This week, top funnyman KEN DODD says, 'Blackpool belongs to me'

I'M greedy because I love all of Lancashire. No matter where I am in the country I try to get home to Knotty Ash after every show. I don't mind visiting other counties, but I prefer to wake up in Lancashire!

However, if I have to choose then, next to Liverpool, my favourite Lancashire town has to be Blackpool.

Come to Blackpool, missus. You'll be tickled!

This fun town and I go back a long way. Since 1954 I have appeared here each year in summer seasons, concerts and midnight matinees. In fact, I think it's true to say that I have performed in Blackpool every year for nearly 50 years. Amazing!

Ask the landladies. They'll tell you. Doddy's always in season!

Blackpool is a veritable bouncy castle of a seaside town -- and every year since the 1950s I've returned like the swallows of Squires Gate, or the kippers of Knott End, to inhale the ozone sniff by sniff, and enjoy the fun and frolics of the greatest 'Kiss Me Quick' capital in the world.

Did you know it's nicknamed 'Dodge City' because of its low-flying seagulls?

I remember arriving at the end of the Central Pier to play my very first season on Whit Monday, 1954. May to November! What a run!! Summer seasons

in those days were 25 weeks plus (a long time, even for me)!

Cockles and crab sandwiches for tea at the end of the Pier, and cups of hot Oxo for supper, dispensed by lovely Mrs Armfield -- Jimmy's mam! And those wonderful 'Wakes Week' audiences, the non-stop hilarity of Scots Week, the annual jamboree of Midlands carworkers, followed by builders' fortnight,etc, etc.

We'd book into 'Mrs Digger's Dignified Digs' (10 bob all in: one bed, full use of cruet) or 'Little Eric's' in York Street. Then we'd wrestle with the deckchairs, drink champagne on draught in Yates's Wine Lodge, and stroll the Golden Mile -- where there was stall after stall selling all the seaside specials: jellied eels, cockles and whelks, buckets & spades, candy floss and saucy postcards.

Did you know that I bought my first donkey jacket in Blackpool? It had 'Neddy' embroidered on the back.

And my lasting memory of Blackpool? I was once highly honoured to switch on the illuminations, and then some fool sent me the electricity bill!

Ken Dodd is appearing at King George's Hall, Blackburn, on Sunday, January 20. For ticket details telephone the box office (01254 582582).