serviceable life. And yes, it looked rough and dated next to newer coasters.

I couldn’t help but see the similarities. These are unsettling times for the creative industries. Everything is speeding up, and none of us can afford to sit still. I’m excited to be in the middle of them.

All these shifts have a lot of us wondering whether to update our own ventures – especially if they’ve worked well so far. I’m in the same boat with Creative Boom. It’s hard to pivot when you’ve got so many happy memories.

Today, I spent 12 hours working on the next phase of my platform. More on that later. I watched those old Alton Towers rides and I smiled. I’m doing the equivalent of saying goodbye to my beloved Enterprise and The Mouse, and making way for shinier, more modern alternatives.

And then I chuckled. You could say it’s like a roller coaster. I’m just glad I’ve always been tall enough to enjoy all the rides.