During WW2 the town's amusement palaces were quiet, the seafront was taken over by soldiers and Great Yarmouth was being bombed more than any other coastal town in the country. It was an easy target – German planes flew in over the North Sea, dropped their payload and got out before they could be intercepted. A shattering 8,000 bombs were dropped and 2,000 houses had to be demolished. Hollywood Cinema The face of Great Yarmouth was changing forever. For 50 years there was a 40-metre high revolving tower at the Hollywood Cinema. The tower shadowed the Royal Aquarium, where crocodiles and sharks once swam around tanks before making way for actors treading the boards. The tower was the pride of the town and it cost just thruppence to climb onto an iron platform, ride to the top and take a look over the town and out towards the sea’s horizon.
 | | The Royal Aquarium is now the Hollywood |
But there was no time for frivolity when the war came and the tower was knocked down as scrap for the effort. Britannia Pier Even worse, the army thought Great Yarmouth was a likely place for Hitler to land an invasion fleet. So the beaches were mined and covered in barbed wire, while the pier was blown in two to stop it being used as a landing point. A gangway was strung along the gap so the end of the pier could be used as a lookout point to spot the enemy – in contrast to when crowds leisurely gathered along the platform to count the fishing boats. The war wasn’t the only trauma that Britannia Pier has endured since its unveiling in 1858. String of disasters Visitors promenaded along the 700-ft pier for just a year before a boat crashed into it, cutting 50ft off its stretch into the sea. After the repairs, the sea continued to ebb and flow under the structure until the turn of the 20th century when the wooden pier was replaced with a mix of timber and steel topped with a 2,000-seat domed pavilion. The addition of a theatre almost became an omen for the pier: seven years after the first curtain went up it was wrecked by fire, only to be replaced a year later by another pavilion which was razed to the pier’s timbers in 1914. From 1928, the Floral Hall ballroom ushered in dancers to twizzle and twirl around its floor but it was destroyed in a blaze too, as was its replacement in 1932. Surprisingly given the run of disasters, the pier’s ballroom and pavilion stood firm during the heavy bombing campaign of Great Yarmouth - only to be burned down in 1954 and rise again four years later. Seaside rock The memories of seeing a show at the theatre would live on for holiday-makers almost as long as their sticks of seaside rock. Docwra’s, which is based in Regent Road on the walk’s route, has been making the souvenir candy in Great Yarmouth since 1896 and is believed to be the world’s biggest rock factory. William Docwra was a greengrocer and wholesaler whose first wife’s family made and sold sweets on the Market Place. Encouraged by Great Yarmouth’s flourishing tourist industry, he seized on the idea of making confectionery for visitors and started a factory in Middlegate, before opening the Regent Road shop and production line in 1922. The Middlegate factory was one of the only buildings left standing in the area after the war, so production was switched to premises in South Denes. In the 1960s, when the Midlands’ factories shut down for a week at a time, the shop would open seven days a week from 8am until 11pm, after the theatres closed, to cope with visitors wanting souvenirs to take back home. Today, the business is concentrated in the Regent Road factory shop and is run by the third generation of the family, with William’s son Hubert still popping in each day to keep an eye on the firm. If you want to explore Great Yarmouth further, visit the Tourist Information Centre on Marine Parade. Archive photo published with kind permission from Peter Jay. bbc.co.uk/norfolk would like to thank the following people for their assistance: James Steward from Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, town guide Dona Watson, Ruth Battersby, the interpretation and access officer for Nelson's Monument, Faith Carpenter from Norfolk Nelson Museum, Stephen Earl from Great Yarmouth Borough Council, Peter Jay and Tony Mallion. | 
Introduction