‘King Billy’ Greenwood, entrepreneur and self-made businessman, from Knott End to Fleetwood, and Blackpool’s Tudor Bingo Empire that made him a Millionaire in the swinging 1960s!
William David Greenwood (1915-1991), always known as Billy, was born in Blackpool. His parents, Agnes and Harold, lived on Fenton Road, where they brought up their family including Billy’s two sisters Annie and May, along with younger brother Harry. Billy’s father worked for the railway at Blackpool’s Central Station and was on two occasions given the prestigious responsibility of commanding the Royal Train.
Billy as a young man was always seeking his fortune and was a natural risk taker and entrepreneur at a time when it was nigh impossible for anyone to make serious gains due to the economic hardships endured as a result of the Great War and then the financial crash in 1928 and then WW2. Sometimes this desire to succeed led him down paths that were not always strictly legitimate; especially during WW2 when he could be guaranteed to get, for the right price, rarities like silk stockings and also sugar – these items subject to strict rationing if available at all. A family story recalls that he and a friend had quite a lot of illegal sugar stored in a shop on Whitegate Drive, they were tipped off that the authorities were going to raid the premises, so the sugar was quickly despatched to the bottom of Stanley Park boating lake! He had been declared unfit to serve during the war, he was 24 in 1939, because of flat feet, so decided to help the war effort on the home front and explore business opportunities.
During the 1930s he had started working for his aunt who owned the Knott End café that is still there today, whilst his brother, Harry, manned the ice cream cart for their aunt, at the slope where the Fleetwood ferry crossed to Knott End. Eventually Billy would buy the café from his aunt when she retired and the business thrived. His Midas touch was starting to shine through. It is here that he developed him skills managing staff and making sure everyone did things exactly how he wanted them to. He had expanded into making rock for the busy Blackpool market and wanted to develop that business too.
L to R = Elsie Greenwood (Billy’s wife), Graham Greenwood (Billy’s nephew), Sheila Greenwood (Harry’s wife and Graham’s mother). Taken at the Ferry Cafe, Fleetwood. Circa 1958
By the end of the war, he was becoming restless as he wanted to be able to expand his opportunities of making money. He watched with envy as the Ferry Café on the Fleetwood side of the estuary raked in money from the daily ferries coming and going to the Isle of Man. He was determined that he would buy that business so made the decision to sell the Knott End café and purchase the bigger Ferry Café. Again he developed the business and it thrived under his management. His family worked for him, including his brother Harry and Mother Agnes, along with his wife Elsie – Billy and Elsie lived in a small flat as part of the cafe building. Whilst the family staff managed the day to day running, including Billy’s idea to stay open for the late night ferry arrivals from the Isle of Man at midnight, serving fish and chips through a take away window to maximise the day’s takings. Billy also expanded his Rock Factory business that was established in a warehouse on Fleetwood Docks, serving the busy neighbouring seaside town of Blackpool as well as Fleetwood and Southport, to help with the increasing business he leased the rooms under Fleetwood train station as added storage and as distribution centre for the business. He was building a profitable empire for himself but it still wasn’t enough. He was always looking towards Blackpool and the Golden Mile and searching for an opportunity to make a killing. By the 1950s and early 1960s he was getting restless and wanted to expand. He got involved with a new idea for ice cream vending where the soft ice cream was directly administered to the cone called Mr Whippy. He championed it and could see its potential for a mass trade market like Blackpool. He was edged out of the deal by bigger players, who had investment capital, that infuriated him, but it never stopped him from moving forward with the next big idea. He needed to find someone willing to invest in him and his ideas so he could compete with bigger players.
Harry Greenwood (Billy’s brother) at the Ferry Cafe Rock stall with his three children, Fleetwood. L to R at front= William, Janina and Graham. Circa 1960
Around this time he had met Sydney and Lucille Driscoll through ballroom dancing. Billy was a keen ballroom dancer and, as Syd couldn’t dance that well, he was happy to partner his friend’s wife. Together they managed to win quite a few ballroom competitions at the time and made a name for themselves on the dance floor. During this time Billy suggested trying to secure premises where they could open a prize bingo hall in Blackpool. This would be quite an expensive undertaking because rents in Blackpool were not cheap and the fitting out of the bingo and the staff would be quite a risk to take financially. Lou and Syd could see that Billy had a fire in his belly and were impressed with his successes to date so they decided to back him and create a partnership between them. For them the finances were not an issue as they had money to invest.
In time they found the perfect location and also space to rent that would enable them to set up what they had agreed to call Bonanza Bingo! It would be housed on the three floors above the Burton’s cake shop situated on the corner of Albert Road and Coronation Street (this site is now an empty plot as the building was demolished). It was opposite the Central train station and right in the heart of Blackpool’s seething holiday area and also close to the promenade. It was the start of the 1960s and things were certainly starting to swing for Billy and his partners. Bonanza Bingo! was a massive success and the money started to really roll in for them. They would hold many sessions a day of the prize bingo but Billy, being Billy, soon started to see potential, and more money, in cash bingo. However the law around gambling was very strict and the process of being granted a licence to operate cash prize bingo was gruelling and complex. One thing in their favour was the success of the Bonanza Bingo! And it gave them a thriving, well run, operation with which to back up their application. In the meantime Billy developed the business with special themed and cabaret nights to add to the bingo’s attraction for the thousands of holiday makers determined to make the most of their holidays.
Eventually they managed to get a license to operate cash bingo but for members only – at that time if you took out a membership for cash bingo you had to wait 24 hours before you could play – but this was a minor irritation in the scheme of things. So they expanded to an upper floor and had both prize and cash bingo options at Bonanza. It was literally bursting at the seams and the new frustration for Billy was that because they were unable to get more punters in they lost that money. It was torture to his business savvy mind. Then opportunity raised its head and he grabbed it with both hands before anyone else could out manoeuvre him. By this time his partners Lou and Sid were happy to take a back seat and let Billy do what he wanted to do. His Midas touch was undeniable. The Ferry Café in Fleetwood started to diminish in importance, and money making opportunities, so it was sold and he concentrated his energies in the hugely popular pastime of Bingo!
Billy had heard the rumours that Dr. Richard Beeching, who was responsible for shutting hundreds of stations and lines across the country in early 1960, for government efficiency, had decided to shut Blackpool North Station. The council, Billy heard, were against this as they could smell profit in the land where Central Station was located right next to the promenade. They successfully lobbied to close Central and keep North Station. Billy decided to make his move when he heard that Central Station would close in November of 1964. He brazenly applied to the council to lease the station buildings and internal arrival platforms once it had been closed. The council and quite a few other people thought he was mad, and it was high risk, but he was determined and Lou and Syd supported him. The fact they had an unblemished gambling license, and proof that the funds were available to do the conversion, all went a long way to convince the council that it was a viable proposition. The wait for news was torture but in the meantime he had to keep Bonanza Bingo! thriving and bring in enough money to help with this massive expansion project if they secured the lease. It had been decided that this new bingo enterprise if it came to pass would be called Tudor Bingo after the Tudor rose of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Tudor Bingo would open at the old Central Station buildings in 1965. Before that could happen they had to secure the new gambling license and also arrange for the internal alterations to make it suitable for a cash bingo hall that would seat nearly four thousand people! There would also be a prize bingo in the entrance area along with bars and café snacks to keep the bingo players happy and in the holiday spirit. My late partner, Graham Greenwood, was Billy’s nephew, and he told me that uncle Bill had the platforms boarded over with floor joists to make this enormous bingo hall. It was quite something and a real feat of determination and hard graft to make it work. As a schoolboy, Graham worked at the bingo and remembers that in the summer months and illuminations there would be three sessions a day with nearly four thousand people at each session and it was packed, they turned people away frequently and often had to pacify frustrated ladies and gents who had to wait the obligatory 24 hours before they could play cash bingo. In the meantime they had to make do with the prize bingo section closed off from the main hall. Graham said that the tips alone were incredible and enabled him to start saving well at a young age. His grandmother, mother, brother and other family members would work there and provide refreshments for the punters. It was a thriving business and a license to literally print money! It was this success that garnered the title of ‘King Billy’ amongst admirers and other business people in the town; no doubt some said it with a jealous sneer, but their hostility at his success was water off a duck’s back for Billy.
As time went on Billy wanted to expand the operation to other parts of Blackpool and the surrounding Lancashire towns. He acquired the King Edward Cinema on Central Drive, The Regent Cinema on Church Street, and the Rendezvous Cinema on Bond Street, and turned them all into Tudor Bingo Halls. They also expanded and bought cinemas in Chorley, Wigan and Warrington and Stafford for Tudor Bingo. These would become the basis for the big cash prize link bingo sessions where the prize money could be so much bigger because several halls were playing as one. Billy also took the lease on the old Victorian station frontage and buildings for Blackpool North Station – this section was discarded and the old excursion line platforms redeveloped into the new station that is used today – with the intention of turning it into bingo but the project was abandoned and the buildings demolished to build a supermarket. Billy also had his eye on the open air swimming baths next to South Pier with a view to putting a roof on and creating an all year venue for bingo and concerts but this never progressed beyond the discussion stages with the council.
Pat Phoenix who played Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street opening a Tudor Bingo Hall. Pictured with Billy Greenwood. Circa 1968
Nevertheless, it was heady times for Billy, Lou and Syd. They had expensive homes, Rolls Royce cars and enjoyed luxury holidays on the QE2 ocean liner. Billy also mixed with stars of the time like Pat Phoenix, who played Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street, when she agreed to open several of his new bingo halls ( for a suitable fee of course!) with a personal appearance and signing autographs for fans. An up and coming group of child singers also performed at Central Station’s Tudor Bingo, the Nolan sisters, who would regularly perform there with their parents. All these events garnered positive publicity in the press, also the money raised for charities in the thousands of pounds, and as advertising gambling establishments was strictly regulated, and it was a way of garnering free publicity.
Financially the gains were so great that Lou and Syd and Billy eventually sold their houses on Newton Drive and North Park Drive, bought houses and took up residency in the Isle of Man. This allowed them a greater freedom in arranging their taxes – it is to be remembered that at this time people who earned above certain amounts could be charged up to 90 pence in the pound income tax, this did drop in 1971 to 75% but it was still a huge amount to be liable for. The Isle of Man allowed them to keep more of the money they earned as a result of their risk and success.
There were difficult times as well for Billy and Syd. First, Syd was diagnosed with a brain tumour that was benign and successfully removed. Billy was diagnosed with the same just a few months after Syd, and also had a benign tumour removed. It was the driving force behind the generous donations Syd and Lou made to the neurological department at Preston Hospital for research. The trust was made into a charity that exists to this day at Preston Hospital with the Sydney Driscoll Neurological Research Unit funded with their bequests. A ward bay in the unit was also named after Billy.
By the early 1970s, with Tudor Bingo thriving, they were approached by a large organisation who wanted to buy them out. Billy and Syd, along with Lou, sat down and talked it out and decided that perhaps it was too good an offer to refuse. So in 1973 they sold Tudor Bingo and all its operations and buildings to Joe Coral.
The Gazette ran a headline that declared: Bingo! And Billy Makes a Million
(By James Stansfield)
“A train driver’s son who turned a railway station into a bingo hall has become a millionaire. Billy Greenwood and his partner Sidney Driscoll have been bought out by bookmakers Joe Coral for £2,290,000.
Eight years ago, Mr Greenwood rented Blackpool’s Central Station, closed under the Beeching axe. Later he acquired it with his partner and turned it into one of the world’s biggest bingo halls. They built up seven more bingo halls , which this year are expected to produce pre tax profits of at least £500,000. Yesterday Mr Greenwood interrupted a meeting with his accountants to say:
‘Naturally I am delighted about the deal. One doesn’t become a millionaire every day, although the tax man will take a hefty slice.’
He revealed the old station will be demolished in October and the two acre site developed into a £3 million entertainment complex.
‘It will be the most fabulous thing Blackpool has ever seen,’ Billy said, ‘including a club on the lines of Batley Variety Club*.’
Mr Greenwood will stay on as Managing Director, but Mr Driscoll is retiring from the business.”
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The new complex he talks of became what is now Coral Island and survives today. The cinemas in the Tudor Bingo chain, continued to thrive as Coral Bingo but the popularity of the game dwindled as time went on and by the time of Billy’s death in 1991 they were beginning to become white elephants for the owners. Coral sold them off one by one and most were lost to the wrecking ball. The Regent Cinema in Blackpool survived being a Riley’s Snooker Hall for a few years, then left empty and decaying, but thankfully is now restored as an Antique Emporium with regular films with the circle used as an auditorium. Graham Greenwood, Billy’s nephew, was the last projectionist at the Regent before it was turned into full time bingo. When the cinema reopened a few years ago, Graham was guest of honour when the first film was screened. The King Edward Cinema was a night club but is now closed and empty and the Rendezvous long gone. A similar fate was suffered by the bingo halls in Chorley, Warrington, Wigan and Stafford. Billy and his achievements were an exciting part of Blackpool’s story, ones that deserve to be recorded for posterity in the town’s history.
Billy Greenwood was certainly a force to be reckoned with and took risks to succeed. That kind of entrepreneurial spirit is needed today more than ever – he would have had plenty of ideas and suggestions on how to develop the town and the energy and enthusiasm to fight for it and make it happen. He died of cancer in Salford Hospital on 31st December 1991 aged 76. His wife Elsie survived him along with their two adopted children David and Wendy.
His achievements live on.
Sydney Driscoll died in 1989 and Lucille his wife supported the brain tumour charity until her death in 2000. She left a large sum in her will to the Sydney Driscoll Neurological Research fund at Preston Hospital.
This post includes contributions from:
David Slattery-Christy
Memories of Graham Greenwood (1953-2021)
Memories of William Greenwood
Images and articles from Greenwood Family archive.
Blackpool Evening Gazette
*Batley Variety Club was in Yorkshire and at that time attracted all the biggest stars in the country and around the world who performed there. It was the pinnacle of working class entertainment venues where artists aspired to perform. Sadly no more.
Pat Phoenix, Coronation Street’s Elsie Tanner, gives bouquet to oldest member of the audience, 93-year-old Mrs Mary Lowndes of Stafford.
Billy Greenwood discusses bingo with two visitors.
Chris Green (main caller), Wendy Matthews and Graham Greenwood
You can see Blackpool Football Club star Stanley Mortensen in the featured image’s group photo below:
Savoy Hotel, Blackpool. L to R = Sydney Driscoll (Tudor Bingo), Stanley Mortensen (Blackpool FC footballer), Billy Greenwood (Tudor Bingo), Tommy Trinder (comedian), John McKenna (Police Chief). Circa 1969
Text source: David Slattery-Christy
Images by © David Slattery-Christy
